MODERNIST AESTHETICS AND NARRATION IN DAVID LODGE’S THE BRITISH MUSEUM IS FALLING DOWN

Abstract

British author David Lodgeʼs The British Museum is Falling Down concentrates on the protagonist Adam Applebyʼs interior world, which is filled with fear and anxiety. While narrating the protagonist's mental processes over the course of a day, Lodge employs interior monologue and free association, two approaches established by early twentieth-century modernist authors. Like other modernist novels, he employs subjective time to portray interior reality, as opposed to the chronological, objective, or progressive clock time of modern life. Within this context, this study seeks to demonstrate how The British Museum is Falling Down breaks from traditional realist literature and establish the novel's conformance to modernist writing. After introducing the characteristics of modernism as a significant literary movement of the twentieth century, this paper will provide a detailed analysis of how Lodge adopts modernist innovations in his depiction of consciousness and time as well as his use of particular writing techniques and forms.