Modernism

Modernism represents a set of artistic and literary movements that originated in the first decade of the 20th century and that is
going to last until the end of the Second World War  therefore, it also includes the Great War (1914-1918), a sort of
watershed event that deeply marked this period by outlining two diverse Modernist seasons: the first season is called “pre-war
Modernism”, a bearer of creativity and experimentation whereas the second one is “post-war Modernism”, where instead the
crisis takes over because of the war and there’s a return to order. The beginning of the century actually went through a sort of
“crisis of representation”, because after Queen Victoria’s death in 1901 all those patterns fixed and inherited over centuries no
longer work: these patterns are unable to represent the contemporary reality which is constantly changing and evolving due to
the Industrial Revolution which gives birth to increasingly bigger urban areas: for example, the industrialization and
technological progress brought somehow to a radical evolution of society, but there are other very relevant elements introduced
in this period  Freud’s psychoanalysis binds itself for the first time to the scientific field with the result that the human being
cannot be represented according to the traditional way of representation anymore because it becomes extremely complex and a
huge mystery: therefore, there’s a strong break with the past thanks to recent scientific discoveries that have changed the general
perception of the XX century. We witness moreover a new concept of time thanks to the French philosopher Bergson who
theorizes two typologies of time  one is the linear time marked throughout the story and based on the movement of the clock
hands, whereas the second is the dilated time (simultaineity), lived through the emotions of the character (this last one typology is
a particular technique that’s going to be studied more in depth by writers like Joyce in “Ulysses” and Virginia Woolf in “To the
Lighthouse”). Besides, in this period also develops a new concept of space thanks to the introduction of fast means of
transportation that almost reset time.

The XX century is relevant because there’s the birth and introduction of the “Metropolis”, of course the undiscussed
protagonist of Modernism that carries with itself the “Underground”, a place analyzed by several writers and that provokes
chaos, triumph of the unattractive, confusion, disorientation and fragmentation of the human being  these are all states of
mind that inevitably have the result of loneliness and alienation. The word “modern” is of course positive because represents
innovation, change and it’s a sort of opposition to what was before  it’s innovative because with this movement a synergy
between the arts is created since figurative arts start having a great impact on narrative works and literature overall. Besides,
Modernism appears to have a strong interdisciplinary character since it’s a set of “isms” (Imagism, Futurism, Vorticism) that
characterizes Europe in the first part of the century until 1930  it’s interesting how each movement draws up a “Manifesto”,
which represents the program of this movement laying out what it intends to change artistically, literarily and all the innovations
it wants to make using what kind of tools.

imagism
Imagism is a British movement concerning mainly poetic that originated at the start of the 20th
century, right on the First World War’s eve (1912-1914)  this movement wanted to create an
innovative poetry based mainly on images (intention of creating a poem with brush strokes),
therefore they had the intention of turning poetry into a work of art. Favoring precision of
imagery and a clear, sharp language, Imagism is a sort of sub-genre of Modernism, a set of
cultural tendencies that was essentially based on an utopian vision of human life and society
together with a strong belief in progress or moving forward in the future. Certainly, some of the
main features of Imagist poems are the free verse and the lack of rhyming patterns  it’s
something to be expected considering that it was a “modern” movement, so there was a clear
attempt to move away from the forms and conventions of traditional poetry. Even though Ezra Pound is known to be the
“founder” of Imagism, the movement was initially brought to life by the English philosopher and poet T.E Hume, who
formulated and cultivated the ideas and concepts linked to it  later Pound adapted Hulme’s ideas on poetry for his Imagist
movement by using the sentence “Make it new!”, an expression which was supposed to exhort contemporary writers to break
from the past literary influences. Overall, it’s “In a Station of the Metro”, an extremely short poem published by Ezra Pound in
1913, which represents the Manifesto of Imagism.

In a Station of the Metro (Ezra Pound, 1913)

By reading this short poem one of the most striking elements is that it is entirely written without the use of any verb (this is an
anti-traditional element compared to traditional poems)  if verbs aren’t introduced it means that there’s no action, which is
something that usually determines static and lack of movement. In addition, the reader at once understands that Pound is
attempting to isolate the words to give them more importance, but this way he’s just provoking the rupture of the “syntactic
cage”  syntactic creates order, but modernist poet’s intention was to experiment as much as possible by moving away from
the traditional order. The poem is formed by the combination of just two sentences, therefore the clear and sharp language
that these poets want to convey is evident; besides, right from the title the reader is aware that the poem is not going to be
about a description of the place but of what is happening inside of it thanks to the use of the preposition “in” in the title 
shortly, the reader doesn’t expect to read about actions or
entities but about the description of life happening within the
metro (the word “metro” is important because it gives an ulterior
hint to the reader  even though Pound is American, in this
poem he focuses on the “Parisian” metro, because in England it
would be called “underground” whereas in America the name
would be “subway”, so it looks like Pound is mentally teleporting
overseas to talk about what happens in the French metro.

The reader is somewhat thrown in the inside of the city

underground, where daylight is no longer seeable  the words
are overall daily used, but for example “apparition” isn’t
something that’s made use of every day; indeed, it’s a sought-
after word that sends to transcendence, religion and something
that goes beyond reality  as a matter o fact, it can be connected
with the semantic field of an otherworld that instills fear and
terror (this mainly because in the underground there’s an
artificial light creating a distorted vision and almost a spectral atmosphere). However, this world is aligned with a bunch of
other familiar and everyday words such as “these”, a demostrative pointing something concrete and precise as opposed to
“apparition” that instead hints at something very vague (it almost looks like the poet wants to distance himself from that new
subterrain world of the metropolis), “faces” and “crowd”, elements that send to confusion and messy group of people 
Pound here is making use of a “synecdoche”, a figure of speech where a part of the whole is represented: the author
metaphorically wants to hint at the annihilation of the single individuality, since among a lot of people we risk losing our identity
and personality, but overall there’s no interest in describing every single person in the entirety, instead the whole wants to be
portrayed. In the second part of the poem the reader glimpses the word “petals”, an element that’s linked to nature and again
characterized by the figure of speech of synecdoche since there’s the portrayal of just one part (petals) of the whole (flower) 
petals are easily linkable to the faces mentioned before, because petals are a part of a flower, which is fragile and vulnerable
just as the human being in this new dimension, they are both mortal and with a short life; shortly, Pound would be opposing the
man-made world (the metropolis) to the natural world through this fragile image. Together with petals, also “bough” here is
characterized by a synecdoche since the bough is just a part of the tree  the two words of petals and bough seem somehow
connected since the petals are positioned on the boughs of a tree.

“Wet” and “black”  the first word is an adjective that mostly suggests moisture and water, so the presence of lifeblood, but
the connection of this word with “black” clearly indicates that between them exists an oxymoronic relationship (they are
expressing two complete diverse meanings): black implies an absence of life and the bound to “bough” also gives a
representation of a black underground tunnel whereas “wet” surely hints at the spring season, the season of rebirth for
excellence. Therefore, there appears to be a strong constrast here  even though the underground is perceived at the
beginning as disorientating and scary, it can also pulsate with new life.

Evening on Karl Johann Street (Edward Munch, 1892)

Painted by the Scandinavian painter Edward Munch, the painting is of

course an iconic representation of Ezra Pound’s poem even if it’s twenty-
one years before the Imagist poem was written. In the painting it’s evening,
there’s little light on the street and different elements can be distinguished
 on the left part the viewer manages to glimpse these black coated figures
with corpse-white faces advacing forward with no visible intention of
stopping or changing direction: Munch here seems to be symbolically
representing the bourgeois society with both men and women wearing the typical classical cylinders and elegant hats, but they
are presented with eyes wide open and reduced to masks, as if they were prisoners of rules and conventions (the subjects all
resemble like ghosts, they are all clones and therefore there’s this reconnection with Ezra’s strong lack of individuality). On the
right part something different seems to be portrayed  a solitary and dark figure moves against the flow in the opposite
direction: metaphorically it would mean that the artist is subtracting himself to social control and conventions.

Ezra Pound was profoundly inspired and influenced by the Japanese culture and by the work of Ernst Fellonosa, a famous and
established historian of Japanese and Chinese culture  after his death in London in 1908, Fellonosa’s widow entrusted the
historian’s unpublished works to the poet Ezra Pound: he helped with the publication of all these still unpublished works and by
going through them the was influenced by the “Haiku”, a poetic form of the Japanese literature that has three lines containing
usually five or seven syllables and a recurring seasonal reference (it is enough to remember Ezra Pound’s poem when he talks
about the petals, the reference to spring and passing of seasons). Haiku was originally brought to art form by Matsuo Basho, an
ancient Japanese who contributed effectively to the evolution of lyric poetry thanks to this new genre  Matsuo’s artistic ideal
is expressed with the overcome of personal emotions and the total identification of the human being with nature, described
with non-conventional images that draw inspiration from elements of the banal and daily routine.

Futurism
Futurism would be an artistic movement that originated in 1909 thanks to
the important figure of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti  it is an artistic
avant-garde movement which suggests a new vision of the cultural world,
a vision involving a sharp and violent separation from the past. One of
the most important key point of Futurism is the exaltation of the
“modern”  as a matter of fact, Futurists’ favorite subjects are cars,
industries and planes, that are of course all symbols of a society/world in
quick evolution and moreover they elaborate a new conception of life
based on faith in the future and technological progress. The artists who
belong to this movement costantly try to render the idea of “dynamism”
and “movement”  here comes the representation of the ideals of speed, dynamism, violence and war conceived as “world’s
only hygiene”: in representing these elements, Futurists completely deform the images so that there’s this perspective of
pictures that are always in motion as the bystander stares at them. Dynamicity is something that finds itself in opposition to the
Imagism’s ideals where instead the “static” is celebrated (an example could be the lack of verbs in Pound’s poem that causes the
removal of action)  among the great representatives of Futurism in Italy, apart from Marinetti, we can glimpse Fortunato
Depero, someone who tries to represent, just like Pound, the underground emotionally: however, while Pound focuses on the
underground in Paris, Depero actually wants to refer to the underground in New York with his poem called “Subway”, a poem
that clearly contains the materiality of a Futurist literary and artistic text since the syntactic cage here is abolished and there’s
this attempt to experiment with the graphic image (this is mainly because Futurism profoundly refused every syntactic and
grammatical structure in favor of a more free association of words).

