Modernism AND Empire

Not forgetting the context of the module, that Modernism and Empire are linked, I read "Brown Stocking" with regard to the multiplicity of perspectives that the Other, not the woman but the empire, can offer. Modernist techniques, Auerbach claims, allows the writer to approach the empire "from many sides as closely as human possibilities of perception and expression can succeed in doing" (536).

Lynette wrote

"how then can modernist explorations of thought be equally representative of all ways of life?"

I approached this question in the following way: If one substitutes the subjects of the essay from a) Mrs. Ramsay, the trip to the light house and Lily Briscoe's work with b) the British Empire (and I do not know if this is oversimplifying the essay for my purposes), it is possible to argue that the latter, like the former can only be partially known. The complexity of the empire will inevitably "remain unexpressed, enigmatic, only dimly to be conjectured" (551). Through an interest in the daily life, minute details and thought processes, the modernist techniques underline the innate commonalities in mankind such that "there are no longer even exotic peoples" (552). In this sense, I think what Auerbach claims is that modernist techniques may be said to be able to present the exotic empire not as a mere exterior Other, but an extension of the common interior of humanity.

- Christine