BA English Literature with History
London, 2006
Melanie Konzett
What is the significance of the representation of history in modernist writing
and/or visual arts?
In 1937, Pablo Picasso produced
his famous Guernica. This cubist work is
a response to the bombing of the
Luftwaffe of the Basque town Guernica
during the Spanish Civil War. Picasso
embodies
the
brutality
of
war
and
emphasizes in various facets that civilians have become targets. (Goldman 2004:
221-222). Another clear response to history can be found in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs.
Dalloway and Between the Acts. In these texts, Woolf analyses the “meaning and
value of history for the present” (Moody 1963: 115) and attempts to portray the spirit
of a time “poised unhappily between a past which has lost its significance and a
future whose only hope is that ‘a new life might be born’” (Basham 1970: 114).
These forms of representation of historical events in art evolved over the
course of time and requested a serious analysis of the idea of history itself. The
theory of history as a cyclic pattern, Bergson’s reflections on time as flux and
unstable, and the understanding of transience and speed replaced the Edwardian
concept of history as progressive and linear (Williams 2002: 2). Such revaluations
have been inspired by the urgency of the political and historical events during the first
half of the 20th Century and find an expression in the techniques, forms and contents
of modernist writing.
This paper attempts to examine the significance of historical theories and
events in Virginia Woolf’s and Franz Kafka’s work. In analysing Mrs. Dalloway and
Between the Acts, this essay will demonstrate Woolf’s perceptions of history and her
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London, 2006
Melanie Konzett
representation of World War I and World War II. Woolf’s texts will then be contrasted
by Kafka’s Metamorphosis, which critics read either as an escapist text or as a
radical rejection of any form of history (David 1978: 66-80).
According to De Man (1996: 478) modernism and modernity challenge history
in a fundamental way. Nietzsche (cited in De Man 1996: 478), for example, focuses
in his Unzeitgemässe Betrachtung on modernity and life as opposed to history and
tradition. Many modernists perceive that “modernity exists in the form of a desire to
wipe out whatever came earlier, in the hope of reaching at last a point that could be
called a true present” (De Man 1996: 480). In Mrs. Dalloway one of the interior
monologues of Peter Walsh expresses this emphasis on the present moment; “Life
itself, every moment of it, every drop of it, here, this instant, now, in the sun, in
Regent’s Park, was enough. Too much, indeed.” (Woolf 2000: 87).
Nevertheless, according to Schwarz (2005: 192) “this search for the moment
out of time is a quest, not a reachable goal”. De Man points out, that the present
moment and history are inevitably linked in a “contradictory way that goes beyond
antithesis or opposition” (De Man 1996: 482). Like Picasso’s Guernica, Woolf wants
to show the multiple perspectives of the whole. Therefore, she develops her
revolutionary ‘tunnelling method’, which introduces the reader to the consciousness
as well as to the past and present perceptions of the characters (Schwarz 2005:
191). Woolf’s new technique burrows “into the character’s past in order to unearth
their history” and reveal “how they came to be what they are” (Childs 2000: 165).
This finds its best expression in Woolf’s representation of the shell-shocked
character Septimus Warren Smith. To some extent, the fragmented memories and
images of the Great War are defining characteristics of Septimus. He “had gone
through the whole show, friendship, European War, death, had won promotion, was
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London, 2006
Melanie Konzett
still under thirty and was bound to survive” (Woolf 2000: 95). As a consequence,
Septimus “wasn’t Septimus any longer” (Woolf 2000: 71). Shell shock, a result of the
war, let him see “an old woman’s head in the middle of a fern” (Woolf 2000: 72) or
“made her [Lucrezia] hold his hand to prevent him from falling down, down, he cried,
into the flames” (Woolf 2000: 73). These disconnected images and fragmented
memories remain from the Great War and present reality and history as deeply linked
as well as constantly in interchange rather than stable and linear (Whitworth 2000:
146-163).
As a result, the characters in Mrs. Dalloway shift between their past and the
present moment and are, similar as Bergson’s understanding of time, in flux. Clarissa
allows herself “the five acts of a play that had been very exciting and moving” but
which “are now over and she had lived a lifetime in them and had run away, had lived
with Peter, and it was now over” (Woolf 2000: 51). Within these lines, Woolf mediates
a “multi-planar, non-linear view of reality in order to represent the complexity of the
modern world”, which is highly connected to the “structural dislocation of World War I”
(Childs 2000: 153). Furthermore, especially for the mental ill character, the past is not
only connected to the present but is even able to overtake it. “It was at that moment
that the great revelation took place. A voice spoke from behind the screen. Evans
was speaking. The dead were with him. ‘Evans! Evans!’ he cried” (Woolf 2000: 102).
