Rise of Screens and Being Seen: Literary Perspectives of Technological Advancement and its Toll of Observation
October 2024
As methods of communication and documentation became more widespread across the world following the innovations of the early twentieth century, the human image (in tandem with the human experience) was able to be recreated and displayed. Photography, audio/music recordings, and film allowed for people on opposite sides of the world to see one another. The presence of plots and storylines within film also allowed for the sharing of stories, differentiated from literature due to newfangled visual elements. However, these new creations of communication that came about in the twentieth century also shifted how individuals viewed each other. In “Dead Mabelle”, 1984, and “Krapp’s Last Tape”, the protagonists (albeit through differing mediums) navigate the impact that technological advancement has upon their own life but also how they view themself and others.
In Elizabeth Bowen’s “Dead Mabelle”, a reclusive bank worker named William Stickford goes to the theatre to view a new silent film. William, who usually passes the time by reading encyclopedias and philosophical writings, becomes obsessed with the film star. He becomes enamored with the way that she moves, and how close she seems in the photos. During a film scene where she is kissing a co-star, William attempts to break down what Mabelle is thinking about during intimacy. William, who has never been in a relationship, may have viewed this experience as some sort of replacement for a romantic partner. However, William soon learns that the film star has met an untimely death. The only woman that he had developed a connection with was now dead, but William is confounded, as her films still exist. As he had never seen the actress in person, her physical personhood continued through her movies. He struggles coming to terms with the fact that, as he watches her last-ever movie release, her image has outlived her human self. His immediate thought following the news is that her films will be recalled, as the narrator says, “Mabelle would be a shoe, a bag, a belt round some woman’s middle” (Bowen, “Dead Mabelle”, p. 284), hinting that William still sees the actress as an object for his entertainment.
George Orwell's 1984 completely warps the idea of being seen into a political messsage, represented by a deeply oppressive and dehumanizing state. The Party’s constant surveillance, symbolized by the ever-present image of Big Brother, creates a society where privacy is obliterated, and individuals lose their sense of autonomy. To be seen is not merely to be visible, but to be under continuous monitoring, judged, and controlled by the state. As constantly stated throughout the novel, "Big Brother is watching you" demonstrates the constant observation that everyone in the community faces. This surveillance goes beyond physical sight—it influences the thoughts and actions of individuals, as Big Brother can supposedly read and change the minds of those who stray from its teachings. The fear of being watched by the Party means that even the most intimate moments are vulnerable to scrutiny, resulting in self-censorship and enforced conformity. From this perspective of society, being observed becomes synonymous with being controlled and individual freedom is therefore suffocated under the weight of constant watchfulness. The ultimate consequence in 1984 is the loss of personal liberty, as people begin to perceive themselves through the eyes of the totalitarian system and lose their own sense of self along with it.
In Samuel Beckett’s short play “Krapp’s Last Tape”, the concept of being observed is viewed as a method of self-examination. Krapp listens to recordings of his younger self, alone on stage by himself. These recordings serve as moments of reflections upon his happier youth, where he tells his future self of his present epiphany. However, Krapp skips forward “impatiently” (54), showing that he no longer wants to hear what his younger self thought was so important. This may show a regret for not having pursued his epiphany, but then Krapp begins to resume the tape while he talks of his past love. Rather, he yearns for a moment of connection with the girl that he discusses. Now, Krapp is lonely and bitter, as evident by his relentless pausing and grouchy actions. The tapes act as a form of self-perceival, forcing Krapp to confront the difference between who he once was and who he has now become. Krapp perceives himself not just as an observer of the past, but as a subject who is being watched by the recording itself, as if his younger self is ashamed of his older version, unable to escape the cycle of self-reflection. The act of being observed in Krapp’s Last Tape is psychological and introspective, where Krapp becomes both the observer and the observed, trapped by the recordings that document his decline.
