Form and structure in Modern novel

Form and structure in modern novel

Modernism is a breaking away from any specific rules. Consequently modern novels do not emphasize too much on form or structure upon the novel, the writer allowed the internal logic of the novel as well as the flow of the narrative to find its own form and constitutes its own structure. Particularly since the arrival of the 'stream of consciousness technique', modern novel has essentially become formless. James Joyce's Ulysses, a nearly four hundred page novel follows its own internal logic to structure the flow of events of one day in the lives of Stephen Didalous, Leopold Bloom and Molly Bloom and Dublin. Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse is similarly a multi perspective flow of consciousness of different chapters namely Mrs. Ramsay and Mr. Ramsay, Lily Briscoe, the painter as well as that of William, Cam and James- the sons and daughters of Mr. And Mrs. Ramsay. Virginia Woolf seems to point out that thoughts automatically articulate themselves which can not be imposed upon a novel from the beginning. The logicality of thoughts, the undisturbed multi perspective flow of the human mind are more important than form and structure of a novel in 20th century.