# data[].attributes.body
Sylvia Plath was a writer and poet from the United States. Her best-known works are the book The Bell Jar and the poetry collections The Colossus and Ariel, both of which she co-wrote. Plath made history by being the first person to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize after his or her death in 1982. Plath committed suicide in 1963, at the age of 27.

# data[].attributes.body
Plath's use of confessional language and the techniques of a female's self-conjuration show her modernist trends, which show how a woman sees herself in a male-dominated society. "Lady Lazarus" is Plath's way of trying to speak for the modern woman who is still trying to figure out who she is through self-confession. Her characters have a long-standing hatred for their male counterparts.

# data[].attributes.body
Ayunie Syahira binti Abdullah (1726732)
Nur Anis Ameera Binti Kamarudin (1817410)
Nur Munirah Binti Mat Salleh (1810510)
Tunku Safiah Husna binti Tunku Mohar (1814480)

# data[].attributes.body
There is a vast difference in both the form and subject of work among the numerous artists we would connect with modernism or regard to be modernist, such as the works of Monet and Picasso. Despite the fact that both painters are commonly regarded as modernists, their styles are vastly different. Picasso was undoubtedly the artist that characterised the cubism trend, whereas Monet considered himself an impressionist.

The Impressionists and Cubists produced significantly distinct works of art. In actuality, their artistic approaches and objectives don't directly contradict one another, making it appear as though they have nothing in common.

Perhaps it's easiest to conceive of modernism as a style of thinking rather than a collection of ideas, as we could define Impressionism or Cubism as collections of ideas. In the pre-modern age, both Monet and Picasso rejected the creative forms and concepts that came before them. When they're talking about their thoughts, they're both quite interested in emphasising creative skill, with little regard for spiritual guidance.

The Impressionists began looking for a new method to depict nature in art. They abandoned the practice of sketching outdoors and then returning indoors to create paintings based on those drawings in favour of carrying all of their oils and artistic tools with them to paint in place. Rather than depicting nature as it appears to the human eye, they were more concerned in capturing the ever-changing hues and light that occurs around nature.

On the other side, the Cubists were uninterested in capturing objects as they seemed to humans at the present. Instead, they were more concerned with capturing the entirety of the artwork's subject. They mostly accomplished this by combining numerous views of the scene into a single piece of artwork.

# data[].attributes.body
Monet was a French painter who established impressionism, a style of painting that uses little thin lines and tiny brush strokes to produce natural light and shape in paintings, as well as a variety of colours and objects to create a scene and truly immerse the audience in the work of art. He is credited for laying some of the foundations in the Minimalist movement. Even until now, Monet continues to shape both the public's love of art and the sense of beauty in its purest form.

# data[].attributes.body
One of an 18-part series of paintings he did throughout the summer of a wooden footbridge over a pond. The vertical format distinguishes the painting from the others in the series since it also draws the viewer's attention to the water lilies and the pond's reflection. Because of the time of this painting, Monet's style was still fairly experimental, and it kind of retaliated against the camera and other technology invented in the mid-twentieth century that made pictures and photos more defined, clear, and realistic, this formatting and brushstrokes create a blurry and almost imperfect representation of the lilies, which fits into modernism's emphasis on doing things differently.

# data[].attributes.body
In 1873, he painted this from a hotel perspective at the Arv, using a variety of colours and shadings. It was inspired by impressionism and focused on natural light and shape. While the picture is a little blurry, the vibrant colours help to tie the painting together by establishing a mood for the audience. Small brush strokes were used to bring the typical landscape to life, emphasising the light and shadows in the landscape. As a result, Monet used fragmented colours in his paintings in order to create the illusion of natural lightning.

# data[].attributes.body
In a rupture from the past, Picasso's modernist work displays a rejection of historical and really traditional techniques and beliefs. He was a pioneer, attempting new forms, shapes, processes, materials, and colours. Cubism was one of the ways he went beyond reality and truth. He did not believe that a realistic portrayal of the matter was necessary. He concentrated instead on defining what it meant to be human. The mood was more essential than the facts, and the abstract was more important than reality.

# data[].attributes.body
Guernica is a grey, black and white anti-war artwork that depicts the anguish of humans and animals that have been ravaged by violence and turmoil. It is one of his most renowned works. A horse, a bull, a wailing lady on the right side of the picture, a mother with her dying child on the left, and a lot of flames are all depicted in the artwork. It is Picasso's response to the bombardment of Guernica, a Spanish village. Because it incorporates the new cubism style, the painting has modernist qualities, but it also shows the painter's thoughts toward the tragedy and his personal history experience. Due to the layering of motifs and figures, as well as their deformity due to cubism, which also illustrates Picasso's conviction that everyone has their own unique perspective, Guernica offers various angles.