"Dead Mabelle" by Elizabeth Bowen, 1984 by George Orwell, and “Krapp’s Last Tape” by Samuel Beckett all explore themes of observation and self-awareness during the period when the human spirit and mind began to be captured and presented via radio recordings, film, or surveillance systems. These works also help to provide insight into how people in the twentieth century struggled to come to terms with being observed, both by others and by themselves. These works capture the fears and complexities of existing in a society that is progressively shaped by constant external observation, whether through the lens of a movie camera, the watchful eyes of the Party, or recordings cataloging one’s youth. As technology advanced during the modernist period, what was once lauded as art for art’s sake could be corrupted by the audience’s particular views on the subject matter. As for one’s sense of self, a work of literature encases each individual character within their own personal framing by the author. However, the modernist perspective on characters being observed within a literary work would further reveal that technology has only helped to create a more surveilled society, wherein even characters of present-day works feel the loss of autonomy in tandem with the author.
Opposing Modernism in America: Viewing the American Pre-War Scene through Everybody’s Magazine
September 2024
At the end of the 19th century, the modernist movement blossomed from the leftover factory smoke of the Industrial Revolution and the dirtied paint water of Realist artists. Life on Earth had changed dramatically in the 19th century. Wars had torn apart entire continents and the struggles of power were seen in its aftermath as world leaders rose and fell sporadically. In America, slavery was officially abolished. Science was beginning to be taken seriously by the mass population, and its numerous advances spread the seeds for a looming system of global communication. The inventions of Samuel Morse, Guglielmo Marconi, and George Stephenson brought about further technological advancements so that individuals could share and discuss ideas, spanning across the globe. As the world entered 1900, development was felt in nearly every field and subject. The creatives of the time felt that media too needed to be reconceptualized, and many magazines within the modernism movement helped to share their art, for art’s sake, within their small individual circulations. In contrast, Everybody’s Magazine represented what modernist magazines worked to combat.
In 1899, US Postmaster General John Wanamaker founded Everybody’s Magazine, whose first issue would be released that September. Based in New York City, the magazine focused on creating conversations surrounding issues in current American industry. Its editions heavily featured investigative pieces: a 1906 update by Upton Sinclair to his popular book The Jungle, short stories on racial differences by Jack London, and tales of Western adventure by G. W. Odgen. The magazine was highly successful across the Eastern American coast — the publication sold 150,000 copies in 1903 and over 750,000 copies in 1908. Its title displays that this magazine was for anyone to read and stay updated, and its large numbers of circulation only help to back up this point. Like Time or Life magazines, which began their publications in 1923 and 1936 respectively, Everybody’s sought to create a populist space for general discussions. However, Everybody’s closed their doors in 1929, after it had become a “pulp magazine.”
At its inception, Everybody’s was edited by Pearson’s Magazine editor Chauncy Montgomery M’Govern, who was one of the four men who was ever allowed to step foot inside Nikola Tesla’s laboratory. While Wanamaker was noted as the publication’s founder, he rarely assisted in its assemblage, and helped by continuing to contribute monetarily. In 1905, Wanamaker sold Everybody’s to E. J. Ridgway, who became both “editor and one of the proprietors,” as stated by a New York Times article.
Everybody’s Magazine was also a hotbed for muckrakers who pined for change. After graduating from Harvard University, Walter Lippmann began his journalism career working at the publication. Lippmann, who later coined the term ‘Cold War,’ wrote pieces on political trends in America in the 1910s and even offered presidential advice through his columns. This work led him to serve as an advisor to President Woodrow Wilson. During his time in this position, he collided with fellow Everybody’s writer George Creel, who had also taken a place in cabinet following his journalistic endeavors. Other frequent contributors include WWI reporter Herbert Kaufman, A. A. Milne with his serialization of The Red House Mystery (two years before he published his now-famous Pooh books), and Robert Frothingham, who helped to manage Everybody’s, but would later assist at Life Magazine.
Although the publication is New York-based, many of its short stories and journalistic features highlight global issues. Multiple pieces during its initial yearlong run highlight a sense of fear about the future, with respect to Industrialization and scientific innovation. The magazine targets Americans who are concerned about the state of the current world, but who still yearn to explore and digest it.