(Subway, Depero 1929)

Subway is an experimentation where there’s the attempt to connect

synergically words and images: thanks to all the elements presented in the
painting such as “Teste” or even “Maschere”, which identify the people
taking the underground, Depero is trying to put in evidence not only the
plurality of the crowd or the dynamism, but also the fragmented
human being characterized by disorientation between the private life and
the public one of the underground.

Fortunato Depero is a Futurist artist who painted for “The New Babel” and
his collection of paintings included not only skyscrapers but also
underground tunnels  “Subway” is a visual poem created by the
combination of drawings and words, therefore here the arts of writing and
painting are put together. Right from the start, even before reading
what is inside, the reader might be a little surprised by the kind of
typography presented both in the title and everywhere else in the painting  words are freely arranged on the page, therefore
they are set free from the syntactic and grammatical cage of rules and there’s absence of order, it is just a mix of sentences that
could easily be read singularly without a specific order.

The first thing that catches the eye is of course the kind of font used for the several writings  the title “Subway” is written
with the largest font whereas in the lower part everything contained in the thick black lines is all condensed, therefore what he
wanted to do was to evoke a sense of suffocation by condensing all these words within several black bags all positioned in a
row. It is also very interesting the fact that Depero is making use of the particular technique of “collage” especially with words
like “Exit”, “5th Avenue” and “23 Street”, because it seems that the painter is taking city signs and putting them up on the page
 “Exit” in the upper part and lower part seems to be orienting the person towards a sort of escape from this congested
underground whereas in the case of “5th Avenue” and “23 Street” a substantial difference can be glimpsed: we can notice that
“5th Avenue” is written with a bigger font than “23 Street” because it’s one of the most important streets in New York, a point
of reference, a gathering centre and a place somebody would immediately recognize (Deper is saying that 23 Street is important
but not as much, so by making use of a larger font more importance is given).

“Nel sacco nero di un tunnel” … “In un altro sacco nero di un tunnel”  Here the large circles surrounding the words remind at
once of the underground tunnels and the circular shape of the “sacco” is meant to underline the sense of dynamism. This kind
of word in Italian evokes a sort of negative connotation (darkness, scary, pollution) as being imprisoned or being even incapable
of escaping and within the black bags is possible to find a lot of people that Depero defines as “Teste”  with this word
repeated many times an implication of multiplying of fears and prisons wants to be conveyed, but it is also linked to Pound’s
poem since there seems to be again a strong lack of individuality (in this disorienting metropolis, all human beings have lost
their personality and individuality, therefore they are all clones and represented as a homogeneous mass). In the other bag we
glimpse something totally different since these “Teste” in the following tunnel take shape are start being called “Maschere” 
these marks are all different and Depero uses a sort of chromatic connotation to give the idea of New York’s melting pot:
indeed, he makes use of colors to underline and convey the idea of multiethnicity, which is present not only in NY’s daily life but
also in the underground:

 “Rame rosse”  Depero by using this expression is referring to the Indians or “Native Americans”, therefore these
masks contain a very important cultural reference.
 “Cioccolata”  This strong chromatic connotation is used by the painter to refer to all those people coming from
Africa, so the population with black skin.
 “Anthracite ultrarosa”  It is a reference to the Northern Europe population such as Norway, Finland or Sweden,
whose skin color is very light and slightly pink.
 “Cereee”  In Italian this word means “pale” and therefore wants to evoke a sense of death and fragility of human
life: this mainly because the underground’s artificial light makes people look like they are deprived of life and like
ghosts.

“Millioni di polpacci che salgono e si rituffano nei fiumi neri delle velocità sotterranee”  Within the poem not everything is
written horizontally which is the traditional way of writing, but there’s also a dynamic way to represent the concepts: for
example, “gran gran gran” in the upper part wants to convey the dynamism of the wheels of the underground and is written
differently than “millioni di polpacci…”  “Polpacci” is an unusual physical reference which isn’t recurring in the traditional
poetry of the 17th century, but Modernism introduced this innovative way of writing: there is a sort of opposition to the earlier
writing style because while the traditional poetry was well-structured and quite sofisticated, Futurism wants to use certain
words to enhance the “unattractive”. “Che salgono e si rituffano nei fiumi neri delle volontà sotterranee”: this part of the
poem represents of course an important connection to Pound’s poem because there’s a strong dimension of nature such as
lakes, which are a part of nature as much as the flower’s petals  Depero wanted to create a visual and natural representation
of the experience in the modern metropolis and by saying “salgono e si rituffano” he’s recreating an analogy with nature
because on one side “salgono” is usually associated with the action of climbing the stairs, but on the other side the word
“rituffano” refers to nature like diving into the water.

 “Folle che si impaccano treni che si traversano”  “Folle che si impaccano” contains a reflexive verb invented by
Depero, a verb that should be applied to an object but in this circumstance refers to the crowd. Overall the sentence
contains a strong presence of reification and objectivation because there’s the visual of these trains and human beings
inside that resemble like packages going in different directions and ways (strong analogy to the production process).
 “Mani tese per afferrare 1 posto”  It resembles like all these hands are trying to reach for help and there is a strong
sense of surrending and disorientation as these “mani” are attempting to “afferrare 1 posto”: this situation creates
 confusion and takes the image of the “rush hour”, where the seat metaphorically turns into an oasis to be necessarily
reached. Besides, above it’s possible to glimpse two sentences that seem to be colliding with each other  the first is
“Estrattore di puzze solide”, an image used by Depero especially to refer to the intoxicating and bad smell of the
underground smoke whereas the second is “Conduttore di surrogato d’aria”, which presents a physical description of
a pipe giving the bystander the idea of the air that makes you breathe.
 “Serpenti di luce sulla pelle” … “Serpenti di buio nell’anima”  It is quite interesting here because Depero is
reproducing typographically the movement of the snake; this animal is a symbolic element and has different meanings
in cultures: for us it represents sin and seduction which are themes linked to the Garden of Eden presented in the
Christian religion, but they are also the embodiment of dark forces and have a positive connotation in other cultures
such as the Japanese one, where the snake appears to be the incarnation of medicine and healing. Overall here Depero
creates a sort of homorossic analogy between the two sentences  “luce” (it represents the light and the world
above) and “buio” (it evokes the idea of darkness, the world underground which brings disorientation and the
sensation of facing the unknown of the new metropolis world): the analogy is between the physical human body
touched by artificial light of the underground on the outside (seeable for everyone) and the total darkness that is
happening within of ourselves (inside of the human soul).

Paesaggio guerresco (Depero, 1916)

In this painting Depero presents to the bystander a landscape that’s geometrically

deconstructed and full of hills, fields intertwined with colors such as red, white and
green: three colors that refer to our country Italy that participated in World War
One. The subject of war is actually very recurring in Futurism because the artists
belonging to this movement were entirely convinced that battle and war were
something both positive and renewing that could leave all the past behind and give
space to the new, but this kind of positive perception saw its downhill when the war
ended, a period when people started to believe and be convinced that war had only brought tragedy and destruction to Europe.

La metropoli (Depero, 1930)

Depero was extremely attracted to the USA, especially New York City since
it was considered as the emblem of modernity and progress of the
“Roaring Twenties”, a period concerning the years between the end of the
Great War in 1918 and the economic crisis of 1929. The picture
representing NY presents vibrant and brilliant colors that effectively rend
the chaotic sense of the city that actually “never sleeps”  the metropolis
is moving as if skyscrapers were partecipating in the flow of life; moreover,
this energetic and mechanical movement is also suggested by the contrast
between the diagonal lines of the skyscrapers and the rounded shape of
the underground tunnels, always with the intention of underlining something that’s not seeable.

Arance e limoni (Depero, 1927)

Here the human being presented on the right part of the picture is completely
geometralized and takes the shape of a puppet that is picking up oranges and
lemons. In addition, the painting also presents the whole production process with
all the packages flowing thanks to this conveyor belt: the process is also more
evident and highlighted by the presence of the words “Imballaggio” and
“Esportazione”, two words carried by another geometralized figure on its back that
seems to be running out of the painting. Mainly these two words wants to convey
the important message that the production process, once these two words are
reached, comes to an end with the finished product.
manifesto of futurism
Although Futurism developed in Italy, it had a great impact both in British and
English literature since together with the influence of French cubism it gave origin
to the movement of Vorticism  by reflecting on the history of Italy it is possible
to remember that with authors like Dante, Boccaccio or Petrarca our country was
at the center of attention as far as literature and art are concerned, but then with
the start of Industrial Revolution the protagonist of European culture isn’t Italy
anymore, instead it’s a period where other countries were actually more popular:
many centuries passed by and then the introduction of Futurism in the 20th century
brought Italy back on the scene. Overall, Futurism wanted to revolution both
literature and the way of writing: it is a proper “revolution of the word” explained
in the “Manifesto della letteratura futurista”, a program expressing all ideals and
ideas about what needs to be changed and what tools are going to be used to let
that change take place:

 Destruction of syntax by randomly arranging the words on the page, therefore it’s necessary to break the cage
of Latin syntax by giving the words the right freedom.
 Compulsory use of infinite verbs, because the verb should not be subdued by the “I” of the writer observing
and imagining.
 Abolition of adjectives since they give the substantive some shades that need some time to be understood, a
time which is not present for Futurist artists because they ran fast and have a dynamic conception of life.
 Abolition of adverbs since they give superfluous and useless information to the sentence.
 Every substantive needs to have his double: here Marinetti suggests an experimentation through analogy,
where words are linked by hyphen and there’s no use of conjunction connecting the words such as “and” or
“but” because they imply an order and belong to the Latin syntax.
 No punctuation: of course, if adjectives, adverbs and conjunctions are deleted, so is punctuation cause this
way absurd and useless stops caused by commas and dots can be easily avoided. Instead, to indicate certain
movements and directions mathematical and musical signs will be made use of.
 Vaster comparisons: this is a clear criticism of the past literature, because whereas authors in the past used to
create analogies only between human and animals, Futurist artists create analogies between different
dimensions.
 Destruction of the “I” in literature because the man, with his incredible logic and wisdom, no longer interest
anybody, therefore the time has come to replace him with matter caught by intuition and not reason.
 The artists belonging to this movement despise the “beautiful”, instead their intention is actually the one of
enhancing the “unattractive” by breaking with past’s literary conventions.

