Analysis of Virginia Woolf's Essay "Modern Fiction"

Virginia Woolf in her Modern Fiction makes a fair attempt to discuss briefly the
main trends in the modern novel or fiction. She begins her essay by mentioning
the traditionalists like H. G. Wells, Arnold Bennett and Galsworthy, who, while
they propound new ideas and open out new vistas to the human mind, still
follow the Victorian tradition as far as the technique of the novel is concerned.
They believed that a great force on the individual was environment. However,
they differed from one another in subject matter – in Arnold and Galsworthy the
socialist point of view dominated and Wells, a brilliant writer of scientific
romances. Mrs. Woolf marks these three as ‘materialists’. While defining the
term Woolf states that these writers as well as their writing is stuffed with
unimportant things; they spend immense skill and dexterity in making the trivial
and transitory a boost of truth of life. As life escapes, the worth of the literary
piece in minimal. Mrs. Woolf while criticizing the three makes a pivotal point of
criticism on the traditional method of novel writing of Fielding types.

Extending the pinnacle of criticism Mrs. Woolf further bids her point that
the types are devoid of life or spirit, truth or reality. The essence of the novel i.e.
the reality of life is missing in the traditional method of novel writing which is
superficial characterization, artificial framework. Here in this types ‘the writer
seems constrained, not by his own free will but some powerful and
unscrupulous tyrant’. The tyrant is none other than the restriction or the
catalogue of types – such as plot, comedy, tragedy, treatment of love etc. in
dressing up all these criterion what we receive is the death of life or spirit or
spontaneity or flow of conscience behest of terminology or doggerel methods.

Mrs. Woolf makes it clear that the objective of the writer in his or her
creation is to look within and life as a whole. The traditionism or materialism do
not capture that moment – the reception of the mind of myriad impressions –
trivial, fantastic, and evanescent or engraved. Thus to trust upon life, a writer is
free and he could write what he chose. So to dot down what he feels should not
be conventionally in comedy, tragedy or love interests in accepted styles. Here is
a withdrawal from external phenomena into the flickering half shades of the
author’s private world. The reality lies not in the outer actions, but in the inner
working of the human mind, in the inner perceptions.

Further, analyzing the inflow of life, Mrs. Woolf defines life not as a series of
tales symmetrically arranged. She says it as a ‘luminous halo, a semi-transparent
envelope surrounding us from the beginning of conscious to the end’. Conscious
is a constant flow, not jointed, not chopped up in bits. Thus the purpose of the
writer should be the delineation of deeper and deeper into the human
consciousness. Mrs. Woolf, in this respect, mentions the innovators like James
Joyce and Joseph Conrad. Citing an example from The Portrait of The Artist as a
Young Man and Ulysses, she points out that here is in the story apparent
disconnection and in coherence as a result of recording the ‘atoms of life’ in the
stream of conscience. Read More Essay Through ineffable style, fragmented,
hazardous, and unpleasant, here is undeniably important spirit or life. Mrs.
Woolf comments “In contrast with those whom we have called materialists, Mr.
Joyce is spiritual’. The externals of personality the habits, manners, physical
appearance etc are altogether discarded as it seems impossible to give a
psychologically true account of character by such means. Joyce’s in his novel
loses himself into the complexities and subtleties of inner life.

The new novel on consciousness, as Mrs. Woolf clarifies, is purely

psychological. Under the influence of new psychological theories, life is not
regarded as a mere tales, but a series of moments. In fact, the psychological
theory of the functioning mind is a stream – of –consciousness. The technique or
method by which it is possible to capture them is truly the new type, Mrs. Woolf
asserts. Here is Joyce and the types who are to explore the dark places of
psychology ignored still date. Mrs. Woolf here observes a key point from Russian
literature where, particularly Chekhov is worth mentioning of exploring the
world of mind as well as the world of heart. Modern English fiction is influenced
by Russian literature – its spiritualism, saintliness, inquisitiveness.

In conclusion, Mrs. Woolf in Modern Fiction pleads not to be narrow-

minded and conventional. She says that there are ample possibilities of the art
and here is no limit to the horizon. Here no ‘method’, no experiment, no
extraordinary is forbidden, but only falsity and pretence should be discarded.
The proper stuff of fiction does not exist – everything is the proper stuff of
fiction, every feeling, every thought if they are saturated by spirit or life in it.