Here, Woolf “impregnates the present moment of consciousness with a sense of the
historical past which, in turn, projects itself forward into the future” (Deiman 1974: 52)
and foreshadows Septimus’ death.
In Rutolo’s (1980: 145) point of view, Mrs. Dalloway intends to provide a sense
of “ever-renewed acts of re-creation” (Rutolo 1980:145) and applies some aspects of
the concept of cyclic history. Rutolo (1980: 145) understands Clarissa’s revisions of
her past and present relationships as acts of recreation. He sees Clarissa as “a
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London, 2006
Melanie Konzett
creature of motion and change”, who is “at home in a world where nothing remains
stable long” (Rutolo 1980: 160). Also Schwarz (2005: 194-195) points out that Mrs.
Dalloway “pulsates outward in concentric circles from crucial memories rather than
proceed in a linear movement through time”. These critics argue that the missed
opportunities, disappointments and parallels to other lives of the characters can be
seen as presenting a cyclic understanding of history.
However, one of the major subjects in Mrs. Dalloway is “the quest of her
characters to create meaning within a world in which time and mortality are the first
principles and where order…is absent” (Schwarz 2005: 188). According to Childs
(2000: 183), modernists understood that “history, reason and logic had failed the
modern world as organising principles”. As a consequence, modernists attempted to
find a new order and create a new pattern within the chaos. Thus, in inventing new
techniques of expression and form, modernists hoped to find new meaning, to
redefine values and to produce art, which exists outside history.
In Mrs Dalloway, the use of interior monologue, recurrent motifs and
fragmented time can be seen as forms that have emerged from the outside chaos
after the Great War (Whitworth 2000: 154-162). Woolf’s focus on the reinvention of
the form and presentation of her characters rather than of the content is
“symptomatic of the general Modernist strategy to change society through the
reconstruction of self not system, individual rather than social reality” (Child 2000:
168). In addition, a lack of logical construction, fragmented impressions and abrupt
shifts distinguish Mrs. Dalloway as a modernist text seeking a new order. On the one
hand these new forms and techniques emphasize a “radical inward turn”, which is
“deliberately post-historical” because for Woolf “history has ceased to provide sensemaking patterns” (Schwarz 2005: 201). On the other hand, they resemble the
experiences of the outside world, such as the war or the city life, and record “an
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London, 2006
Melanie Konzett
emotional aspect of a Western Crisis, characterised by despair, hopelessness,
paralysis, angst and a sense of meaninglessness” (Childs 2000: 185).
Nevertheless, having analysed the concept of time in flux, touched the theory
of cyclic history and looked at Woolf’s way to find a new defining pattern inside rather
than outside within Mrs. Dalloway, it is now important to examine the significance of
history in her last work, Between the Acts. In contrast to Mrs. Dalloway, this text is
very conscious of the outer world and the urgency of contemporary historical and
political events. Giles Oliver, for example, understands Europe as “bristling with guns,
poised with planes” and “at any moment guns would rake that land into furrows”
(Woolf 1998: 49). Another example is Miss La Trobe, who is resembling a
commander at war; “pacing to and fro between the leaning birch trees” with “the look
of a commander” (Woolf 1998: 57) and with the will to lead the “little troops” in which
“they appealed to her” (Woolf 1998: 58). Basham (1970: 113) states, that the text
mediates a “malaise in the present, the weight of an unhelpful past, and, as a
result…the unpredictable hardship of the future”.
The setting of Between the Acts is the English countryside. The village
characterizes “a sense of historical continuity rather than change” (Zwerdling 1977:
226). The inhabitants’ roots, for example, can be traced back to the Domesday
Book1, which represents continuity and traditional Englishness. Yet, there is
considerable evidence that Between the Acts critically assess this traditional sense of
Englishness and foremost the perceptions of English history. De Man (1996: 481)
argues that, “the past is not so much an act of forgetting as an act of critical
judgment”. This critical judgment of the past finds its most significant expression in
the pageant. Here the past is “attacked at its very roots with a sharp knife, and
brutally cut down, regardless of established pieties” (Nietzsche cited in De Man 1996:
1
William the Conquerer orderd to produce the Domesday Book in 1085.
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London, 2006
Melanie Konzett
481). On the one hand, the pageant brings English history and tradition to the mind of
the audience. On the other hand, the audiences’ glorified perceptions of history are
radically destroyed. The speeches in the Victorian era, for example, focus rather on
wealth and power than highlighting its praised values or celebrating the empire’s
army (Zwerdling 1977: 233).
