Modernism and modernity
an extension of the naturalistic values established by realism, with the movements’ equal dependence on the work of 19 th -century public intellectuals standing as a testament to the extent of their mutuality. The theories of Charles Darwin had a particular influence on them both, as is evident in the novels of Virginia Woolf and Henry James. 89 In spite of their differing aesthetic sensibilities, much of the two novelists’ work originates in the scientific doctrines, expounded by Darwin. His theorization of the concept of infinite mutation lies at the basis of a feminist reading of most Virginia Woolf’s novels, most particularly Between the Acts , in which Woolf couches her ideas of sexual selection in Social Darwinism. The phrase ‘must we not, and do we not change this unalterable nature?’ testifies to the parameters within which Woolf wishes to redefine the feminist struggle, rendering the portrayal of femininity as considerably more mutable, in a manner akin to Darwin’s conception of the human species. In Mrs Dalloway , one of Virginia Woolf’s much earlier novels, the character Peter Walsh, whose beliefs about women are tainted by a marital rejection, speculates with the utmost certainty that ‘the future lies in the hands of young men’. It is this sentiment which Woolf confronts in her later novels, suggesting in most that the enmeshment of gender and class could soon be expunged in a manner reminiscent of the evolutionary radicalism of Darwin. To a similar extent, Henry James uses Darwinism in relation to human social behaviour to depict expatriate social circles as akin to food chains. In Daisy Miller , Frederick Winterbourne’s initial exchange with the novel’s protagonists serves to compound this social structure and, most especially, the position of women in it. Winterbourne conceives of Daisy’s demeanour as that of a stereotypical woman; however, she defies his expectations, with James making it apparent ‘[he] had never, as yet, had any relations with young ladies of this category’. The sense one gets from this passage is that a female is expected to act in accordance with the rules of her ‘category;, and her moral decency is
gauged from whether or not she does this. Like in Woolf’s novels, James uses a Darwinian social structure to establish his ideas within; however, Woolf’s penchant to approach the female subject with a more controversial bent at the time points to the more radical tendencies of Modernism. Indeed, Woolf herself noted that when she read James, she would find herself ‘entombed in a block of smooth amber’: a rather barbed critique, which speaks to her disdain for his conservatism. Beyond Modernists’ reliance upon Victorian theories to predicate their stories on and Victorian values with which to set their stories in contrast, the movement’s reciprocity with literary realism’s concept of heroism is also significant to its negation of the ideal. The movement took inspiration from its antecedent in the way in which it subverted the literary hero, most especially in relation to the imperialist conception of man that Victorianism had sought to propagate. The antiheroic inadequacy of characters like Leopold Bloom, in James Joyce’s Ulysses , impressed upon the readership just how flawed the Victorian sense of masculinity was. Bloom’s characterization was symbolic of the complexities of the human experience as suggested by Eve Hartman’s critical analysis, ‘Leopold Bloom in Stereo’, whose subtitle encapsulates her thesis on the variegated nature of such a figure. In contrast with Ulysses, Bloom is a protagonist devoid of glory, valour and physical affection. Our introduction to him, as he eats away at ‘the inner organs of beasts and fowls’, is indicative of a somewhat grotesque figure, as he vulcanizes the innards of foul creatures. This image also testifies to the apparent impotence of Bloom, whose sexual weakness is borne out in our discovery that he has not slept with his wife for over a decade and upon the exposure of his ‘little limping devil’: a purposefully repulsive description of the male sex organ that speaks volumes about how unpleasant he is as a human being. Considering the sexually explicit, profane and irreligious nature of the novel, one would assume James Joyce is seeking to set his story in diametric contrast with not only the typical Victorian novel, because of the extent to which he dwells on Bloom’s inner reality, but also the original
89 Christina Alt, Virginia Woolf and the Study of Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p.240.
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