Zang Tumb Tumb (Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, 1914)

This poetic composition wants to display a verbal and visual representation of

the siege of Adrianople in 1912-1913 and introduces us to Marinetti’s stylistic
revolution which is explained in the Manifesto above: right from the beginning
the reader understands that words are randomly arranged on the page
typographically, therefore Marinetti is not making use of punctuation, instead he
inserts words in a free and unregulated way giving much more interest to how
they would sound as the reader reads them (strong sense of dynamicity).
Certainly the whole meaning of this poetic creation is the one to celebrate the
brutality of war since it was considered my Marinetti as a great liberating
experience that could bring to the purification of the soul: the author here is representing the sensations suggested by
the bombing as faithfully as possible, therefore he has no interest in description but he’s collecting impressions,
images, sounds and colors of a normal war day (as a matter of fact the arrangement on the page, in particular the
horizontal and almost vertical writing TUMB crossing PAROLE IN LIBERTA’ is giving the chaotic perspective which is
provoked by the bombing and also this opposition of war to freedom)  “Zang Tumb Tumb” is, among the others
 presented in the text, an onomatopeic figure of speech that clearly refers to the unpleasant sound of what is going on
nearby such as bombs being dropped on the fields and the explosions because of shots fired by the enemies.
Moreover, it is also very interesting the fact that in the above part of the picture there’s this writing “F.T Marinetti
Futurista”  of course, here the word Futurista wouldn’t be needed or necessary, but here there’s the willingness to
promote the Futurism movement.

Picchiata nell’amore (Bellanova, Marinetti, Scrivo, 1940)

Here the Futurist Bellanova is conveying an important and

provocative message: here everything on the page is arranged in a
democratic way and words appear to be positioned both vertically
and horizontally; moreover, the watcher in the background can
glimpse a pilot that’s depicted with the color of air, an element
conveying the fact that the plane is flying and looks an integrated
part of the blue sky. The plane represented here seems to be going
down and crashing towards a gondola in the town of Venice at impressive speed  “nell’amore” is a very important hint
because Venice is the town of love and the gondola is an object which is usually associated with honeymoons and romantic
journeys, therefore Venice appears to be a strong symbol of romantic love. The concept of love over the centuries has always
been trasmitted in traditional poetry (Beatrice with Dante or Laura with Petrarca), so here by making the plane crash on love he
conveys the message that the theme of romantic love is something to get rid of if Futurism’s intention is to break with the past’s
literary influence. Overall Futurist artists are connecting “Parole in libertà” with a society that’s quickly evolving  as a matter
of fact, the subject presented here is a plane, a very dynamic element brought by the birth of Modernism and something which
is depicted also in the field of literature and art because the Futurists wanted to literarily and artistically represent the modern
and everything that has to do with technological progress and evolution of society.

(Lei: mi ami? Lui: tanto!)

The picture represents a conversation between a woman and a man
regarding a love relationship  here both a reference and a cultural
tradition that has lasted for centuries is introduced, because the
woman asking if the man has feelings for her contains the image of a
church, a place where couple usually get married and promise to
love each other forever, but the man doesn’t seem to have the same
perspective of life: the word “tanto” here seems to be represented
through the use of a sort of grave, another reference and cultural
tradition that recalls the field of holiness. Therefore, here the woman actually belives that their relationship will end up
in marriage and that their love is really going to last forever, but the man with the use of a tomb is suggesting that their
love won’t last forever and eventually will die. Of course they are speaking the same language, which is Italian and also
the language of love apparently, but each of them is implying something substancially different  it’s evidently an
experimental poem, so a lot of things are either unexplained or hidden and most of the things are left to the reader to
be deciphered.

(I capelli di Tina, Luigi Rossolo)

The picture presents a black and white depiction of Tina’s hair 

importance here isn’t given to the human being in the whole, but the
hair actually seems to be the relevant topic (it’s the figure of speech of
the synecdoche, in which just a part of a whole thing wants to be
portrayed)  therefore, Luigi Rossolo wanted the watcher to focus on
the total vitalistic and dynamic movement of the hair that is
surrounding the woman.
 (Uomo che scende da un tram, Achille Funi)

It’s a chromatically intensive painting containing sketches of the town

in the underground with all its buildings like skyscrapers and palaces
that also seem to move because of the metropolis’ bustle. The man
presented in the picture is being crushed by the town and there seem
to be absolutely no distinction between human and underground
world  the human being is evidently by looking at the painting
circularly depicted: as a matter of fact, the circle is a geometrical
shape recalling a strong sense of dynamism such as the wheels of the
tram, so the man seems strongly involved in the speed of town (here it’s evident the painter’s attempt to make the
painting as vitalistic as possible in order to grasp the urban life’s velocity). It is overall a tricky picture because the title
already gives the bystander a hint of what’s going to be represented, but then it becomes a sort of challenge where
there’s the necessary need to distinguish every single element if the watcher wants to capture the whole in its entirety.

(Ballerine, Giulio Severini)

The painting clearly underlines that the various arts within the movement of Modernism are in constant interaction with each
other since here also dance is perceived as vital, dynamical and liberating. The main subject in the picture isn’t really the dancer
but the physical act of dancing  therefore, with the attempt of grasping the essence of the dance and speed of movement,
here Severini is trying to render the dress through decomposition and geometrical recomposition.

It becomes evident to the bystander that the majority of Severini’s

paintings are centred around the movement of dancing  this especially
because supposedly the painter was entirely convinced that dancing had
become the icon/symbol of modernism and a strong metaphor of
dynamism.

(Dinamismo di un cane al guinzaglio, Giacomo Balla)

Mainly the importance here is not given to the dog, but to its legs which
are moving and clearly conveying a vitalistic and dynamical idea
through use of a multiple splitting as far as legs and dog collar are
concerned  indeed, the picture also presents the relatioship between
the human (the owner) and the animal: the dog is moving frenetically
but cannot go that far since the master is holding it back thanks to the
collar as if it were a cage (it implies a strong lack of freedom on the part
of the dog since it’s forced to follow its owner wherever she goes  it’s
deductive in this painting that the owner is a woman considering the
long black dress).

(La strada entra nella casa, Umberto Boccioni)

Of course the elements striking the bystander at once are the woman at the balcon and the intermingling of several colors in
the picture: here dynamicity and movement are underlined by the chaoticity of the picture, which is given by all these people
who’re frenetically building something in the worksite with all their tools. Syntethically, the picture represents a woman from
behind and just by looking out her window she receives the whole impact of the swirling human activity  overall here the
painter Boccioni is underlining a powerful emotional charge thanks to the strength of the colors which can evoke the life
bursting from the street once the window is opened.

Paintings related to Cubism, a movement originating in France at the beginning of the 20th century where the
main exponents are Picasso and Braque. Instead of faithfully representing the reality around them, they get
started from reality to decompose and recompose it in a new order  syntethically, they split reality into
planes and geometrical shapes by grasping the subject by different angles and overlapping them in
the representation.

(Tête de femme, Braque)

The picture clearly displays elements like decomposition and recomposition of

the human figure: the painting is important because Cubism artists’ main
intention was the one of representing things from different perspectives 
they carry this out by decomposing the human face/body and recomposing it
under many points of view: indeed, one of the main techniques that Cubism
makes use of is the “collage” which is one of the most experimental trait of
Cubism; it’s important to keep in mind that in these kind of paintings there’s no
movement or dynamism like the one that had been introduced in Futurism,
instead we have a diverse perception of reality where the faces look life
they’ve been cut into two parts and just one profile of each face wanted to be displayed.

(Violin and sheet music, Braque)

Another Cubism painting painted by Braque, an artist who painted the violin more
than any other instrument  of course here the single violin is shown from many
viewpoints and appears to be completely deconstructed and dismantled; besides,
there’s absolutely no distinction between foreground and background, the artist
completely broke the perspective so that elements are undistinguishable (here of
course the title can certainly give the bystander some hints of what’s depicted, but
without it would be very challenging to glimpse and make out the elements).

(Les demoiselles d’Avignon, Picasso)

In all their nudity, Picasso provocatively presents five females in this

painting: of course the bystander here can immediately recognize a
difference  on the right and left part the women’s body is more
intensively geometricized and their faces actually look like masks, an
element which hints at the intermingling of different cultures: for
example, the woman’s mask on the left sends back to Egyptian culture
whereas the mask of the woman on the right refers to African culture, a
kind of culture the painter Picasso was actually really passionate about.
The two women at the center instead present a body which isn’t as
decomposed and geometricized as the other women, instead they seem
to be normal with a more composed body and they are posing as if they
were waiting to be photographed.
 (Three musicians, Picasso)

The painting painted by Picasso gives the appearance of something that has
been put together with paper cuts  indeed, it is very difficult to tell where
one musician starts and stops, because the shapes intersect and overlap like
they were paper cutouts. The subjects depicted are three characters wearing
masks and recognizable as Arlecchino at the center wearing an orange and
yellow patterned dress and holding a guitar in his hands, Pulcinella on the left
holding a clarinet and Pantalone on the right with sheets of music  of course
the picture is showing Picasso’s connection with Italian culture, which is
something understandable by the choice of the subjects, who certainly belong
to the Italian comedy field. Overall Picasso here just presents two-
dimensional and geometric shapes that appear as abstracted figures with a
deconstructed look.

