Exercices de LLCER Anglais : Littérature : le roman moderne

Read the following short excerpt from a modernist novel and identify the narrative technique used: 'He walked down the street. The sky was grey. Why did she leave? The coffee tasted bitter. It reminded him of that morning in 1920. Time seemed to stop.' Select the correct technique from the following list: 1) Omniscient Narrator, 2) Stream of Consciousness, 3) Epistolary form. Briefly justify your choice by noting how the passage reflects the internal flow of thoughts rather than a logical linear progression.

Read the following extract from Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway (1925) and analyze the narrative technique used: 'For having lived in Westminster—how many years now? Well, over twenty years, surely—she felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged. She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on.' 1. Identify the literary technique where the narrator shifts between the character's internal thoughts and the external setting. 2. Explain how the punctuation (dashes and semicolons) contributes to the rhythm of the character's mind, considering the mental frequency $f$ of thoughts as a metaphor for the flux of time $t$.

Analyze the following excerpt from Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway (1925) and evaluate how the narrative structure disrupts traditional temporal flow. 'Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. For Lucy had her work cut out for her. The doors would be taken off their hinges; Rumpelmayer's men were coming. And then, thought Clarissa Dalloway, what a morning—a fresh, crack of a wave; chill, crisp as if issued to children on a beach. What a lark! What a plunge!' Compare the objective chronological time ($t_c$) of the domestic preparations with the subjective psychological time ($t_p$) of Clarissa's inner thoughts. Discuss how the author uses free indirect discourse to bridge the gap between these two temporal experiences.