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Abstract
This dissertation focuses on the convergence of heroism and temporality in Modernist literature. Its purpose is to illuminate both the ways in which changes in the perception of time transformed the portrayal of potential hero figures and, more importantly, how a viable alternative to the frequently assumed death of the hero within that period went largely unnoticed. The hero figure (who does the right thing, for the right reason, at the right time) is largely missing from literature of the time period because one or more of the elements of the formula is not met, and there are particular challenges during the decades in question to finding the right time to act due to an imbalance in Western cultural perceptions of temporality that favored an exclusively quantitative model over one that balanced both quantitative and qualitative aspects, such as that favored by the Greeks and demonstrated through the concepts of chronos and kairos. I highlight the consequences of the Modernist, chronocentric temporal model by examining different works that illustrate the difficulties of creating and presenting heroes in a world in which the timing of heroic action is nearly impossible to get right. Moreover, the selected authors disparate backgrounds and literary interests underscore that the question of heroic viability was of enough concern to appear frequently and across a broad spectrum of Western literature during the period in question. Specific examples include an analysis of four novels by Joseph Conrad that tracks his portrayals of the nature of heroism in the modern world; an examination of two specific forms of kairic failureakairic desire and akairic environment, both of which permeate Modernismfound within works by T. S. Eliot, William Faulkner, Franz Kafka, and Ernest Hemingway; and an exploration of a solution to these problems of heroic action offered within Virginia Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway, a work that gives new life to heroism, proving that the widely proclaimed death of the hero in early twentieth-century fiction and culture is a short-sighted notion.