Correzione del compito valido per l’orale 25/03/09

  1. What is the difference in narrative technique between The Dead and the final episode of Joyce’s Ulysses, Penelope?

In the final episode of Ulysses Joyce uses a particular narrative technique: the stream of consciousness. The stream of consciousness creates the effect of displacement in the reader. The message of the story is conveyed by the succession of Molly’s thoughts.

In The Dead Joyce uses another particular narrative technique: the interior monologue. The interior monologue is the representation of character’s thoughts. Differently from the stream of consciousness, if you lose the point of what you were reading you needn’t start reading the text from the beginning again.

  1. Explain the difference between interior monologue and dramatic monologue and provide example referring to texts you studied.

The interior monologue is the representation of character’s thoughts. His thoughts are filtered by the writer, who adds connectors. In The Dead Joyce used this particular narrative technique. Tennyson uses the dramatic monologue in Ulysses. Reading the dramatic monologue you needn’t make conjectures because everything is written. There is a first person omniscient narrator that gives many details in order to create realism.

  1. Why did T.S. Eliot say that Joyce had adopted the mythical method in his Ulysses?
  1. What do we mean when we refer to The Victorian Age?

The Victorian Age takes the name from Queen Victoria. It is an age of prosperity, improvements were made all fields. The Victorian Age is full of contradiction. On one side there were those who believed in progress, they shared the idea that industrialization would gradually improve all of the people because of the effects of scientific research.

  1. When was the dramatic monologue first used?

The dramatic monologue was first used in Tennyson’s Ulysses.

  1. What has Shakespeare’s monologue in common with the dramatic monologue?

Shakespeare’s monologue has in common with the dramatic monologue that both are the representation of character’s thoughts. The reader mustn’t make conjectures because everything is written and when the reader reads Shakespeare or Tennyson feels as if he were in a theatre.

  1. Is the stream of consciousness technique easy to follow by an ordinary reader?

No, it isn’t. the stream of consciousness technique isn’t easy to follow by an ordinary reader because there are no connectors and the reader must work hard in order to discover any line if thoughts.

  1. What was the most common role of the woman in The Victorian Age?

The common role of the woman in the Victorian Age was that she was very beautiful, they were faithful and they were of some children.

  1. Can we consider Mrs. Dalloway as a character a typical expression of the Victorian society?

No, we can’t. Mrs Dalloway isn’t a typical character of the Victorian Age. We can understand this idea from the narrative technique used by Virginia Woolf. She uses the interior monologue to express her thoughts.

  1. Virginia Woolf was interested in the relation man and woman. Referring to To the Lighthouse do you consider Mrs Ramsay a modern or a traditional woman?

I consider Mrs Ramsay a modern woman because she makes what she wants of her husband.

  1. Compare Mr Ramsay with Lord Tennyson’s Ulysses and Leopold Bloom in J. Joyce’s Ulysses which of the three do you consider the odd out and why?

In my opinion the odd out is Lord Tennyson’s Ulysses between the three characters because he makes experiences, he wants travel, discover, he wants give a sense of his life. This is the difference between Mr Ramsay and Leopold Bloom because Mr Ramsay makes what his mother wants and Leopold Bloom goes around his city.