disintegration that is characterized within the work, featuring rapidly shifting point of view though the shards of stories that are thematically linked such as the section entitled The Fire Sermon (Eliot, Section 3), which is named after a Buddhist sermon on giving up physical desires. Eliots poetry features a myriad of references and allusions alongside fragmentation. There was a movement towards breaking down the subjects into frames because it is impossible to capture the subject; as reality is mediated by experience which is inherectly subjective- “You cannot say, or guess, for you know only/A heap of broken images” (T.S. Eliot, lines 21-22).
Truth is a concept that is hard to define, and in a sense modernism was all about subjectivity. Using language to represent a subject presents a challenge for the writer, or rather impossibility: there is a fundamental disconnect between the “truth” and the representation that is given. The subject therefore escaped realism as a vehicle of exploration. Modernist literature is characterized by experimentation with writing to suit the subject depicted, with narrative form, viewpoint and style. There was a turn inward for literature, as the subjective reality of situations became an interest because of skepticism towards any objective truth when the understanding of reality is experiential in nature. Susan Stanford Friedman elaborates, stating “In a variety of ways suited to their own religious, literary, mythological, occult, political, or existentialist perspectives, they emerged from the paralysis of absolute despair to an active search for meaning” (Friedman, 97). The modernist movement was reactionary- Ideas and concepts entwine with words, in deep and complex narratives that employ strategies to highlight the fundamental doubt, the crisis of belief that pervades modernism.
Works Cited
Childs, Peter. Modernism. London: Routledge, 2008, Print. 3-4.
Eliot, T. S. The Waste Land. Ed. Valerie Eliot. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: Orlando. 1971. Print.
Ford, Ford Maddox. The Good Soldier. Penguin: London. 1915. Print. 5-196. Xi.
Friedman, Susan Stanford. Psyche Reborn : The Emergence of H.D. Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1981. Print. 97