Vorticism
Vorticism is a British radical experimental movement born in the English sleepy society in the years of the World War One; it has
its own rules and has been profoundly influenced by Italian Futurism and French Cubism. A short-lasting movement, it appears
to be quite fundamental in the British history because it helps changing the Victorian “Weltanschauung” (it means vision of the
world and of society)  the word “Vorticism” hints to the motion of a tornado, a strong and destructive energy that focuses on
a fixed point within the vortex, a characteristic element because unlike Futurism which involved movement in every direction
(centrifugal force), Vorticism is instead controlled by a centripetal force. It’s a movement of great importance in England
because it’s native, English and extremely experimental  developed in London, England
this movement revolved around a specific magazine called BLAST, a literary magazine on
which various Vorticist artists defended the movement and, exactly like Futurism, embraced
all different fields of knowledge such as painting, sculpture or literature. Among the main
protagonists it’s possible to glimpse Ezra Pound, an author we have already encountered
because he was leader and protagonist of Imagist movement with his Manifesto “In a Station
of the Metro” but then he moved to Vorticism and Wyndham Lewis, an English painter
known in England to be a portraitist. The Manifesto of Vorticism is actually “Blast”, a
fundamental word in this context because it means explosion and break with a powerful
effect  they had the intention of changing the establishment, the status quo, they wanted
to get rid of everything old, of an obsolete legacy and of everything that generally according
to them no longer worked in England to achieve change and new creativity. The picture on
the right is the First Cover of Blast  the cover it presented pink-colored, a color which is considered quite unusual for a
literary magazine whose word Blast is positioned diagonally in cubital letters almost like an advertising poster that of course
couldn’t fail impressing the viewers (the image here is striking and reminds of the kind of typography used by Futurism, because
their position sends back to “Parole in libertà”, an great innovative way of writing used by Depero and Marinetti).

Here the picture introduces also a relevant contrast between pink and black  the pink background not only is suggesting a
strong desire for destruction, but it also wants to convey the message that it’s a color that has never been used by anyone
before, so it implies a break with the past but even renewal, a desire to be reborn: moreover, pink is usually associated with the
color of feminine principles and here is standing in stark contrast with the virility of the Blast writing in black. Therefore, the
pink color seems to have a provocative and unusual meaning, but it also is a symbol that refers to the desire for rebirth and to a
new direction in which to move. However, the literary journal is entirely based on the words BLAST and BLESS that create both
an alliteration but also at the same time a clear opposition  Blast is what Vorticist artists want to destroy and make explode,
whereas Bless actually refers to what they religiously want to bless in order to be reborn; apart from this element, which is
evidently the red thread throughout the whole journal, the viewer can consider these pages as works of art and as something
that partially may recall Depero’s Subway, because apparently the typographical dimension of the words counts a lot since they
are written in large letters that change in size according to the importance. There is anyway a slight difference: whereas in
Subway we have a certain dynamism of the words moving in every possible direction, here instead we actually have a very rigid
scheme with words more statically represented (clear opposition between centrifugal VS static movement).
 “Blast First (from politeness) England” here it becomes clear to the
reader that Vorticist artists have the intention of destroying England
and the Victorian culture that lies within. “From politeness”, here in
brackets to stand out, is a very ironic element that wants to create a
some sort of distance; it would represent something that belongs to
the British middle-class and that’s typical of bourgeois class: here the
author would be ironically criticizing the idea of behaving and dressing
in a certain way, which is something that hints to the fact that British
people are all about appearance but have no substance (Lawrence says that they are kind and polite, but it is strongly ironical
and out of hypocrisy because they are exactly the opposite). “Curse its climate for its sins and infections”  by making use of
the word “climate”, they wanted to refer to the narrow-minded Weltanschauung that was dominating at the time, because the
British climate was sleeping in Victorianism, hence an extremely radical change starting firstly with the climate is needed. It’s
actually very interesting how these artists connected the world climate with the words “sins” and “infections”, two words that
surely belong to two diverse semantic fields but that also relate to the literary climate and the mentality of the time  here -
infections- is something more physical whereas -sins- seems way more intimate and belongs to the inside of the soul, heart and
hints at something outrageous that somebody might have committed. Then, the reader can glimpse “Victorian vampire, the
London cloud that sucks the town’s heart”  surely the word “vampire” here is a very evocative and powerful word conveying
that Britain is sucking the vitality out of human beings as a result of this extremely sick mentality pervading England and of the
strict principles imposed (Queen Victoria’s period was exceedingly puritanical, where the repression of the body/nakedness of
the joy of living were daily practiced; on the other hand, this was a period of extreme bourgeois respectability/ of great
industrial and economic development due to the Industrial Revolution, where England strengthens its colonial empire by
expanding more and more); therefore, the climate of Victorian culture, which is a way of calling into question the Victorian
mentality, is extremely negative since it sucks life like just like a vampire.

At the beginning it is clearly stated that Vorticism wants to destroy and

blast the years from 1837 to 1900, which is the period of Queen Victoria
and when England was pervaded by Victorianism  there appears to be
then a strong willingness to delete this part from the history of British
culture. Here, their very first target is the British middle-class but even
classes like Aristocracy and working class (Proletariat), two completely
opposite poles, are equally criticized and taken into account. Aristocracy
has been the leading class of Victorian time and in power for a very long
time until the Industrial Revolution, but then it started losing more and
more power; moreover, the Manifesto is also talking about the working
class, the Proletariat, slave of the Victorian system who doesn’t receive any attention and who needs to be stimulated and
called up on a rebellion if it wants to achieve change and its own freedom. Then, the reader glimpses this extremely ironic
expression of “Wring the neck” (it means to delete something and recalls the image of a farmer killing a bird with an extremely
physical gesture) which refers to the willingness to erase all those inventions created during the Victorian age that are very sick,
disgusting and create social differences. At the end of the page the reader can also glimpse “London is not a provincial town”,
which is very relevant because it states that London is not as provincial as Queen Victoria wanted it to be, it doesn’t move and
think narrow-mindedly, but instead it’s a metropolis open to various stimuli and avant-garde that is eager to become a center
pulsating European culture.

Here there’s a presentation of what these artists intended instead to Bless  their intention isn’t the one of making England
explode anymore, instead they intend to set this country free from the obsolete Victorian culture and its morality. The writing
“Bless” seems to be written with capital letters and the presence of an exclamation
point hints at the celebration and blessing of part of the English history and progress
 those “ships” at the beginning are quite relevant because they are means of
transportation that bring in the middle of the oceans and help us make new
discoveries, but they also represent a way to discover other cultures and communities
just by sailing at sea. The reader then witnesses a sudden list of colors characterized
by a certain chromatic intensity suggested by these colors’ capital letters  Blue
represents the ocean, Green because under a certain light the ocean takes on a
particular greenish shade, but of course the first image that springs to mind from this
color is the grass and the vastness of earth and fields, Red is the color of passion but
also historically implies the color of blood, therefore there’s a reference to all those battles and fights that they had to fight
together. Then the reader can glimpse “all around the pink earth-ball”  Vorticist artists present earth as a planet with a three-
dimensional perspective whereas the color pink can on one side remind of the color of the Manifesto, so sending back to the
concept of rebirth but on the other side it also refers to the color of the skin, therefore in a certain way these artists are giving to
the world a body dimension.

Following Vorticism actually wants to “Bless all seafarers”  here words are written again in capital letters and there’s a strong
reference to all those human beings who are eager to travel, explore the world and discover new cultures: they are people who
like going beyond the limits and happily consider themselves as “citizens of the world”. On this page other two writings are
quite relevant  the first is “Bless the vast planetary abstraction of the Ocean”, which is interesting to see because this line
celebrates the great vastness of the ocean and has a sort of circular shape since it starts with Bless in capital letters and ends
with Ocean in the same way; the second is “Bless the Arabs to the Atlantic”, important because they are limiting the vastness of
the ocean by quoting just one of them, but the sentence also involves a contact also with other cultural entities  the Arabs
were traditionally considered in the Middle Age as the “infidels” and the enemies for excellence to be defeated. In the Victorian
period this opposition to the different and the conviction of the British superiority was really felt, but here Vorticism is
overturning this way of thinking by provoking a crisis of eurocentrism  this mainly because Arabs are something different
from the European culture, they have different customs and traditions, so their difference is fundamental because it means that
we can learn something from them by looking at other cultures as a source of inspiration.

“Bless English humour”  Englishmen are quite renowned for their use of black and sarcastic humour, which appears to be a
sort of powerful and “barbarous (since it goes beyond civilization) weapon of the
genius among races”: in the Vorticist view there was absolutely no hierarchy
among races because according to them they were all on the same level  indeed,
they were against the phenomena of imperialism and colonialism where one
nation wants to prevail by expanding in other nations’ territory in order to be very
powerful from an economic and military point of view (it’s possible also to make a
comparison with Depero’s Subway, because also in that experimentation the
author refers to the multiethnicity and melting pot  same thing are doing the
Vorticist artists since they are referring to the variety of races present in the world).
By reading on the reader finds “The mild mountain railway from idea to idea, in
the ancient fair of life”  here is presented a combination between the abstract
(the idea that belongs to the human soul’s creativity) and the concrete dimension
(the railway which belongs to the man-made world and is the product of the
Industrial Revolution) whereas “in the ancient Fair” makes the reader understand
that it’s a period of enjoyment belonging to the beginning of times, therefore it
represents a sort of joyful interaction between races. Although these writers want
to break with the past, they actually don’t have the intention of completely losing
the tradition of the past, an element identifiable by the fact that two writers of the
old tradition are named  the first is Jonathan Swift, an Irish writer author of the
Gulliver’s Travels (an ironic and fantastic work about the flaws of humanity) and father of British satire against the institutions
and the government. Indeed, he seems to be very famous for his ironic pamphlets  there’s a not very well-known pamphlet of
his called “A Modest Proposal”, which presents an extremely ironical proposal to solve a period of extreme famine in Ireland
during which many children, due to the lack of food, died: Swift’s irony actually comes out when he pulls a slap in the face of the
British government by proposing to the Minister of England a solution that turns out to be particularly macabre  he’s
suggesting to serve children on the tables of the noble and wealthy English, so he’s being extremely provocative in this case.
“Wisdom of laughter” instead here is not referring to the satire, whereas the term “bleak” hints at a gloomy and sad
wisdom/knowledge where the laughter is capable of turning upside down the power surrounding us.

