Moments of apperception in the modern novel: a study of Henry James, Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster and James Joyce related to the psychiatric and philosophic developments in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries

摘要

This thesis is an examination of the moment of apperception,uda special form of insight, which occurs frequently in the novelsudof Henry James, Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster, and James Joyce.udSuch moments are not confined to modern literature and I discussudearlier examples which derive from a variety of intellectualudtraditions. The marked frequency of such moments in modernudliterature can, I believe, be traced to the new thinking inudpsychology and philosophy in the late nineteenth and earlyudtwentieth centuries, which emphasizes the role of the unconsciousudmind and stresses the way the individual conditions his responses.udI use the term 'apperception', after Leibnitz and Kant, toudindicate the way the self informs these moments. I also trace theuddevelopment of this thinking for the light it throws upon theudmoments in the novels.udHenry James's novels offer many examples of such moments.udMost occur at the level of personal and social relationshipsudand are highly qualified by the previous experiences andudpreconceptions of the characters. Some suggest pathologicaludstates of mind. James employs a series of elaborate devices toudpresent the moments.udThere are a number of examples in Virginia Woolf's novels of moments of apperception into self and other. But there areuda greater number which present apparent insights into extremesudof experience. The moments represent the attempts, and thefieeds,udof the characters, to recreate experience in terms of their ownudpersonalities.udE. M. Forster's characters, at least in the first four novels,udexperience moments of apperception into qualities of the universe,udinto themselves, and into others. Often, in these early novels,udthe responses seem conventional and highly rhetorical in presentation.udOnce again, the moments seem to be the products of the perceiver'sudmind. In A Passage to India, however, the treatment is far moreudsearching. Various approaches to the truth are tried but noneudyields a final answer.udJames Joyce proceeds, from his notion of the epiphany, toudpresent epiphanies unknown to the characters which reveal significantudqualities to others and to the reader. He also presents epiphaniesudof which they are conscious. These are moments of apperception.udThe techniques of presentation are especially important in Joyce.udThey are not only the medium of the apperception but in a senseudthe apperception.udThe moments of apperception as presented by the four novelistsudalso throw light upon such apperceptions as they may themselvesudhave experienced. Although no final objective truth may be attained,uda study of these moments yields other satisfactions and suggestsudat least an approach to more objective ways of thinking.