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Virginia Woolf - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Orlando
        Of course, the love of poetry in Orlando persists over the course of the entire novel:
        "the spirit of poetry whom still, though at a great distance, he could not help reverencing" (34)
        But here Woolf comments upon the almost obligation of her artistic product (the novel) to comment upon the beauty of its characters as hommage to the aesthetic conventions. I think this connects to the category of Fact because Woolf provides a clever insight that the descriptions in art may not be very factual, in sacrifice for aesthetic qualities:
        "Directly we glance at eyes and forehead, thus do we rhapsodize. Directly we glance at eyes and forehead, we have to admit a thousand. disagreeables which it is the aim of every good biographer to ignore." (3)
        
        To the Lighthouse
        Lily's painting is a persistent pursuit of art throughout the novel, but I think this quote also connects to the theme of women, and it speaks to the social expectation that art is reserved for men.
        "And it would never be seen; never be hung even, and there was Mr. Tansley whispering in her ear, "Women can't paint, women can't write ..."(34)
        
        A Room of One's Own
        This novel serves as a mouthpiece for Woolf to appeal to her readers the necessity of equality and the accessibility to the potential of artistic output and pursuit. Woolf portrays the human tendency towards art as an inborn gift that must be allowed the means of expression, and on this (one of many things), bases her plea for equality.
        "Any woman born with a great gift in the sixteenth century would certainly have gone crazed, shot herself, or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the village, half witch, half wizard, feared and mocked at," (41)
  - - - To the Lighthouse
        There are oftentimes either global events that connect characters within a work or a global sentiment that aid Woolf's transition in her stream of consciousness narration. There are many instances where characters are very connected, like James and Mrs. Ramsey, and other characters perceive this connection, adding them into the web of interconnectedness.
        "They had not needed to speak. They had been thinking the same things
        and he had answered her without her asking him anything" (145)
      - Three Guineas
        The form that Woolf chose for this novel (letter) is an important symbol for human interconnectedness, and this format immediately appeals to the reader to consider the different ways people can connect to each other. Though this also corresponds to the style category, the structure of the letter, in this quote, serves as the connecting factor between genders, corresponding to the gender theme.
        "But one does not like to leave so remarkable a letter as yours—a letter perhaps unique in the history of human correspondence, since when before has an educated man asked a woman how in her opinion war can be prevented?—unanswered. Therefore let us make the attempt; even if it is doomed to failure," (3)
    - - "Virginia Woolf and the Flesh of the World"
        This article explores the overwhelming vehicle of the text's subconscious and narrative interconnectedness through its narration style, that Woolf uses to echo humanity's interconnectness.
        "Through the portrait of Mr. Ramsay, Woolf has rejected humanist pretensions of separation and transcendence, returning to a focus upon embodiment," (Westling 10)
      - "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens"
        Where Virginia Woolf aspired to unite all women under her cause to promote women in art (interconnectedness of women) other writers, like Alice Walker, chose a more devisive approach of questionable effectiveness as it divides, rather than unites.
        "Virginia Woolf wrote further, speaking of course not of our Phillis, that 'any woman born with a great gift in the sixteenth century [insert 'eighteenth century,' insert 'black woman,' insert 'born or made a slave'] would certainly have gone crazed, shot herself, or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the village, half witch, half wizard [insert 'Saint'], leared and mocked at" (Walker 4)
      - "Mrs. Dalloway and the Social System"
        This article highlights yet another level of potentential interconnectedness that Woolf captures in her writing-- the one within a single individual:
        "In her essay on Elizabethan drama ...Woolf suggests that a modern audience has an absolute need for some exploration of the private as against the public self" (Zwerdling 80)
        This quote testifies yet again to the many layers of interconnectness that Woolf cultivates in her writing, making it an important motif in the course.
