In the modern age people lost they points of reference. Darwin had developed the theory of natural selection according to the idea that people didn’t come from God but they were simply the result of a process of evolution. So in this period doubts like human place in the universe were confirmed: people were afraid to live in a world without meaning and without God.

As a result, in 20^th century sciences like psychoanalysis studying the human mind to discover its working and human relationship with reality were bony to find a meaning to human life. In these years there were also the first studies in linguistics to understand how the human mind makes sense.

Also art was influenced by its: Modernism emphasized more an art’s ability to affect the mind, rather than emphasizing only external reality. Indeed, in this period art developed an attempt to represent the perceiving mind (Impressionism) and narrative technique example, in “the Dead”, the last story of “Dubliniers” by James Joyce. The narrator doesn’t appear, he doesn’t describe the character as was generally done during the Victorian period and the characters talked for themselves, without the narrator’s judgment. The main character, for instance, was presented while he’s talking with Lily. The  reflects the importance given to the linguistics.