Nonconformity emerging through literature: a comparative analysis of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and The Bell Jar

Abstract

In literature, modernism is mostly associated with themes such as disillusionment, exile, individuality, loss of religion, secularism, political and social critique, rejecting and questioning tradition, and so forth. People of the late 19th and 20th centuries were encouraged to think and behave freely through literature. It introduced a mindset that defied and questioned customs, regulations, and other socially acceptable actions. Nonetheless, the essential ideas of modernism are thought to be consciousness and individualism. Beyond the expectations or needs of society, modern literary texts reveal the inner self of an individual. One must delve deeply into the background, context, and unique perspectives of everything to comprehend how this occurred via literature. It is stated that an author cannot produce great literature if their environment does not impact their writings. Hence, to acknowledge the influence of surroundings and the non-conformist approach to those, this paper aims to analyze two of the greatest modernist novels - A Portrait of the Artist as A Young Man by James Joyce and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. Therefore, the paper aims to analyze the two main characters of the mentioned novels and the context, connecting with the authors and contemporary society to understand how non-conformity emerged in literature, the influence of contemporary societies, and the consequences of conveying such non-conformity. Related theories to the research area are psychoanalytic theory, feminist criticism, and biographical criticism.