“Shakespeare for his bitter Northern rhetoric humour”  after Jonathan Swift the reader glimpses Shakespeare among those
past literary influences that don’t want to be left behind: the author here is on the same level typographically since he’s
represented with the same font; besides, it’s possible to understand that this writer makes use of a sharp and bitter humour
capable of turning upside down the system of power and that’s typical of the North  clear opposition between South and
North’s use of irony, because North seems to have a gloomier and darker view than the South. After these two writers Vorticist
artists go on by listing several other blessings  “Bless all English eyes with their fancy and energy”: here the eyes, the organ
of sight, of the English are blessed, whereas “fancy and energy” sends back to the contrast between two elements belonging to
two different dimensions (energy is more concrete and refers to a more physical force capable of moving an object, whereas
fancy belongs to the abstract dimension of fantasy, creativity and imagination). “Bless the hysterical wall built around the ego”
 the ego represents Sigmund Freud’s influence on Modernism whereas this hysterical wall is a very physical protection
expressing the split between the need to defend ourselves and the need of interacting with society (the wall appears to be
hysterical because with modern society we feel the need of protection but at the same time the need of interaction is equally
felt).

“Bless the solitude of laughter”  the element of laughter actually leads the human being to ironize about whatever is
oppressing it and to overcome the sadness, therefore laughter turns into a way of resistance against the threats of
society/world and becomes a powerful weapon to defeat the enemies. The page presents a last blessing “Bless the separating,
ungregarious British grin”  the grin represents a rather dark laughter that allows to take distance from the world and the
Victorian culture, whereas the term ungregarious refers to the idea of not liking to socialize among other people, therefore it
represents a tool to defend ourselves from a world we absoutely don’t know and trust.

Cover of the Blast magazine drawn by Lewis

The reader certainly notices dynamism and movement, but we’re not speaking anymore
of the Futurism’s centrifugal force going in all directions, instead here we almost witness a
decomposition of the urban environment with very sharp and angular lines. In the
foreground there are figures of soldiers who seem to be some sort of “automatons” 
they seem to be wearing a mask, so they have completely lost their entire humanity and
individuality whereas the weapon they’re wielding looks like an extension of their own
body where the soldier’s arm is undistinguishable from the weapon itself. Above in capital
letters the reader glimpses “War number”, which is at the center of the whole issue  the
element of war here is deforming and geometricizing the human beings that here are
playing the role of soldiers: weapons and human beings are hard to be told apart because their arms extend and mingle with the
weapons becoming a whole. Therefore, war is depriving the soldiers of their individuality, element identifiable also by those
faces which resembles like African masks and that aren’t expressing any human emotion. Moreover, the buildings in the
background recall some skyscrapers, which suggest that the scene is taking place in the city.

The Vorticist

This is an example of the Vorticist technique  as always, we notice elements like

fragmentation, deformation, geometricization and reconstruction by geometrical forms
of the human figure, which make us understand that we’re increasingly moving towards
an abstract dimension. Whereas in Futurism we assist to an extremely powerful
centrifugal force allowing energy to spread around in every possible direction, in
Vorticism prevails a centripetal force where energy is instead compressed in a fixed
point in the eye of the storm and ready to explode  the movement is contained
within the vortex allowing us to reach a more static dimension.

Sunset Among the Michelangelos (Wyndham Lewis)

Wyndham Lewis recognized Michelangelo’s

greatness and majesty in the fields of painting and sculpture, but at the same time
he’s clearly stating that we’re no longer capable of painting like him  synthetically
he would be declaring the end of an era, of our glorious part regarding the art and of
a tradition even though he remembers all the beauty Michelangelo represented in his
time. Before the work of art this famous artist used to examine various blocks of
marbles and just by going through them he could already glimpse the figure that was
going to be sculpted, whereas Lewis here paints these sculptural figures that actually
are the opposite of Michelangelo’s beautiful and harmonious ones that emerged
from the marble  there appears to be a sort of comparison between the present
and the glorious past because whereas Michelangelo represented perfect bodies full of strength and energy, here the bodies
almost fall apart, they’re looking down as if they were completely deprived of their energy (the human figures resemble like
animals or anyway humans with a quite deformed body that certainly don’t match and represent the classic canons of beauty).
The expression “sunset” here indicates the sunset itself but not in the usually associated romantic key, instead in many cultures
it means to symbolize the end and death of the day  it’s interesting because generally the sunset presents some shades
whereas here is completely monochromatic and uniform: he deliberately does this because the red background sends back to
the color of sunset but the absence of any other colors suggests Lewis’ intention to express the concept of blood and suffering
due to the end of this period where the centrality of the man is lost.

Seated figure

The picture presents a caricatural figure slightly deformed and it’s chosen mainly to see how
Lewis represents the human figure  the face here resembles like an impenetrable iron mask
with a very cold expression where eyes aren’t seeable, whereas the whole body is geometrized to
the maximum and warped with increasingly angular lines.

Kermesse

It represents a sort of dance which isn’t joyful because the colors here appear to be
very cold and convey a certain restlessness; besides, the dancers resemble like insects
or praying mantis, therefore it seems human beings have been animalized and given
non-human shape  of course there are deforming elements like in every other
picture of Vorticism like deformation and fragmentation of the human being, elements
referring to the fact that Vorticism is an extremely experimental movement pointing at
abstraction.

English woman  There’s a clear arrival to the abstractness, a radical experimentation in which the female figure or any other
human tracts are barely (if not at all) recognizable.

Virginia woolf
Virginia Woolf is an extremely important worldwide known writer and one of the
few female writers who found a place in the field of Modernism  she tasted
literature and art while she was growing up and ever since she was a very little girl
because she was born in an intellectual family of refined background: her father
was a renowned and well-known philosopher as well as a literary critic, whereas
her sister Vanessa Stephen (later Bell when she married Clive Bell) was a painter;
therefore, she comes from a very cultured environment and intellectual
atmosphere where she completely immerged herself in literature and art topics.
In 1912 she married Leonard Woolf, a man of letter and culture, but the great
importance of this marriage is also because they were a relevant literary team 
they founded together in 1916 the Hogarth Press, a publishing house: of course, in
a society in evolution the press was fundamental because it made people aware of
what was new and contributed to the evolution of Modernism. Moreover,
another relevant literary phenomenon at the beginning of the 20th century was the Bloomsbury group, a literary circle formed
by a group of artists and intellectuals who used to meet in the neighborhood of Bloomsbury and who actually shaped the literary
background of Modernism  it was an interdisciplinary group composed of literates of every kind: there were not only writers,
but also economists, philosophers, poets, psychiatrists and sociologists, therefore it’s a group including artists that come from
diverse fields of knowledge (it’s an ulterior element testifying to the fact that Modernism shouldn’t be seen as an univocal
movement, instead it’s a set of “isms” characterized by a continuous synergy between the arts). During her life Virginia Woolf
wrote a lot also collaborating with her sister Vanessa Bell who usually used to take care of the covers  among her most
important works we can glimpse:

 “Flush”, a biography of Elizabeth Barret Browning’s dog where she tries to enter the mind of the dog and see the city
life through its eyes and perspective  here we don’t encounter those important characters we usually bump into
novels, instead she decided to focus on elements of daily life to which nobody ever paid attention, so it is extremely
experimental.
  “A Room of One’s Own”, a pamphlet based on some lectures held in Cambridge where she would be claiming the
opportunity for the female gender of being admitted to a culture that in the English society of the time was only
addressed to the male gender  a very important quote is “One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not
dined well. A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction”: by saying this Virginia would be
underlining the importance of the woman’s economic autonomy and stability as well as the relevance of having a
space of your own, a private room that’s not invaded.
 “To the Lighthouse”, a famous novel having a tripartite structure and that has a deep connection to the visual arts 
the first part is about the description of the family’s journey to the lighthouse, we have interaction between the various
characters and a painter who’s trying to finish her painting is hosted; the second part includes the war’s years which are
condensed in a few pages, probably because she wants to erase these memories whereas in the third part the family
finally takes this trip to the lighthouse and the painter’s painting is finished.
 “Mrs. Dalloway”, where there is a great example of the stream of consciousness’
technique also used in Joyce.
 “Jacob’s Room”, an experimental novel where we understand the main aspect from the
title  the novel isn’t going to be about someone, but about a space with Van Gogh’s
painting in the background; as a matter of fact, this novel has been defined by critics as
a novel “in absentia”: she represents the character not by describing him but through a
room, so the character is created through the objects he left behind and the place he
lived in.
 Important to be remembered, even though it wasn’t written by Virginia Woolf herself, is
her biography written by Quentin Bell (Vanessa’s second son), whose cover presents a
portrait of the writer depicted by the sister  in the cover she portrays her in a sort of
reflective and meditative pose as she’s sitting on an armchair, a position we’ll bump
into again and that’ll be at the center of her short story “The Mark on the Wall”.

