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In the early years of the 20th century, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung propounded the new
discoveries regarding the human psychology. It brought many changes in various sectors: one of
them is a novel which turns into the psychologically dominated novels. It was found that the human
consciousness has mainly three layers named conscious, subconscious and unconscious. The
hidden desires and thoughts of human mind lay in the arena of unconscious and subconscious and
they constantly keep on coming on the surface i.e. conscious mind. The upsurge of subconscious
and unconscious bring change in the human personality. If proper outlet is not given to these
suppressed thoughts, then any volcanic eruption may take place. The great novelists in this genre
are Henry James, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Dorothy Richardson, and Elizabeth
Bowen.
Themes of the Modern Novel:
When the plot and character change in the modern novel, then obviously the themes also have an
alteration. The traditional novel generally focuses on the didactic theme, the society, religion, culture,
etc. but the modern novels stay away from these themes and deal with the themes of alienation,
absurd existence, futility of work, loveless life and society, selfishness of people, the quest for self
etc. The social status and social conduct were regarded to hold high in the society of traditional novel
but nowadays these things have nothing to do with the individual but is counted more. The deep
penetration of characters subconscious depicts that every individual is different from each other so
two different personalities cannot be same and one in the society. We have to accept the uniqueness
of an individual and must present them in the novel as they are. David Daiches puts it; the theme of
the modern novelist is not the relationship between gentility and morality, but the relation between
loneliness and love. To sum up, an individual is treated as a little society in a modern novel, giving
him more priority.