In its November 1914 issue, with the flame of war recently ignited, Frederick Palmer, who notes himself as “the only American correspondent authorized to accompany the British troops,” wrote a ten-page piece with extreme detail on the Belgian front during the First World War. He would continue to have his articles published in Everybody’s, almost always dealing with whatever war was currently in occurrence. His November writing is especially interesting, however, as the month prior he was arrested in Mexico City for covering the Battle of Veracruz. Rather than return home to Pennsylvania, he continued as a war correspondent for Everybody’s. He describes his journey throughout the war zone, dotted with several interviews with French military advisors as well as asking questions to the reader. Palmer ends his article, “For it is just possible that God is not fighting on the side of any one of them. We don’t know that He even approves of the war.” For his writings on WWI, Palmer was gifted the Distinguished Service Medal, the first journalist to ever receive this honor. At this point, America was neutral and not yet involved in the war. It can be assumed that the general reader is a pacifist, as most military/war-related pieces that are featured within the pages of the publication end with a questioning of the price of violence. However, as the war neared closer, Everybody’s began publishing pro-war articles, so it is evident that the beliefs of the editors shifted with the average American opinion. Arguably the most well-known of its contributors, Theodore Roosevelt, wrote a pro-war piece in 1915. H.G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw wrote a follow-up the next year urging America to end its neutrality. Many modernist thinkers were anti-war, so the magazine’s changed stance was notable when compared to T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land or Virginia Woolf’s journal writings on the destruction of war.
The piece that immediately follows Palmer’s in the November 1914 issue is by Bull Moose Party leader Chester H. Rowell on the re-election of California’s 23rd Governor, Hiram Johnson, a response to an initial writing by Creel on the same subject. Rowell’s article also includes a rebuttal from Creel, as well as a note from the editors that Theodore Roosevelt sent along a telegram including his thoughts on the matter.
The November edition also included several fiction inserts, the most noteworthy being the first-ever publication of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. The entirety of Act I is complete with colorful drawings and illustrations by American painter May Wilson Preston. The presence of this piece is significant in multiple ways. Firstly, with Shaw being an Irish playwright, his choice of publication location showcases the breadth of global influence that Everybody’s had at the time. Secondly, while Shaw had previously premiered the play a year earlier, the feedback received from its serialization led Shaw to revise, which led to the inclusion of its now most well-known lines, the “I could pass you off as the Queen of Sheba!” monologue.
The usage of color, photography, and illustration embedded within pieces was nothing new for printed publications of the period. However, Everybody’s stands out, as even its advertisements were featured in eye-popping colors. When the products advertised did well, as did E.J. Ridgway. Everybody’s participation in consumerism also helps to further separate the publication from the modernism movement.
Color printing was very expensive at the time, but the revenue made from its sold copies assisted in gaining established literary and journalistic talent as well as paying to send writers to cover faraway assignments. An example of this is Franz Boas, known as one of the founders of American anthropological writing, who was sought out to write a feature for the November 1914 issue. His piece “The Race-War Myth” includes no images at all, and the drop cap at the beginning of the piece has no additional frills, as others within the issue do. Such is also the case with Roosevelt, who was also featured in a 1907 article when he was interviewed on the truthfulness of nature writing. The ex-president’s readership helps to further show how influential Everybody’s was to the American mindset and global news.
Everybody’s Magazine always ends with a letter from the editors, sometimes dissecting a story featured within the edition. The November sign-off is especially powerful, given its positioning as the First World War gets underway. Echoing Palmer’s piece, managing editor Trumbull White writes, “War has always been horrible. This one is the crown of horrors, not only because it is so huge, not only because Christian nations are fighting Christian nations, but especially because most of the Christian nations have been making very real progress towards general peace.” He continues, writing on the Civil War and the unnecessary costs that came in the form of human lives. He closes with a letter sent to the editor by Booker T. Washington, offering to send in his own work to help highlight people of color within Everybody’s. Paradoxically, Everybody’s did not aim to include every body.