As far as Virginia’s life outside the literary background is concerned, it must be remembered that she was very sensitive and she
had in the course of her existence several depressive crises that turned her into a particularly tormented figure  she had lost a
brother in the Great War, a person she loved, therefore it was quite hard for her to approach the second war after what she’d
been through: she will die in 1941 by letting herself drown in the river, but before committing this act she left a touching letter
to her husband in which she said that she couldn’t go on anymore. A particular important year was 1910 at that time, because
the two post-Impressionist exhibitions held in Grafton Gallery opened to the British public the European avant-garde  “On or
about December 1910, human character changed”: here it’s not underlined a specific moment because it says “on or about”,
instead it’s referring to a general period of great change related to these exhibitions held in London. To the first exhibition
belongs a very important impressionist artist whose name is Cézanne: he had a great impact on both English literature and
writers such as Virginia Woolf or Lawrence thanks to his paintings  recurring themes are for example the mountains (he was
obsessed with them and wanted to challenge the mimetic representation of reality by going beyond the bidimensional image,
which is the inherited culture and the last representation of reality. He painted many canvases always portraying the subject of
the mountain since under different light effect and different atmospheric conditions it seemed to constantly change but the
various paintings with the same subject also give us the idea of Cézannian experimentation where increasingly intensity of color
and geometricization of forms is present  in the painting the fields look like square, a precise geometric form whereas the
landscape around the mountain is barely defined and it’s rendered through several patches of colors that make the landscape
look very gloomy and indefinite. Besides, this painting recalls a part of the Prussian Officer’s story, in which the young soldier
seeks his own inner peace in the white mountains, characterized by a huge chromatic
intensity, which are however unattainable and unreachable), trees (they give a sort of frame
to the painting, a frame that might partially send back to the short story of “Kew Gardens”,
where the frame is created through the petals of the oval-shaped flower-bed) and fruit: as
opposed to how still life was represented in the past, here the fruit, even though it’s
chaotically positioned on the white tablecloth and on the
point of falling down, seems to have a dynamicity and
vital force of its own since they are subdued to the law of gravity. Virginia Woolf was
particularly attracted to these paintings and her quote “Is it not possible that some writers
will come along and do in words what these men have done in paint?” is clearly to underline
that she was so impressed by this new and innovative way of writing that she considered it
as an experimental and creative way of describing the surrounding reality. Lawrence instead
said “Probably the most joyous moment in the whole history of paintings was the moment
when three incipient impressionists discovered light and, with it, color (…) it was a revolution Cézanne began but which nobody,
apparently, has been able to carry on”  he would be saying that Impressionism had a great impact on how colors were
represented on the canvas: the surrounding reality and the human being radically change with the effect of light as well as the
use of color, whose technique is different compared to the academic and recent pictorial tradition. Besides, he stated that
Cézanne was the painter who went beyond the traditional image and the cliché, someone who revolutioned the perception of
the real  in fact, Lawrence affirmed that Cézanne managed to grasp the truly essence of the apple and he will even give a
name to this by defining it as “the appleness of Cézanne apple”, because his apples are more alive and real than our cliché of
apple; he says then that everybody should follow his example, but actually nobody carried it on.
Kew Gardens  The first edition of Kew Gardens was published by the Hogarth Press and at once the reader can understand
that its “decorations” are really appropriate because it would be suggesting the image of a garden. Indeed, below we glimpse
“decorations by Vanessa Bell”, which is an innovative element because we usually
speak of “illustrations”: in the story these pictorial elements don’t have the
function of adorning the page, instead they are an essential part of the work and
an integrated part of the text, therefore it’s an experimental cover where these
artistic decorations painted by the sister seem to be a part of the story itself. This is
actually an experimental under many points of view  for example, the first page,
that presents a description of the garden and introduces the setting of the story,
appears to be a painting full of life and emotion (“The light fell either upon the
smooth, grey back of a pebble, or, the shell of a snail with its brown, circular veins,
or falling into a raindrop, it expanded with such intensity of red, blue and yellow
the thin walls of water (…) Then the color was flashed into the air above, into the
eyes of the men and women who walk in Kew Gardens in July”): it almost looks like Virginia used the brush instead of the pen
and painted through words the flower-bed like impressionist artists do, so with words she manages to render the effect of light
and the colors that shine within the flower-bed and in the garden. Another example could be the SNAIL that represents a sort of
thread throughout the whole story, because the writer moves momentarily away from it every time she starts describing
fragments of the couples’ daily life happening in Kew Gardens and then she gets back to focus on it again  in the Modernist
viewpoint the snail is fundamental, especially in Virginia Woolf because it shows up again in another story, which is “The Mark
on the Wall”: the snail actually seems to be something insignificant and valueless, but it’s something belonging to our everyday
life and it’s exactly with Modernism that we start giving space to those subjects that in literature and art were never given the
right amount of importance). It’s through this nail that we come to know about the lives of the various couples visiting Kew
Gardens  actually here the writer doesn’t provide a lot of information about them, but just pieces of dialogues and memories
of their past: the first couple here takes a trip down memory lane and remembers fragments of their past. The husband Simon
remembers that one day he asked a woman named Lily to marry him and that her answer seemed to depend on the behavior of
the dragonfly (so casualty, but the reader acknowledges that Lucy rejected his marriage proposal since now he’s married to
another woman called Eleonor) whereas the wife has this memory of her painting with other little girls by the side of the lake,
where she experienced a first kiss on the neck given by an old woman who she calls “the mother of all kisses”. The following
couple is instead composed of an old man who’s mentally devastated by the memories of the war and who’s persecuted by
those bloody and cruel images, and a young man called William who looks after him  by introducing the old man, Virginia is
making war enter the story and she denounces it indirectly (“Women!, Widows! Women in black!”  the old man is referring to
all those women who lost their sons and husbands in the battle). Virginia also introduces two other couples  the first is the
viewpoint of two middle-class women whose attention is suddendly caught by the figure of the old man and his strange words,
but then they understand he’s in a state of complete madness (it would represent a denounce of the psychological effects that
war can have on human beings) whereas the last couple is formed by
two young people whose gestures hint at an intense love
relationship, but they still need to discover a lot about life. Of course
it’s an extremely experimental story because there’s no omniscient
narrator  the reader here doesn’t seem to be offered the bird’s-eye
view we usually get from the omniscient narration, but a ground-level
perspective of the snail, whose viewpoint is stronger than the other
people because whereas the easily walk around the garden and talk
about their problems without having to overcome anything, the snail
instead struggles with all the obstacles that cross its path (“All these
objects lay across the snail’s progress between one stalk and another
to his goal. Before he had decided whether to circumvent the arched tent of a dead
leaf or to breast it there came past the bed the feet of other human beings”).

IMPRESSIONISM  Therefore for the writing of her story, Virginia Woolf got
inspired a lot by Impressionism, an artistic movement which developed in France in
the second half of the nineteenth century  these artists decided to get out of
their ateliers and start painting “en plain air” (outside), a practice made much
easier by the introduction on the market of paint tubes and easels, so everything
was easily transportable. Before this movement developed we dealt with portraits
representing religious themes or relevant historical characters, but these artists
revolutioned the thematics by paying more attention to contemporary subjects such as urban landscapes or also scenes of
ordinary life, which is actually really enjoyable because we witness people going out and dining together, therefore it’s a joyful
and full of life moment. More specifically they paid a lot of attention to the physicality of the body and gave extreme
importance to the element of light  they were fascinated by light and by the change that subjects undergo as light quickly
moves during the day (it means that light changes very quickly as the day unfolds, therefore these artists developed a pictorial
style characterized by quick brushes). A great example of this movement is Claude Monet’s painting “Impression Sunrise” with
very quick brushes and where the environment, the boats, the buildings in the background and everything else are pictured with
the same pictorial style of the waves  here light has a predominant role because the juxtapositon of warm (red,orange) and
cold colors (green and blue) particularly render the evocation of fog and even the colors we usually glimpse at sunset.
Moreover, it’s just the context that allows the bystander to make out the details of the scene, otherwise it would be kind of
struggling. Another typical example of the impressionist tecnique is the Monet’s painting on the right called “Woman with a
Parasol”  here the female figure is surrounded by the tipical warm and springly impressionist colors such as the pink of
flowers and green of the grass, but very important is to notice that it’s a painting realized “en plein air”, where the atmosphere
is able to fully grasp the colors of nature evoking a sensation of spring or summer breeze. Overall it can be considered as a
painting where a lot importance is given to the light and to those colors that can be encountered outside the ateliers and among
nature.

THE MARK ON THE WALL  Starting from a material element, which is apparently
quite insignificant (a mark on the wall), a
completely unattached stream of thoughts is
developed. The story actually begins with the
protagonist who’s comfortably sitting in her
armchair and about to smoke, but suddendly
she notices something on the wall several
inches above the mantelpiece that makes her
mind travel (“Perhaps it was the middle of
January in the present year that I first looked up
and saw the mark on the wall (…) I looked up
through the smoke of my cigarette and my eye
lodged for a moment upon the burning coals,
and that old fancy of the crimson flag flapping from the castle tower came into my mind
(…) Rather to my belief the sight of the mark interrupted the fancy, for it is an old fancy
(…) The mark was a small round mark, black upon the white wall, about six or seven
inches above the mantelpiece”). The narrator can’t immediately identify the mark, an
element which provokes a sequence of reflections on its possible identity (she wonders
if it’s a nail, a hole or something coming out from the wall)  indeed, the story wouldn’t actually be “about” the mark on the
wall, but rather what it prompts the narrator to think about and recollect: as well as speculating about what the mark she’s
watching might be, the narrator’s mind wanders to much bigger questions and meditations  she reflects on her relationship
with literature, knowledge, the nature of life in modern civilization, where Shakespeare found his inspiration, what the afterlife
might be like and even the impact of gender roles in the contemporary society. As well as Kew Gardens this story appears to be
strongly experimental and originates from a visual element, from which the protagonist’s reflections and emotions, composed of
flashbacks and flashforwards, evolve  from the very beginning the purpose of the story seems to be the understanding of the
origin and nature from where she physically is, that is in her armchair: firstly she thinks of a nail, so she starts investigating about
the family who lived in that house before her; then she assumes it’s the petal of a flower that’s remained attached on the wall,
something which causes a sort of digression revealing the protagonist’s attitude of not being such a great landlady (“And yet
that mark on the wall is not a hole at all. It may even be caused by some round black substance, such as a small rose leaf, left
over from the summer, and I, not being a very vigilant housekeeper – look at the dust on the mantelpiece, for example, the dust
which, so they say, buried Troy three times over”). Then she says “let me catch hold of the first idea that passes”, a quote that
brings the protagonist to think about Shakespeare, of course a pillar of the English literature and she tries to identify him in the
moment of inspiration; after this the protagonist also starts developing some digressions about the English history and Britain
culture by introducing for example in her speech the “Whitacker table of predecency”, a sort of British almanac having the
function of delineating the rules of succession. After all these digressions, the story presents a twist because at a certain point a
person walks into the room and interrupts this stream of thoughts by stating the desire to purchase a newspaper and by
speaking of the ongoing war: it’s actually this person who reveals the mark on the wall’s mystery  it turns out to be a snail
and the story closes with the narrator repeating to herself that the mark had been a snail all along (“Someone is standing over
me and saying…” “I’m going to buy a newspaper” “Yes?” “Though it’s no good buying newspapers… Nothing ever happens. Curse
this war; God damn this war!... All the same, I don’t see why we should have a snail on our wall” “Ah the mark on the wall! It was
a snail”).