# data[].attributes.body
The poem reflects on a woman's miserable life and her attempts at suicide where she has attempted suicide several times but has miraculously survived. Thus, she begs those who rescued her to look into her broken soul. The main idea of Lady Lazarus is the rebirth of identity through the life-death cycle. The writer expressed her feeling of being tortured and the poem also indicates the sense of loneliness.

The poem depicts how masculine authority suppresses feminine power and the creation of a male artist god by a woman affirms female autonomy. Suicide becomes a way to gain autonomy because she claimed that society sees her as an object rather than a person. That issue leads her to attempt several suicides. However, she rather views her suicide attempts as arts, not failure.

# data[].attributes.body
There are three main highlights in this poem which are women’s power, men’s power, and society’s power.

Women’s power

Lady Lazarus's resolve to die shows Plath's portrayal of women as self-determinists. So she starts talking about real-life stuff like suicide attempts. Plath uses ideas associated with a bad thing, suicide, to promote the power of women. Female fighters can fight with the most limited weapons, tarot cards. Women can overcome adversity. Lady Lazarus’s action of dying severally defies societal norms that women are weak. Therefore, she is determined to break free of the negative connotation of women. Nobody, but her, brought her back, demonstrating a woman's ability to reinvent herself. Her indifference to death reflects her resentment of the society that forces her to die so she defeats it and wins by death.

Men’s power

The words Herr Enemy, Herr Doctor, Herr Lucifer, and Herr God in this poem refer to the patriarchal system that caused women to be the victims. Women are oppressed by patriarchy, which is repressive and comparable to the Nazi concentration camps. Men are shown as evil. Men oppress women. Lady Lazarus is a victim in the poem, a victim of men's oppression. Lady Lazarus sees her resurrection as a failed peace attempt because she eagerly wants to escape men's and society's claws. The men are so oppressive that their victims have grown accustomed to it. She claimed men's power can be lost and women's power can take over. In the last stanza, Lady Lazarus stated that women can destroy men. This showed how much she hates men with oppressive attitudes because women are supposed to be protected not tortured.

Society’s power

Lady Lazarus resents a complacent society because society ignores her and pushes her to her death. She kills herself to escape a society that sees her as an object. Society has the ability to render victims powerless. Lady Lazarus portrays herself as Opus, a musical work that entertains the audience because of the treatment she received from the toxic society. The imbalance of power makes a woman feel helpless, worthless, and completely dominated by men. The evils of society drive Lady Lazarus' controlling voice, urging her to commit suicide.

# data[].attributes.body
Plath maintained that women were entitled to the same rights and freedoms as men at a period when women were only beginning to recover their rights to vote and possess property. Female sorrow is symbolic of Plath's work, and she helped to normalize female fury and unapologetically express herself, making her a role model for young women all around the globe.

# data[].attributes.body
The Doll Factory is a debut novel by a British writer who is widely known as Elizabeth Macneal. The novel is set in the Victorian Era, showing a realistic perspective of women’s battles to pursue freedom and agency. The author discusses critical issues, including the rights of women to break free from gender norms. In the novel, the female protagonist, Iris, is seen to have struggled in achieving her mark on the artistic world due to men’s entitlement and obsession towards her. The author successfully illustrates significant problems faced by most women in the nineteenth century with the portrayal of Iris, considering the fact that the author is a contemporary writer. Hence, I will briefly analyse the issue of women’s struggles using the theory of Feminist Literary Criticism.

# data[].attributes.body
Basically, Feminist Literary Criticism is a theory that emerged during the late twentieth-century women's movement, featuring the writings of Simone de Beauvoir, Kate Millet, and Betty Friedan. These prominent writers investigated how male writers formed the female self in literature to reflect certain masculine fears and concerns. They considered literary writings as models and instruments of power, imposing a masculine worldview on women. Therefore, feminist literary criticism is used to analyse The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal, in order to unravel the struggle faced by the female protagonist to achieve a life of freedom.

# data[].attributes.body
First and foremost, the female protagonist, Iris, is very interested in art and considers it an only escape from her miserable life. She finds herself at ease and free from the world or any situation she is in when she is painting. However, despite being able to paint, Iris constantly finds herself being “forced to sew slop, to degrade herself and to explain her actions to her family.” Based on feminists belief, women should be able to express themselves freely. However, Iris does not have the liberty to express her desire through art because she is constantly reminded by her superior, “you must promise not to do this painting.” Iris has always been taught to keep her emotions in control, not to shout, and to respect men’s opinions and beliefs. It implies that, as a woman, Iris is mistreated by everyone around her, including her family, solely because the profession she prefers does not fit the conservative stereotype that women should just stay at home managing the household.

