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Virginia Woolf, Key: • Blue, green, pink: main categories • Red:…

- - - - The use of free indirect discourse, stream of consciousness, and the absence of chapters make it sometimes hard to follow the novel. It is often unclear which character is meant by the pronouns ‘she’ or ‘he’.
        
        Comparison with To the Lighthouse: Something very similar happens in To the Lighthouse. There are many characters in this novel and Woolf often shifts between their points of view. While this can be confusing, it also establishes connections and a certain sense of intimacy between the characters in the novel and the characters and the reader.
        
        Comparison with Three Guineas: While Three Guineas is an essay that doesn't employ free indirect discourse or stream of consciousness, Woolf often uses the personal pronoun 'you' (as it is written as a letter) to refer to different people. This proliferation of 'you's' throughout the essay, again, make is sometimes hard to follow and understand.
- - - - Trauma
      - Grief and loss
        
        To the Lighthouse: The Ramsay family and their guest and friends have to deal with grief and loss. Mrs. Ramsay, the center of the family, as well as Prue and Andrew die. In the last section of the novel, especially Lily and Mr. Ramsay struggle with this loss. Andrew died as a soldier in the war – again, the public and the private spheres cannot be separated.
        
        It is interesting to see how Woolf communicates the death of the characters to the reader. In the second section of the novel, ‘Time Passes’, the focus lies on the Ramsay’s house as opposed to the actual characters. The death of Mrs. Ramsay, the main character in the first section, is simply mentioned with one sentence in parentheses.
        
        Mrs. Dalloway: Septimus Smith lost his close friend Evans in the war and is never the same after. As he is a man, he is not allowed to properly grief and thus commits suicide.
    - - On Seeing Illness: Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway (Elizabeth Outka): In her article, Outka proposes a reading of Mrs. Dalloway as a pandemic novel, referring to the influenza pandemic at the time that started right after the war in 1918. However, World War I seems to be more present in the historical account of the time. Even though the pandemic was a public concern as a pandemic is an inevitably collective experience, Outka underlines the privateness and loneliness of battling the illness, which suggests a singular experience and has consequences on people's mental health. Clarissa can be seen as a survivor of the pandemic.
  - - - Zwerdling underlines how Woolf criticizes the hierarchies of social classes subtly in Mrs. Dalloway. These are “expressed in a language of observation” (p.69). She never directly comments on the members of the governing class, but rather subtly conveys her critique through the use of ironic remarks and humor.
  - - - Orlando: Orlando’s sex change happens in Constantinople, where Orlando is stationed as ambassador (representing the Empire). Constantinople is depicted in a stereotypical way: an exotic place, new smells, busy streets. The sex change can only happen in the East and not in England. ‘The Orient’ is associated with the feminine, savage and emotion-driven behavior, while England has masculine associations such as rationality and strength. Orlando positions itself in line with the imperialistic view on ‘the Orient’ as an exotic place to find oneself and thereby perpetuates Orientalism. The public concern of Imperialism becomes private as it enables Orlando's sex change.
    - - Orlando: Racial othering is often present in Orlando. Especially in beginning, there is a strong distancing from white English people to racial Others. Additionally, Orlando’s and Shel’s extraordinary connection and understanding happens, at times, on the expense of racial othering. Again, the public and private issues bleed into each other, as this racial othering is enabled through the structure of society (public) and in turn enables a personal connection (private).
        
        Comparison with To The Lighthouse: Racial othering is more present in Orlando, but can also be detected in To the Lighthouse. Here, Lily Briscoe’s “Chinese eyes” are often mentioned. However, Lily is one of the main characters (as opposed to a character of temporary importance, like the Gypsies in Orlando) and the emphasis on her race doesn’t seem to be of such importance as in Orlando, where racial othering is crucial for the plot to unfold.
- - - - Orlando (Sally Potter): The same happens in the film adaptation of the novel. The androgynous Tilda Swinton was the perfect actress to play Orlando. Yet, in the film, a lot of emphasis is put on clothes and Orlando's appearance always underlines their gender.
        
        Interestingly, the film often breaks the fourth wall and Orlando directly addresses the audience. This mirrors, to some extent, the overt narrator in the novel who also often addresses the audience.
  - - - Art
        
        Comparison of A Room of One's Own and In Search of Our Mother's Garden: Woolf’s definition of art is rather narrow compared to Walker’s. For Woolf, art is literature, poetry, paintings and sculpture while Walker has a more inclusive definition of art. She talks of her mother’s garden as art, the flowers that grow there, her mother’s stories. Similar to her view on feminism, her view on art is more inclusive and complex than Woolf's.
        
        To the Lighthouse: In To the Lighthouse, Lily Briscoe, a young woman, represents art in the novel. She is a painter, she sees the world through the eyes of an artist. It is crucial to notice that Woolf mentions art often in the context of feminism or women in general.
      - In Search of Our Mother's Garden (Alice Walker): In her essay, Walker points out the white privilege with which Woolf formulated A Room of One’s Own. A black woman in the 1800s often didn’t even own herself not to mention a private room or money. She calls out Woolf’s white feminism. Walker paints a more collectivist and inclusive vision of feminism. This essay can rather be connected to second wave feminism.