D.H. Lawrence
Considered as one of the pillars of the twentieth-century English literature, Lawrence was born in the
Midlands in 1885 from a mining father, therefore he came from a totally different
background compared to other writers such as Virginia Woolf who grew up in a
sophisticated environment and in an intellectual family or James Joyce who belonged to
the wealthy bourgeoisie  on the contrary, Lawrence was actually brought up in the
working class and had to struggle a lot before he could emerge as a writer, but also in
this circumstance there were sometimes issues since he was long haunted by his
homeland, which often condemned his works for obscenities. Overall, he became a very
famous and prolific writer when he went to London  at the beginning of the 20th
century, Ford Maddox Ford, the author of “The Good Soldier” and director of the well-
known literary journal “The English Review”, published on the journal one of Lawrence’s
first short stories (it belonged to the collection of the Prussian Officer) since he
considered as a sort of man of genius. Among his important works we can glimpse for example “Sons and Lovers”, the story of
how he became a writer but unfortunately the book didn’t come that easy and when he submitted the work to his publisher he
remained quite disappointed when he saw the rejection letter; then other
quite revolutional works in his career were “The Rainbow”, a novel seized by the
police and banned almost as soon as it was published because of his strong and
clear representation of sexuality and “Women in Love”, the sequel of the
earlier mentioned novel focusing on the relationship between two sisters.
Apart from these relevant works, Lawrence was pretty known thanks to the
novel “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”, published for the first time in Florence in
1928 but actually It was immediately banned throughout England and
America because considered extremely obscene  because of this situation, a
trial (Queen vs. Penguin) where the Queen of England decided if the work
was going to be published took place around 1960, a period of sexual
revolution and great change, even though the novel had been written at the end
of 1920: here many intellectuals and writers who exalted the artistic value of the work came as witnesses and were called to
testify  when the trial was won by Penguin the novel was eventually published by the same publishing house, became the
bible of the new generation since it started being read by many teenagers and therefore gained its well-deserved popularity.
Actually this novel wasn’t meant to exalt the element of sex, instead it exalted the rebirth of the protagonist in her body
discovering a part of herself that had ben previously been totally repressed, but however because of the alleged obscene
representation of sexuality this book was harshly persecuted by a lot of censorship and critics  an example could be easily
given by Kate Millet, a literary critic and feminist who in 1971 fiercely attacked Lawrence by accusing him of being against
women. Another very painful story for Lawrence was the seizure of the paintings  the writer appears to be the author of an
endless production and has experimented with various genres, from poetry to novels and from short stories to critical essays,
but in the last phrase of his life he devoted himself to painting very expressive and deformed bodies: in 1929 Lawrence
organized an exhibition in London where he exposed his whole artistic production, but however his paintings were seized almost
immediately by the police for obscenities  the main cause of the seizure was the visibility of the pubic hair in the female
painting which manifested a sort of dimension more linked to the instinctive animal world (another example could be the
painting “Dandelions” displaying a peasant urinating against a board  it was a painting rejected even by the organizer of the
exhibition because visually it was unpresentable, unacceptable, very extreme and unpoetic). Therefore, it becomes evident that
from a literary and artistic point of view Lawrence was strongly criticized for the apparently obscene and unconventional
elements that he portrayed in his works. As far as his life outside the literary and artistic field is concerned, it’s actually relevant
to mention that he voluntarily lived as an exile leaving England for the first time in 1912 with Frieda, a character who will later
become his wife and life partner  she was the wife of one of Lawrence’s teachers and because of this a scandal broke out
because she completely abandoned her children and husband to follow Lawrence on various trips around the world: he travelled
a lot because living in the industrial area of the Midlands didn’t allow him to experience the London intellectual stimulus and in
general wasn’t exposed to all those innovations that came from the rest of the continent, so the meeting with Frieda, who
instead came from the German aristocracy, marked a great change in the author’s life  we understand that Lawrence actually
wants to be a citizen of the world, someone who wanted to go in remote places far from industrialization.

The Prussian officer  The story takes place before the event of World War I, which is defined by Lawrence as a “suicide for all
Europe”, a period of chaos/destruction where people of the new generation and many soldiers who sacrificed their lives by
fighting at the boarders were murdered. “Why must I fire off my gun in the darkness towards a noise?  the conflict implied the
use of new sophisticated weapons and machines nobody had ever used before and as the soldiers were wielding these kinds of
weapons the situation got really complicated because they were always fighting in clouds of smoke, there wasn’t the possibility
of glimpsing the enemies anywhere, so they had to point their guns somewhere without a specific and visible target hoping to
shoot at the enemy; besides, the element of war isn’t only analyzed in Lawrence’s The Prussian Officer, where the two main
characters are victims of the military code and slaves of the system, but also in
the short stories in Virginia Woolf  in “Kew Gardens”, especially in the
second couple passing by the oval-shaped bed, we encounter this devastated
man who’s clearly lost his mental balance and makes conversation with his
caregiver William referring to all those women who lost their husband and
sons in the conflict whereas in the “Mark on the Wall” the reference to war
shows up at the end by the person who interrupts the protagonist’s flow of
thoughts. “A war of artillery, a war of machines (…) and men no more than the
subjective material of the machine”  might send back to what the Vorticist
artists had analyzed in “War Number”, where the weapons the soldiers are
holding seem an extension of their body, their arms are undistinguishable
from the weapon itself, therefore they are like robots, machines reproducing the
movements of the human being.

Apart from the element of war, important for the general meaning of the
story, it’s relevant to underline that Lawrence is an experimental author who
found a fundamental place
among the Modernist artists  according to him, due to the ongoing excessive
industrialization, mechanization and extreme rationalization of the man, human
beings have gradually become deaf to sexuality, sensitivity, instinct and to the vital
part of the ego, which is completely repressed leading to the fragmentation of the
man  here Lawrence would be suggesting that we try recovering that ability to
listen to our soul and separating ourselves from those social rules that impose
respectability but bring to the complete repression of our true nature (theme
deeply analyzed in the tale). The picture on the left is a cover realized by the
expressionist painter Kirchner for the collection of “The Prussian Officer and Other
Stories” published in 1914  the cover is an icon hiding a lot of elements that
want to convey a specific message to the reader; besides, the human figures here
are presented as caricatures and there’s chromatic intensity with a very strong
contrast in colors. In the foreground there’s an officer staring into the void with
fleshy lips hinting at a sort of hidden sexuality and a mutilated hand which is
apparently causing a never-ending suffering since blood seems to be still coming
out of the amputation (he lacks of the “right” hand, so he’s missing something
right)  this could have a double meaning because it could be referring to the cruelty and atrocity of the war, but it’s more
likely to mean that the uniform he’s wearing is mutilating his nature of human being and preventing him from expressing his
homosexual instinct. In the background there’s instead the figure of a young man whose face gives him manly traits whereas
the body has a womanlier form  he’s looking at a reflection of himself at the mirror, which is in return displaying a sort of red
and devilish figure that makes the reader understand that he’s not accepted by society; besides, the young man here is a sort of
synthesis between two elements: the first is that he represents the soul of the officer who feels both male and female, whereas
the second is that the young man would represent the object of his own desire. It’s important to underline that the parallelism
between the Prussian officer and this painting shows that both characters are victims  the officer plays a very important role
in society, but at the same time he’s homosexual and the strict military code doesn’t allow him to express his feelings for the
young man, so even if this forced repression leads the officer to take advantage of his social position to abuse the young man
making him look like he’s the main and only victim, the officer is himself restrained by the uniform which doesn’t let his
feminine side out  it’s a sort of cage that inevitably brings to a tormented state of mind.
Introductory plot and short analysis  it’s a tale from a military background dealing with the topic of sexual repression and it’s
a story between two people whose tense relationship escalates into their death: Lawrence introduces at the beginning of the
story the Officer, an irritable man from a wealthy family who, having lost his inheritance gambling, was forced to pursue the
military career to make a living (he’s an extremely tormented figure depicted as torturer because he targets the soldier and
abuses him verbally and physically) and the young man Schöner, a simple, instinctive person who has a girlfriend to whom he
writes poetic verses as love gestures and someone who quietly carries out his job during the compulsory military service. The
conflict of the story arises when the Officer starts developing homosexual desires for the elderly  unable to express his
feelings because the strict military code restrains him, to relieve his tension he tries to ruin the young man’s relationship with his
girlfriend by keeping him occupied with meaningless tasks: the Officer’s tension and aggression build until he’s physically
beating the elderly, therefore there are harassments that increase in intensity until the CLIMAX, the point of maximum tension,
the moment the elderly cannot take it anymore which unfolds in the woods  blinded by the pain, physical and psychological
torture, the young man seizes the opportunity to violently murder the Officer by breaking his neck over a tree stump;
afterwards the young man tries to find a way out in the white mountains he sees in the horizon (these mountains are
characterized by a clear contrast  their intense white for the elderly represents a symbol of “inner salvation”, therefore he
tries to desperately reach them, but the snow covering the mountains is an impenetrable ice, something which turns the
mountains into an unreachable place of salvation; besides, their strong chromatic intrensity suggests a sort of oximoric contrast
since the color white hints on one side at an uncontaminated nature and total pureness whereas on the other side it might
suggest the cold of death), but due to the enormous pain inflicted by the Officer he eventually collapses and dies in a hospital
(paradoxically the two men’s bodies will be placed next to the other according to the law of retaliation). Of course by reading
the story the Officer might appear as a mean and ruthless character, but he’s himself a victim of the military system which
represses the human nature and creates monsters  the Officer presents a
homosexual attraction to the young man which the military code forbids, so
he tries to sabotage his relationship, turns his attraction into a series of abuses
and takes advantage of his social condition mistreating the object of his own
desire. Here Lawrence doesn’t partially accuse the military system, instead he
does it explicitly by saying that the denial of one’s own sexuality and nature
leads to the transformation of people into monsters.