Moreover, while being an inferior entity, male characters in the novel constantly degrade Iris and see her as an opportunity to fulfil their dreams. Iris is seen as a “toy” that they can pick up and she feels like her body becomes a centre of attraction. Iris feels like the males stare at her as if she is “a strumpet in a shop, an exhibition in a museum.” It emphasizes how dreadful the situation is for Iris and it somehow appears to be an encouraging step for her to continue thriving to be a renowned artist. Ultimately, although Iris is portrayed as a naive woman, she is aware of her own rights as a woman and continues to battle on what she perceives as absolute freedom.

# data[].attributes.body
Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp is one of the most influential figures in British modernism. Born on October 14, 1888 (in Wellington, New Zealand), Mansfield was a master in the writings of short stories. She is well-known for her stories depicting psychological conflicts and uncertainty in terms of the narration, which is very synonymous with the modernist focus on subjectivity in people’s perspectives in life. The peak of her works in fiction such as “The Garden Party” (1922) is considered to be very influential. In her last years of age, she died of tuberculosis on January 9, 1923 with her final works being published in The Dove’s Nest (1923) and Something Childish (1924).

# data[].attributes.body
This short story centers on a garden party that was held annually by the upper-middle class family called the Sheridan. One of the daughter, Laura is seen to be excited to be part of the party's preparations when a sudden news halted the girl's excitement. A fatal accident involving a worker class man (who lives in the poorer sides of the village) causes Laura to sympathizes with the man's family and pleads for the party to be cancelled, in order to give respect to the mourning family.

Laura's mother assumes that the man was drunk and thus, wanted to proceed with the party anyway (showing lack of sympathy and prejudice towards the man status). Laura ceases her pleading and went back to her room to prepare for the party. She had a change of mind once she looks at herself in the mirror and thought that her family might be right. After the party ends, Laura's mother suggest that she takes the leftover food and give it to the mourning family. She was given the chance to go and see the decease man and finds herself crying (although it was not stated whether she cried from sadness or happiness). She later wanted to explain to her brother about her feelings but was unable to put her words into it.

# data[].attributes.body
One of the significant features of modernist literary works is the use of stream of consciousness technique which allows the readers to have a look inside the character’s thoughts.

Mansfield uses a third person narrative style in the Garden party to allow an in depth understanding towards Laura’s mind. Most of the story was looked through Laura's perspectives but sometimes we get to see from the other characters POV as well such as Jose and Mrs. Sheridan. Because of this, we can see the opposing views between Laura’s and the other characters towards the lower class people during the news of Scott's death.

Apart from that, we could also immerse ourselves in some of the characters' views through the unfinished or incomplete sentences. Mansfield utilizes this technique by leaving certain sentences blank in order to give the reader their own chances to fill in their own possible answers. For example, the time where Mrs. Sheridan sent Laura to the dead man’s house to give them the leftover food, she said, "don't on any account--" but stopped in the middle of the sentence in order to not give ‘certain’ ideas to Laura. This ‘certain’ idea can be something negative or positive depending on the reader’s choice of answer.

Another one is when Laura was trying to describe her feelings after the visit to the dead man’s house, which she finds as a “marvelous” experience. She stammered the phrase, “Isn’t life-” twice as she could not complete her sentence. “Isn’t life,” wonderful? Devastating? Scary? Whatever it is, the readers can fill out these questions themselves. Hence, it gives a sense of power and the ability to relate to the story due to this technique.

Last but not least, Mansfield also makes use of symbolism and visual images of the scenery between the Sheridan’s garden party and the poorer side of the villager’s houses to depict the differences between the upper and the lower class people. Laura’s epiphany when she saw herself in the mirror wearing the fancy velvet hat, symbolizes Laura's acceptance of the richest way of living by abandoning her sympathy for the dead man’s family. She later had an awakening towards the reality of life and death after her visit to their house which can be interpreted as a liberating moment.

# data[].attributes.body
To conclude,
Katherine Mansfield’s works of fiction, especially the short stories are one of the classic representations of the modernist way in portraying the individual’s struggles and reality in life. Her unique styles that manages to capture the values of the mundane thing in the world such as people’s relationship and family, life and death; or a more serious topics such as wars and their consequences; had really inspire a lot of thinking and thought-provoking discussion that leads to a more in depth understanding towards the reality of the world that we are living in. All in all, “The Garden Party” (1922) is a definite masterpiece and should be read by people of all ages.