Furthermore, only fragments of the pageant, and therefore of history, reach
the audience. The pageant is full of snatches of songs, snippet conversations and
multiple voices. “England am I” but because the actress “had forgotten her lines”
(Woolf 1998: 70) the reader never gets to know what England is. This suggests that
history itself is fragmented and a whole picture of it is not possible to draw. Therefore,
McWither (1993: 808) argues that Between the Acts embodies a “post-theoretical
idea of history” for it emphasizes that history is an “ideological process that produces
and includes everything: not only the forces of capitalism, fascism and patriarchy, but
also the forms, perspectives, and languages through which we represent history”.
Thus, the only conclusion one can draw is “Scraps, orts and fragments, are we, also,
that?” (Woolf 1998: 170).
Furthermore, Woolf’s Between the Acts “historicises history by resisting the
attractions of genre and master narrative” (McWither 1993: 808). This lack of a
master narrative or a solution results in the chaos of the present moment. For
McWither (1993: 804) the “chaos is less a reflection of a fragmented modernity than
an image of the wholeness of historical process”. Miss La Trobe reworks and
reorders history in the pageant and shows the past in a new contemporary context. In
using the audience to represent the present moment she exposes as well as explains
the present with the past. Hence, the pageant “comments on the condition of the
present” and is even nullifying the past “by presenting it in the light of the present”
(Basham 1970: 109). Moody (1963: 115) points out, that this is Woolf’s way to
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“comprehend both history and the present moment”. Yet, the audience is unwilling to
recognize themselves as part of the play and consequently as part of their own
history. They refuse the idea that the pageant is designed to redefine rather than to
celebrate and hence fail to understand “their history objectively” (McWhirter 1993:
797).
However, it is questionable if Woolf intends to portray an objective
presentation of history or even a theory of history at all. It is significant that Between
the Acts applies various different concepts of history. Zwerdling (1977: 224)
emphasizes that by the late 1930s
“Woolf was beginning to think of history as
retrogressive rather than progressive”. He points out that Between the Acts needs to
be read as embodying the idea “of a return from civilization to barbarism” (Zwerdling
1977: 225) and underlines this suggestion with Giles encounter of the snake in the
garden. Whereas Deiman (1974: 64) concludes, that Between the Acts shows the
“inevitability of historical cycles which include fighting as well as loving”. This theory
of the “continuity of history in which change and evolution take place” (Deiman 1974:
57) is suggested in the ending of the text; “Before they slept, they must fight; after
they had fought, they would embrace. From that embrace another life might be born.
But first they must fight” (Woolf 1998: 197). Thus, according to these scholars Woolf
applies different historical concepts in Between the Acts as she did in Mrs. Dalloway.
Yet, one significant outcome, which both texts have in common, is that Woolf
perceives history as the history of the present moment because the past is “radically
open to transformation and rewriting” rather than “being monumental and closed”
(Benett a. Royle 2004: 115).
Nevertheless, this analysis of Mrs. Dalloway and Between the Acts provides
evidence that Woolf embodies historical theories and contemporary historical or
political events in her writing. Kafka, on the other hand, is looked at as a modernist,
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London, 2006
Melanie Konzett
who represses history and politics in his writing. Even his diaries, mention urgent
historical events only very briefly.2 Thus, David (1978: 69-71) argues that Kafka is
neither interested in a revival of the past times nor is he concerned with
contemporary events and concludes that history did not influence his writing.
This
disinterest
in
contemporary
events
can
be
found
in
Kafka’s
Metamorphosis. The entire text is set inside a flat and Gregor, transformed into a
beetle, shows none or little interest in the world outside the flat. According to
Nietzsche “animals live unhistorically” and are without any historical awareness
“confined within a horizon almost without extension” but “exist in a relative state of
happiness” (Nietzsche cited in De Man 1996: 479). Due to the fact that Gregor is
transformed into a beetle, Nietzsche’s analysis can be applied to some extent. He
enjoys the music of his sister, “crawls around as freely as possible” (Kafka 1996: 33)
and “devoured the cheese, the vegetables and the gravy” (Kafka 1996: 27).