  - - - Orlando
        The public had a lot of trouble enforcing social norms upon Orlando as Orlando had changed genders while already being established; there were complications with her as a property-owner. I think this ties into both the Woman and Gender themes because it has to do with the social expectations related to Orlando's gender and the new social limitations due to her being a woman
        "The chief charges against her were (1) that she was dead, and therefore could not hold any property whatsoever; (2) that she was a woman, which amounts to much the same thing; (3) that she was an English Duke" (58)
      - A Room of One's Own
        This entire book wrestles with the difference in social expectations between men and women, as it asserts that women are equally capable of both regular work and creative work, yet it is social expectation that limits them to housework and child-bearing, devoid of recompensation
      - Mrs. Dalloway
        This book is saturated with social expectations, as Mrs. Dalloway is setting up to throw a party. There are many instances when Mrs. Dalloway thinks "one must..." and these thoughts reflect the social expectations and conventions that she feels obligated to follow to keep her respectable place in society.
        "For in marriage a little licensce, a little independence there must be between people living together day in day out in the same house; which Richard gave her, and she him. "(6)
        Also, I think Mrs. Dalloway is an importante example of social expectations for Virginia Woolf because Virginia Woolf is limited by the narrow-mindedness of her society to avoid explicitly describing homosexual love. Also, Woolf does not give special attention to the war in the novel, which was a topic that critics criticized her on; the social expectation was to be more respectful of the war and its influence on people's lives.
- - - - Orlando
        This is a connection between the aesthetic and peace, Woolf comments upon the strength of art as a moving force and its ability to overcome that of war in conveying ideas.
        "poetry can
        adulterate and destroy more surely than lust or gunpowder" (59)
      - To the Lighthouse
        In To the Lighthouse, Woolf capitalizes on the destructive nature of war. Not only do her characters die, but also, in the section Time Passes, the reader, in stream of consciousness narration style, experiences the slow destruction of the unminded Ramsey house. War overshadows this novel as a catalyst of loss of connection, death, and aging.
    - - "Virginia Woolf and the Flesh of the World"
        Once again, Woolf likens academic communication and discourse (like thinking or writing) to combat. I think this is an important occurrence throughout the works we've read because Woolf stance against war frequently suggests verbal communication as a better alternative.
        "there is not a simple human enemy to combat with the familiar technologies of warfare; instead we must resist the long ideological habit resulting from our species' apparent success in control ling nature. Woolf consoled herself under siege by commenting that "thinking is my fighting" (Westling 19)
      - "On Seeing Illness"
        This article reflects Woolf's disapproval of non-peace through its continual emphasis of the unnoticed damage brought upon humanity by the war, that is often swept under the rug. This article relies on its factuality, as Outka frequently cites facts to support the argument. This article emphasizes the motif of social expectations in Mrs. Dalloway as it discusses society's reaction to illness as first and foremost denial.
        "the passage [from Mrs. Dalloway] incorporates the sense
        of bewildered denial perpetuated by the pandemic’s unexpected strikes" (Outka 118)
        This denial is the embodiment of the damaging social expectations faced by Septimus who, when finally in the presence of a doctor, is driven to suicide by the suffocating pressure to "get better" to fit back into society.
  - - - "The Sense of Unending: Revisiting Virginia Woolf's Orlando"
        "Woolf described her sexual affairs with women, allowed her to explore the possibilities of gender performance and lesbian desire in
        a way that straddled the line between fact and fantasy. Describing Orlando's change from male to female, for example, Orlando’s narrator wonders whether 'it is the clothes that wear us and not we them' or whether 'it was a change in Orlando herself that dictated her choice of a woman’s'" (Micir 17)
        This article explores the gender fluidity within Woolf's work, Orlando.
    - - Orlando
        "Different though the sexes are, they intermix. In every human being a vacillation from one sex to the other takes place, and often it is only the clothes that keep the male and female likeness, while underneath the sex is the very opposite of what it is above. Of the complications and confusions which thus result every one has had experience; but here we leave the general question and note only the odd effect it had in the particular case of Orlando herself." (65)
      - Three Guineas
        You, of course, could once more take up arms—in Spain, as before in France—in defence of peace. But that presumably is a method that having tried you have rejected. At any rate that method is not open to us; both the Army and the Navy are closed to our sex. (11)
    - - "Orlando"
        The film adaptation of Orlando strongly brought out the themes of gender and freedom of love from the novel, seeming to make the movie as free-love as possible, positioning itself with a more serious tone than the novel, due to the absence of the clever biographer. I think that this reading of the novel and its adaptation to the movie ties to the factuality of the novel because the tone strongly changed the effect of the novel's message.