EXPRESSIONISM  The expressionist movement originated in the early

1900s in Germany and is characterized by two poles, one in Munich called
“Der Blaue Reiter” and the other one in Dresden called “Die Brücke”, a group
which focused on the representation of painful bodies, was particularly
attracted to puberty, thin bodies and more in general to the suffering caused by the war  it represents a pole that particularly
influenced Lawrence and to which belonged very famous expressionist painters such as Emil Node and Kirchner, a painter who
contributed to the depiction of the Prussian Officer and Other Stories’
collection cover; besides, this artistic movement is usually associated with
the German word ANGST (fear), which indicates a sort of state of inner
torment that cannot be described or held back. Expressionism was born in
direct contrast with Impressionism  whereas the second is bound to the
“external reality” where they attempt to represent reality by grasping
those very luminous and chromatic effects that allow the bystander to
have a sort of pleasant and interesting view on the outside world;
moreover they had a very positive attitude and conception of life, in fact
they portrayed subjects and elements that always had the intention of
conveying a strong joy of life. The first one instead is more directed to the
“internal reality” since these artists feel this urge to express through
painting the sensantions and moods  they completely refused the
concept of painting based on view’s pleasure, instead they focused on the
deep, dark interiority of the human soul and believed that the eye represented the mean to reach the inside to interact with our
psychological sensitivity: their attitude towards life had a big dramatic component because they looked inside of themselves to
find mainly distress and pain. In a nutshell, Expressionism brings to light the internal of the soul and pays more attention to
introspection, human sensitivity and materialization of moods rather than representing on the canvas the artist’s impressions
 the main elements that characterize this gloomier movement were mainly the deformation of human bodies, strong and
expressive chromatic contrasts that clearly go against the soft colors used by Impressionism and there’s also an evident
synthesis between suffering and anxiety among human beings. A great example of Expressionism might be “Fünf Frauen auf der
Straße” painted by Kirchner, who arrived in Berlin in 1911 and started depicting a series of works having as subjects characters
wandering in the streets of the city  in this painting the bystander witnesses five women moving in the light of a shop window
with deformed bodies characterized by cold aspects and sharp lines completely away from human warmth; besides, there also
seems to be a strong influence coming from far away from Europe since it looks like these women don’t have a face of their
own, they are the same and they’re all wearing African masks. Mainly in this painting Kirchner wanted to show the bystander
the frenzy, greyness and oppression of the big city, something carried out through the reduction of the chromatic range since
the predominant shades seem to belong to the green color, from which emerges the color black that delineates the
outline/dress of the figures and helps to distinguish them from the total green surroundings. Of course here the typical elements
of expressionism as opposed to impressionism are synthetized  expressive use of color, gloomy and not so cheerful
atmospheres, total lack of communication (even through the women are close to each other, Kirchner wanted to represent
their complete loneliness because there’s absolutely no conversation between them, just a stare into a shop window) and even
a filterfree denounce particularly towards the ipocrisy and falseness of the bourgeois society (they were against them and this
brought the exponents of this movement make their subjects lead a lifestyle completely opposed to the bourgeoisie 
portrayals of people seen as outsiders and who live on the outskirts of society like prostitutes, criminals or insane people) that
see beauty in art as a reassuring element, but since these artists were against them they wanted to get rid of this beauty by
introducing stark contrasts with gloomy colors that make the subjects appear very cold and impersonal  together with these
paintings, relevant is to remember Kirchner’s painting “Berlin Straßenszene”, where he portrays the chaoticity of the city with
characters who almost seem blind considering those quick black brushes on their eyes; in the foreground and in the background
there are many people, among which two women and two men with a caricatural face, that are walking in several directions
having no idea where they are headed and overall the painting is rendered full of distress and anxiety through the colors of dull
red, blue and cadaverous green. Another great example is given by Emil Nolde with “Mask Still Life III” where a depiction of five
masks with various grotesque expressions is provided to the bystander  these masks have the ability to convey a wide range
of emotions (red might stand for angry, aggression whereas yellow might mean jealousy), but even though the ability of having
emotions is typically human, here Nolde doesn’t introduce any human figure with which the viewers could identify. Besides,
even here the strong chromatic contrast is particularly evident since the dark and greenish blue background provides a contrast
to the rich yellow, red and orange of the masks  all of these emotions might embody the dark of the human soul and therefore
represent the driving force of German Expressionism.

the fox  The Fox is a short novel by Lawrence published on the magazine “The
Dial” in 1922: the setting of the story is Berkshire, England during the World War I (a
period that led to a sense of chaos and had a devastating effect upon the society,
especially women who suffered a lot because due to the shortage of men they
depended on themselves) and deals with the psychological relationships of three
characters involved in a sort of triangle of love and hatred. Met in college, the
female protagonist Banford managed to convince her friend March to live together
as chicken farmers in isolation from the rest of the world  therefore, the story
actually starts with a balanced situation where the two women are attempting to
live on their own, be autonomous and self-reliant, but right from the start the road
towards independence presents many obstacles since they have to face daily
concrete problems regarding the management of the farm but also relational
difficulties deriving from the absence of men. The protagonists are presented by
Lawrence in two complete different ways: Banford would be the fragile co-owner of
the farm, completely dependent on
March and her weak body only allows
her to handle books and domestic
chores whereas March is the opposite,
she’s strong, authoritative, almost
masculine and she’s actually the decision maker on the farm, where she does most
of the outdoor and heavy work  the stability and relationship between the two
women is upset by two main events in the story: the first crucial turning point is the
arrival of the fox, a wild and sly predator that threatens the two ladies’ safety since
it frequently disturbs the calm of the farm by stealing and murdering chickens and
is a concrete danger that represents one of the many obstacles of life that must be overcome
(in the conflict against the fox the two ladies are defeated because they try to kill the animal,
but they actually don’t manage, therefore Lawrence here would be stating that it’s not always
possible to overcome an obstacle but the importance lies in never giving up and keep trying; besides, later a relevant
connection between the fox and the soldier Henry will be established); the second crucial point is instead the arrival of Henry,
the grandson of the farm’s previous owner who neither knows that the farm had been sold to Banford and March nor that his
grandfather passed away  at the beginning Henry actually seems to be the solution to the two women’s problems since he
starts helping them with the hard work and above all manages to kill the fox, but on a metaphorical level he would be just
taking the place of the fox becoming a further obstacle in the women’s road: he represents a dangerous and sly predator whose
prey is March because he madly falls in love with her, therefore he breaks the balance between the ladies by asking March to
marry him and once again the women’s harmony is threatened on the relational level. Banford seems to be completely against
Henry and his relationship with March because with his arrival he would be depriving them of their dream of reaching
independence whereas March appears to be torn between her desire for stability with Banford and her attraction to the
prospects of marrying Henry and move to Canada  however, once again they are both defeated since Banford dies because of
a fallen tree whereas March, without her friend by her side anymore, finally accepts to marry Henry renouncing to her desire of
autonomy (it’s relevant to underline that even if the victim of the story seems to be Barnford, the reader actually here
understands that she never had doubts and never desisted from pursuing her aim, but she eventually ended up paying with her
life whereas March completely renounced her desire for freedom  reversal of roles because March seems to be the strongest
one on the outside, but she’s psychologically weak compared to Banford since she eventually surrenders to the seductive
power of the man whereas Banford, who was very fragile before, now imposes herself to defend her territory in order for her
and March to stay together on the farm, because she knows that without her friend her life will be completely empty. March at
the end seemingly accepts Henry’s proposal of marriage but she’s actually not sure whether she should set off to Canada with
him  probably she needed rest from all the problems and complexities that there had been, but most of all she failed to
decided because she had fear of losing her independence and didn’t want to forget what she and Banford had built and
celebrated here on the farm: the final remains open, because Lawrence wants to give the opportunity to the character to decide
for herself without he writing the ending.

 The Fox would be the story of two women whose love and friendship is put to test by the arrival of an intruder: prior to
Henry’s entry, the relationship between March and Banford excluded men, in fact Lawrence portrays a very female
environment made of understanding and harmony, but the threat to this peaceful atmosphere comes when the fox kills their
chickens and when the arrival of Henry at the farm completely changes the scheme of things. On the surface Henry appears to
be harmless and helpful, but beneath he’s a manipulator and cunning predator like the fox  he sort of planes Banford’s death
because he knows that getting rid of her is essential for his plan to overpower March, who at the end submits to Henry because
she feels she has no other option: the danger lies here, because Henry took March’s free will away, he completely manipulated
her but even if March agreed to move to Canade with him, her heart isn’t completely on board because she would repent what
she left behind. By reading the novel the reader surely understands that it explores various themes such as gender roles,
sexuality, femininity (there are also anti-femininists element in the story where it’s implied that men have this odd ability to
put a spell on women, that women have absolutely no way of “resisting” this magic), and pity of war (the war is only mentioned
in a couple of sentences where it’s stated that at the time it was hard to find food but actually no battles or war scenes are
described. However, war appears to be an obstacle to be overcome  in the story war is on one side external represented by
the conflict at the borders but also internal relating to the contrast between the male and female gender: therefore here the
war fought by the soldiers metaphorically becomes also a war fought by women who want to achieve emancipation, freedom
and independence), there are still two relevant elements to underline about the novel  the first is that the whole story can
also be interpreted in “Darwinian” terms since the characters fight like animals to prevail and to protect their territory whereas
the second element is that from a stylistic point of view the novel appears to be a sort of blend of different features: it has at
the same time a realistic and naturalistic trait, element identifiable by the naming of the chickens of the farm in the opening
page, and even a symbolistic meaning when we have the introduction of the Fox, the actual embodiment of March’s sexual
desire. Overall the novel is to be interpreted as a story of two women’s challenge for autonomy and desire for freedom and
independence, but the arrival of Henry turns this dream into a great failure  strong message on the part of the author,
because he would be saying the life is a continuous challenge, something filled with obstacles placed by destiny on the road,
therefore the story presents a realistic portrayal of all life’s difficulties and failures, but he’s also conveying a positive message,
that is a sort of invitation to fight for your ideals and follow your road.
ESPRESSIONI THE FOX