Everybody’s Magazine is a unique project when compared to modernist magazines of the same period. They encouraged writers of all descents and disciplines to send in their work, though Washington’s aforementioned statement may echo a different belief. Everybody’s stood out from modernist publications by allowing open discussions on global issues, which they believe everyone, regardless of proximity, should care about. As modernists wanted to make art for a very specific niche, Everybody’s yearned to create a mainstream publication to increase general knowledge of world events. In his poem “L'Homme Moyen Sensuel” (translates to The Average Sensual Man), Ezra Pound wrote, “Also, he'd read of Christian virtues in /
That canting rag called Everybody's Magazine”. Throughout this poem, the individual’s mindset is constantly changed by his worship of thinkers and publications, which Pound argues has taken away his individuality in lieu of a reliance on the media. From the modernist perspective, Everybody’s represents the depthless think pieces that have turned Americans into sheep.
Longevity in the Present: Warped Time as a Structure for Character Growth in Modernist Works
November 2024
The modernist movement, encapsulating the first half of the twentieth century, brought a malleability to literature that allowed writers and creators to innovate. One such ‘experiment’ is a unique warping of the representation of time, where its passage is viewed through changes in the individual rather than actual concrete, scientific markings. The entirety of James Joyce’s Ulysses and Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway take place over the course of one single day, jam-packed with character development and inner thought but lacking in solid plot dynamics, as is typical within the modernist movement. Other modernist works play off of a more unconventional method of interpreting time within literature — through the character’s own introspective changes. Within Woolf’s Orlando, Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops”, time is presented through the perspective of the protagonist, and adapts as they change and grow. These three works illustrate the overwhelmingness of time in the twentieth century by developing it in tandem with character growth.
In Orlando, the titular main character ages twenty years over three centuries. As a younger boy in the first portion of the book, Orlando serves in the royal court of Queen Elizabeth. Although the novel is written as though it is a factual biography, the narrator refers to the biographer as “highly restricted” (Orlando, p. 98) due to the lack of proper documentation. Therefore, the book only sometimes relies on using exact timeframes in order to place Orlando within a certain moment. While the sun sets over London, Orlando is waiting for Sasha, whom he loves, to meet up with him. The narrator notes each individual bell toll of the midnight clock at St. Paul’s Cathedral, each tick increasing his anxiety that she will not return to him, as the narrator states, “When the twelfth struck, he knew his doom was sealed” (p. 60). Mentions of time being concrete and known within any given time in a firmly factual biography are rare, especially when the novel’s events occurred 300 years prior, but Woolf simultaneously paints these moments that include specific depictions of time as more notable for the reader, while also mocking the vexing precision of a classical biography. After Orlando and his lover have been separated, Woolf writes that the “timepiece of the mind” (p. 98) distorts one’s own perception of their life in regards to the events that they encounter, so therefore the biographer notes that the protagonist may age a century or only three seconds within a week (p. 99). However, time is noted as most essential and significant when Orlando wakes up from a week-long coma (within which, the reader could surmise that any amount of time may have passed, judging from the passage referenced above). The biographer notes that immediately following his arousal, Orlando has become a woman (p. 137), but in reality, this transition and her acceptance of it takes place over several pages and cannot be distilled into a single timestamp. As the novel closes, Orlando finds herself “terribly late” (p. 299) to go shopping. At this point, Woolf ponders, “For what more terrifying revelation can there be than that it is the present moment?” (p. 298). The actual outcome of catching up to the present is unknown to the reader, although it could be assumed that Orlando could begin growing at a normal pace with the rate of time. This ending could also be hinted at due to the long-awaited publication of her poem, the writing of which began in the 1600s and continues as she grows. At midnight, the bell again tomes, and the biographer signs off by dating the exact date, although it is no longer necessary as the book has closed and Orlando’s motives for the present are unknown.
In Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Stephen is an immature student at a boys’ boarding school, who comes in tune with his inner self as he explores the world beyond what is presented to him academically. There is a lack of a clear timeframe within the novel, as the reader can only tell advances in time from the changes in Stephen’s thoughts. For instance, the first paragraph of the piece depicts Stephen as a young child, yet an unconfirmed age, as he has a crush on a girl his age but still wets the bed (Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, p. 7-8). A line break occurs after that paragraph, and Stephen has suddenly entered school and is now around six or seven years old. The two vignettes can be seen as a representation of Stephen’s early memories, so the timeline of the novel is immediately established to be in line with the protagonist’s own flashbacks. The reader is not informed of anything that Stephen himself does not remember. Using the stream-of-consciousness technique present in many modernist novels, including Orlando, the character begins to be more introspective as the novel progresses. This is especially notable in the case of Stephen’s beliefs about religion, which mature as he ages. As the book continues, Stephen loses his virginity and begins to reflect on his own religious beliefs. He views women in general in a different light after this experience and vows to become a priest. Upon meeting with his school’s director, his feelings towards piety begin to fade, with his unsureness about the future still reflecting his inner youth (p. 153). The book culminates with his acceptance of self after he has an epiphany upon seeing beauty as a young woman to show that he has become more sophisticated and possibly even reached adulthood. Stephen’s general ages during these aforementioned plot points are not strictly given, however, his personal diary offers his thoughts over the course of several days. It is especially interesting that Joyce provides the audience not with the current ages of Stephen, but instead his day-to-day philosophical changes. Rather, the diary aspect helps to reveal that his age was never important in the context of the novel, but only the progression of his thoughts in terms of creating a timeline.
E.M. Forster presents an incalculable method of time within his piece “The Machine Stops”, published in 1909. In this futuristic science fiction short story, all humans live underground. Everyone is housed in windowless individual cells, which Forster compares to a beehive. They rarely leave their cells, and use a technological system referred to as the Machine in order to share knowledge and communicate with each other. However, with the entire population underground, the Sun and Moon cycles are therefore obsolete. In its place, the Machine defines time for those who have no choice but to obey it. The press of a button, which can fill the room with light or darken it completely, has replaced the need for sleep cycles. Food is also presented with a similar button. Even still, the Machine still hopes to gain control of its followers’ conceptions of the past, such as with its goal of reframing the French Revolution as if it had happened in tandem with the technology of the Machine. Vashti is the protagonist of the story, and throughout the piece, her only occupation and/or hobby is to attend lectures. Despite her lack of schedule as well as the ability to sleep and eat on demand, Vashti repeatedly protests that she “ha[s] not the time” (p. 5) to see her son, who lives one travel day away, although the audience is not told if her perception of a day differs from the 24-hour conception. Once she is convinced to come visit him, she is startled by an “unfamiliar glow, which was the dawn.” (p. 8). In this new-age portrait of the world, time has lost meaning, and even its physical appearance (through the light of the Sun and the darkness of the Moon) is viewed as disturbing. However, in line with Portrait and Orlando, time changes are seen as the character learns and adapts. Throughout the piece, Vashti conquers her fears of the outside world (outside of her room, to be specific). Even as she leaves the Machine’s grasp and makes a break for the aboveground realm, she says, “To-morrow — some fool will start the machine again, to-morrow.” Although the Machine has warped their conceptions of time, the past, present, and future still exist, and have not been deteriorated by the Machine’s control over individual knowledge.
All three aforementioned works showcase how the individual consciousness of the present day takes precedence over time in terms of years or dates. Rather, this tactic allows the audience to know the characters within their own time frames and to not be diluted by comparing their literary lifetimes to the wars and crises that could be present in their reality. The characters of modernist novels are shown as individuals with thoughts that have the capacity to learn, grow, and mature. Within the reality of the present day in which these pieces were written, it can be seen that the recent advances in technology could be viewed as distracting, when compared to a basic historical knowledge of the Technological Revolution and its subsequent productions. By removing the guardrails of placing a character specifically within human time, the characters are able to be more introspective. This is seen especially in Orlando, as she becomes more flustered as she reaches the ‘present moment’ near the end of the novel, having also experienced a world that lacked the ease of the telegram or the car. During the modernist movement as a whole, time in the twentieth century was perceived as in relation to the human experience rather than as a scientific marker.