Virginia Woolf’s essay ‘Modern Fiction’, which was originally published under the title ‘Modern
Novels’ in 1919, demonstrates in essay form what her later novels bear out: that she had set out
to write something different from her contemporaries. Analysis of this important short essay
reveals the lengths that Woolf was prepared to go to discredit earlier writers and promote a
new style of writing, which she calls ‘Georgian’ and was often referred to as ‘impressionist’ at
the time, but which we now know better as ‘modernist’.In ‘Modern Fiction’ (1919), Virginia
Woolf takes issue with those Edwardian novelists writing in the early years of the twentieth
century who, in some ways, might be seen as relics of the nineteenth-century realism outlined
above: her three targets,Arnold Bennett, John Galsworthy, and H. G. Wells, are all labelled
‘materialists’ because of their preoccupation with predictable and plausible plots and their
interest in describing the exterior details – the clothes a character wears, the furniture in a room
– when what Woolf, as a reader, really wants to know is what is going on the heads of their
characters. But we never get this from Arnold Bennett and his ‘materialist’ peers. Writers need
to turn away from the material and instead embrace what she calls the ‘spiritual’ in order to
make fiction new and relevant. Woolf mentions a short story by the Russian writer Anton
Chekhov (1860-1904), ‘Gusev’, in which nothing much happens: the story is based on mood and
character rather than action or plot. Such a story points a way forward for Woolf and other
writers, whom she labels ‘Georgian’ – i.e. more ‘modern’ and progressive than the materialist
Edwardians.

In a later essay, ‘Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown’ (1924), Woolf attacked Bennett again, and
summed up the difference between his type of fiction and the way life actually is:Readers need
to say ‘enough is enough’ and embrace the kind of fiction Woolf had just started to write – her
novel Jacob’s Room had appeared the year before, in 1922 – which sought to capture the
wonder and reality of life more accurately than Arnold Bennett ever did.

Others had got there before Woolf: in ‘Modern Fiction’ she mentions Thomas Hardy and Joseph
Conrad, praising them for moving away from such traditional realism or ‘materialism’ in fiction
in favour of a newer and more subjective and psychological mode in English fiction. She also
praises Anton Chekhov’s short stories – which would go on to influence Katherine Mansfield –
and singles out his short story ‘Gusev’, in which nothing much happens, as a fine example of this
new mode of fiction. This new impressionistic and psychologically focused mode of writing,
which would move away from Victorian realism and push fiction into new territory, would later
become known as ‘modernism’.

Stream of Consciousness
In literature, stream of consciousness is a method of narration that describes happenings in the
flow of thoughts in the minds of the characters.The term was initially coined by psychologist
William James in his research, The Principles of Psychology. Another appropriate term for this
device is “interior monologue,” where the individual thought processes of a character,
associated to his or her actions, are portrayed in the form of a monologue that addresses the
character itself. Therefore, it is different from the “dramatic monologue” or “soliloquy,” where
the speaker addresses the audience or the third person.The stream of consciousness style of
writing is marked by the sudden rise of thoughts and lack of punctuation. The use of this
narration style is generally associated with the modern novelist and short story writers of the
20th century. Stream of consciousness is a style of writing developed by a group of writers at
the beginning of the 20th century. It aimed at expressing in words the flow of characters’
thoughts and feelings in their minds. The technique aspires to give readers the impression of
being inside the minds of the characters. Therefore, the internal view of the minds of the
characters sheds light on plot and motivation in the novel.

Two of Virginia Woolf’s most notable novels, To the Lighthouse and Mrs. Dalloway, are good
examples of the narrative device stream of consciousness. At the time, the use of this device
was highly experimental. It has been used in Ulysses by James Joyce, but in a way that was more
traditional for the time. Much has been written about stream of consciousness and there are
many fussy definitions. (There is a wonderful essay on the topic written by Yanxia Sang for those
who want to take a closer look.) However, for our purposes, the most important thing to know
about stream of consciousness is that it is not a synonym for internal monologue. Stream of
consciousness is a narrative device that is the written equivalent to a character’s thought
process—or a stylized way of thinking out loud. It is often written in first person and is less
ordered and occasionally more jumbled than an internal monologue, which is most often
written in third person and follows a slightly more structured flow of thoughts to depict a
characters’ opinions of his environment.

Virginia Woolf applies what is called indirect interior monologue to her writing, (ahem, fussy
definitions) which allows her to explore her characters’ stream of consciousness in the third
person. For all intents and purposes, this is stream of consciousness as we know and discuss
it.So what is so experimental about stream of consciousness? Before Woolf, writers had used
this technique, but their application of it was chaotic and difficult to follow, and it wasn’t very
well received by readers. Woolf wrote Mrs. Dalloway by exploring the thoughts, feelings, and
emotions of her characters, which was very experimental for the time. It was an entirely new
way of looking at the world. Today, writers use stream of consciousness to address the internal
explorations of characters as well as a foundation for structuring whole novels (think Remains of
the Day or the recent Inherent Vice). Woolf’s work exploring the thoughts, feelings, moods, and
expectations of characters in a seamless way changed the structure of writing in a significant
way.