A Thematic Study Of The British And American Modernist Novels

The modernist period covered more than half a century, and modernism influenced the whole Europe and some regions of other continents. Modernism is too inclusive a concept for anyone to define; modernist novels demonstrate too wide a variety of themes, styles, and skills for any research to pinpoint. The mystery and complexity of modernism makes any attempt of defining, classifying and interpreting heroic and promising. This research is one of the many ambitious projects.Yet this research is not only an adventure. It is based on a critical selection of about a dozen of modernist novels, and reliable sources—historical, cultural, and critical documents. Besides, it employs a practical method—Thematology. Generally speaking, Thematology is the study of the changes and evolvements of themes, motifs, situations, images and topos occurring among different nations, and the treatments of different writers with the same themes, motifs and so on. When we unmask how these themes are treated by different modernist authors within the social backgrounds of the 20th century, we could understand the conflicting phenomena and their sources in modernist novels and the special relationship between modernist novels and modern society.In accordance with the approach of Thematology, this thesis is intended to interpret five major literary themes that are recurrent in modernist novels and still influential in early years of the postmodern period. The five significant themes are alienation, absurdity, salvation, the awakening consciousness of new women, and Bildungsroman of modern urban youth.This thesis consists of seven chapters. Chapter one deals with the general backgrounds of the five themes, a brief introduction to the approach of Thematology, and the aims of this thesis. Chapters Two to Six are explorations into the five themes. Each chapter is mainly made of three sections: the definition of the theme, the historical background of the theme, and a detailed analysis of the theme. Chapter Two analyzes the theme of alienation in terms of society, nature, other individuals and the...