Nevertheless, Gregor is “neither totally human nor is he totally an animal”
(Ryan 1999: 142). Therefore, although he lacks the capability to express himself he
has a personal history and links the present moment to it. This can be seen when
Gregor’s mother and sister attempt to empty his room of the furniture in order to
enable him freer crawling. He perceives it as “taking away from him everything he
was fond of”; his desk, for example, ”at which he had done his homework when he
was in business college, in secondary school and even back in primary school”
(Kafka 1996: 35). Hence, it can be argued, that history in the form of memory, is also
significant in the Metamorphosis, despite of David’s’ argumentation.
Another issue to underline this assumption is the despair, alienation and
suffering in the text, which can be seen as reflecting history. Although the
Metamorphosis was written before the outbreak of Word War I, Kafka’s work is “an
2
‘Germany has declared war to Russia’ (Kafka’s diary entry of August 2
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nd
in 1914, cited in David 1978: 66).
BA English Literature with History
London, 2006
Melanie Konzett
imaginative representation of the anxieties…in our troubled time” (Reiss 1953: 163).
Kafka was a German speaking Jew in Prague and as such himself an outsider of his
society. Corngold (2004: 62) emphasizes, that Kafka’s situation was “like his city,
mazy, disjunct, overly detailed by history, it held exceptional danger and promise”.
These factors work together to “flatten out into anxiety, apathy and nothingness”
echoed in the Metamorphosis (Corngold 2004: 62). Gregor can be regarded as the
personification of an outsider, because he lacks the capability to express his thoughts
and feelings, is avoided by his own family and has the appearance of a beetle.
Another example is Gregor’s calm acceptance of his transformation. He is more
concerned with the “duty towards his family” (Gibian 1957: 29) than with his
“numerous legs” or with his “back, which was hard as armor” (Kafka: 1996: 11). On
the one hand, this is a result of Kafka’s use of language and tone. On the other hand,
this can be linked to the position of many European citizens who could only accept
the events leading to World War I rather than question or change it.
However, numerous critics read this text as an escapist novel. For many
contemporaries it was difficult to “believe in the reality of a world of comfort, good
sense, and progress” (Warren 1948: 132). Thus, a world more “exacting and
metaphysical” (Warren 1948: 132) needed to be invented. Auden, for example,
insists on this “metaphysical character of Kafka’s work” (Auden cited in Reiss 1953:
165). Yet, looking at the Metamorphosis, Gregor’s world is a similar nightmare as the
outer ‘real’ world. Kafka portrays a “reality in which death is not a curse, but a goal”
(Ryan 1999: 141). Gregor’s nightmare of reality is full of unpleasant moments,
disgust and sickening images where the sense of hope or solution is hardly
conceivable. Thus, according to Camus (1955: 153), Kafka’s text has to be defined
as “a desperate cry with no recourse left to man”. As such the text resembles an
apocalyptic sense of history. This is supported by Corngold (2004: 63), who
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understands Kafka’s work as “informed by an acute consciousness of discontinuity”.
Kafka produces realities that “know of no motion, no change” which sustain with their
“unshakable stability of its central situation” (Heller 1952: 114). Thus, Gregor must
cope with his transformation to a beetle and die as one. The only thing left for him is
to remain human in the meantime.
In conclusion, the earliest work of my analysis, Kafka’s Metamorphosis
published in 1915, is widely regarded as a text, which denies history as such. The
work is either seen as an escapist text, as a work with metaphysical character or
portraying an apocalyptic sense of history. The Metamorphosis can be seen as
challenging ideas of history and focusing on a nightmare reality outside the ‘real’
world. In 1925, Mrs. Dalloway was published, which is a text that understands “the
more radical the rejection of anything that came before, the greater the dependence
on the past” (De Man 1996: 490). Thus, Woolf attempts to juxtapose “past and
present through memory and weaves a tautly designed pattern of now and then”
(Schwarz 2005: 194) within her characters. In her last work, Between the Acts,
finished in 1940, she “moves away from the need to order and transcend the world to
a recognition of the phenomenal world, whatever its gaps and fragments, as the
source of experience” (Wildge A. cited in Bishop 1991: 122). With Between the Act,
Woolf points out that privileging “the world of art over that of ordinary life” (Bishop
1991: 122) is not sufficient anymore.
Therefore, the significance of the representation of history in modernist texts
lies in the developing acknowledgment of the inability to step outside history. It is not
possible to “overcome history in the name of life”, “to forget the past in the name of
modernity” (De Man 1996: 482) or to acknowledge history as stable and
unchangeable. Hence, despite of the new patterns and forms, despite of the
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application of various historical concepts in their literary work, modernists came to the
point where history or “the confusion of our time” (Gill 1935: 529) remains to be
represented in “scraps, orts and fragments” (Woolf 1998: 179).
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Mark: A
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