  - - - Orlando:
        For, to Orlando in the state he was now in, there was a glory about a man who had written a book and had it printed, whichoutshone all the glories of blood and state. (27)
      - Three Guineas
        "Our guinea shall be spent in the cause of peace. It is difficult to formulate such conditions; in our present psychological ignorance perhaps impossible. But the matter is so serious, war is so insupportable, so horrible, so inhuman, that an attempt must be made." (56)
      - A Room of One's Own
        This work is probably the most notable in this category, as it explores what women lack to thrive as artists, and economically in society. For this reason I didn't add any quotes here, but I want to note that the theme of gender and the motif of social expectations is closely tied to this work, because Woolf attempts to deconstruct the reasoning preventing women from having the same freedoms as men.
    - - "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens"
        This article emphasizes the difficulty of women pushing through their creative work, especicially in the case of black women. This article amplifies a certain subgroup's struggles under the umbrella of Woolf's writing about all women.
        "To be an artist and a black woman, even today, lowers our status in many respects, rather than raises it and yet, artists we will be.Therefore we must fearlessly pull out of ourselves and look at and identify with our lives the living creativity some of our great-grandmothers were not allowed to know" (Walker 5)
- - - - To the Lighthouse
        "The sight of the girl standing on the edge of the lawn painting reminded her; she was supposed to be keeping her head as much in the same position as possible for Lily's picture. Lily's picture! Mrs. Ramsay smiled. With her little Chinese eyes and her puckered-up face, she would never marry; one could not take her painting very seriously; she was an independent little creature" (22)
        Here Woolf presents a vivid image of Mrs. Ramsey deep in thought being painted by Lily. Not only does this image serve to carry the motif of Aesthetic Pursuits, but it also presents a curious image of art within art: a painting in a novel, resulting in a meta observance of the artistic process. This continues in other vividly-described images of Lily thinking and painting also.
      - Mrs. Dalloway
        There is a moment of intensely vivid imagery, both audio and visual, when Septimus has his pseudo-hallucination which serves very strongly to bring out the motif of interconnectedness. There are many visual moments in Woolf's works (like Orlando and the tree) where interconnectdness is not only limited to human-human interaction, but rather positions humans as a small cog in a massive connection of nature, thoughts, people, and emotions.
        "But they beckoned; leaves were alive; trees were alive. And the leaves being connected by millions of fibres with his own body, there on the seat, fanned it up and down; when the branch stretched he, too, made that statement. The sparrows fluttering, rising, and falling in jagged fountains were part of the pattern; the white and blue, barred with black branches," (16)
  - - - "Virginia Woolf and the Flesh of the World"
        Virginia woolf, "delineate[s] the vision of human embeddedness" (Westling 5)
        "As an alternative, she celebrates human community and its continuity with all the world which sustains it...plunges her narrative into the very energies flowing through the sea of being...in which people are no more consequential than brief flashes of light," (Westling 9)
        Through this technique, Woolf makes the connection between characters more physical in the text, creating a web of words on a page conveying the motif of interconnectedness to the reader
    - - Orlando:
        Orlando is written in stream of consciousness style, and the narrator oftentimes speaks directly to the reader creating a storytelling effect.
        "He stretched himself. He rose. He stood upright in complete nakedness before us, and while the trumpets pealed Truth! Truth! Truth! we have no choice left but confess--he was a woman." (47)
      - Mrs/ Dalloway is a prime example of the stream of consciousness narration technique, as Woolf uses it over the course of the entire novel to switch between characters and narrate their experiences as they happen directly. This technique is closely linked to the motif of interconnectedness because it oftentimes exposes the similarity in thought and function among human beings.
      - A Room of One's Own
        The stream of consciousness narration style in this work creates the effect of immediacy, as Woolf is supposedly reading a lecture to a class. This work is closely attuned to the motif of social expectations in its immediacy; frequently, Woolf feels the need to comment on the supposed lack of content in her presentation because her auditorium expects a well-formulated answer. Moreover, the narrative style allows Woolf to explore the theme of womanhood because she is simultaneously asserting herself as a woman in a position of power (the lectern) and talking about limitations faced by women due to social expectations.