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Virginia Woolf Screen Shot 2021-10-21 at 10.07.27 PM, On Gender:…

- - - - Orlando
        
        Romance and gendered roles in marriage, engagement, and courtship can be seen as tools for regulation (especially in the case of suppressing queerness)
        
        For Orlando the Archduke represents an inauthentic expression of love and thus rejects him, but this can also be seen as a rejection of the tight structures of gender roles in hetro-normative romance which ask that women subject themselves to men in totality
        
        The Archduke’s continued advances and the multiple ‘opportunties’ that he gives Orlando to rectify themselves is an example of the ways in which intimate relationships, like romantic pursuits, follow patterns of carceral logic where one is trapped in a legally binding relationship to an overseer or owner (in finances, labor, and son)
      - The Hours
        
        The way Laura Brown leaves her family behind is a good example of the way that intimate relationships can mimic carceral logic or feel like constrained existence for those in it
        
        Brown essentially describes her ‘escape’ [and it should be noted that the use of ‘escape’ in particular is also a very insightful use of diction] as an escape for freedom and describes a life of marriage and motherhood as almost cage-like
        
        The ways she is punished is also telling as she is plagued by both by her own conscience and society in a sense through her son’s fiction even after many years → contemporary problems with the prison often concern the ways that the prisoners or former convicts are pereptually punished in memory even if their actual sentence [which is supposed to be *the punishment] is served
      - Mrs. Dalloway
        
        Septimus is a prime example of how those that do not follow social conventions and rules are forced into carceral type ‘solutions’
        
        Woolf describes the way the doctor acts as a kind of warden to society by using his power to provide closed therapies for patients that are best kept out of sight out of mind almost
        
        Concern for the humanity or health of other peoples is set aside for things like propriety and even those closest to Septimus, like his wife, seek out treatments that are more punishing than they are helpful as they do not fundamentally address the problems Septimus faces
        
        This can be seen as a larger societal failing; or perhaps a purposful design
        
        Mrs. Dalloway's Social System: This piece contributes to the idea of carceral social structure through a more thorough look at the reactive ways that the upper class engaged in throughout the novel. The piece captures the way Woolf utilized the characterization of upper class habits to contrast that with the shaken nation and how such rigidities contributed to the deep isolation and trouble to reintegrate into society faced by people like Septimus.
      - A Room of One's Own
        
        Woolf details the way a sister of Shakespeare would be driven to suicide through the enforcement of typical femininity/female societal roles because of the fundamental differences in how genuis, intellect, or indivduality is treated between the sexes
        
        External factors (one example at least): Her father and the disappointment, worry, or grief that a daughter might not want to be married would be exploited to attempt to change the mind or behavior of one’s daughter to keep them in line with the expected norms of feminine behavior
        
        Internal factors: self-regulation and punishment via a daughter’s guilt at her father’s pain would induce a truce or encourage her to get married even if such circumstances were ill suited or uninteresting to her. So while the external factors would add pressure, certainly, she the daughter acts as her own keeper and internalizes the structures of patriarchy (here one can think about Benthams’ ideas on the panopticon and internalized moral regulation)
        
        In Search of Our Mother's Garden, Walker : Walker speaks on the unique histories of art among Black women in the Untied States as a contrast to the arguments that Woolf makes more broadly across their novels with regards to the limitations of womanhood. AROOO argues that women need space and freedom to do their work, but Walker points out, through her focus, that Woolf's investment and insight is limited by her own preoccupation with whiteness. Still, Walker's work continues the arguments Woolf presents and furthers it by adding a greater degree of history by encompassing many more silent women and their anonymous and impactful stories and inspiration tracing it down generation after generation.
- - - - 3 Guineas
        
        Capitalism maintains strength in part by numbers; war offers a way for men to acquire more land, peoples, resources etc for the sake of the nation or capital. Thus men are invested in the continuation of capitalist growth including in war
        
        But as already established in 3 guineas by Woolf, and as is referenced in the section below, war also demands a certain stomach and emotional detachment; anger and violence are convenient and useful emtions when asked to strategize a battle plan
        
        But such actions are unhealthy, ultimately, for men and often end up causing irregularities because of an overdependence on anger and violence to substitute emotional regulation and traumas as seen with the character of Spetimus
      - Orlando
        
        Illness here can be defined more as being unwell (so not physically sick though it sometimes manifests itself that way) → Orlando struggles in finding internal peace when he is confronted by the way that his life lacks a kind of fulfillment though he owns extensive amenities
        
        The pursuit of capital, in Orlando’s case the maintenance of his family’s wealth and legacy through colonization as evidenced by the opening lines of Orlando, thus occupies a substantive part of Orlando’s life such that it is meant to be a source of pride and joy, but is ultimately meaningless
        
        Physical manifestations of the kind of disruption this causes Orlando is his despondent attitude in the aftermath of their revelation with the Indigenous peoples, but can also be seen through more positive aids to remove themselves from it through a greater connection to the natural world
      - Mrs. Dalloway
        
        Septimus is ill/has PTSD from a war that is fueled, in part by capital but also → capitalism demands that people be fit workers as a pre-requisite for sympathy and full participation in society [women, who are not fit workers, thus cannot participate fully and status as a former worker only goes so far when social conventions and propriety is disrupted by someone struggling to integrate back into ‘normalcy’] → Septimus is an inefficient worker and is thus disregarded and the societal solution is to essentially lock him away until he can function properly
        
        The Hours
        
        Laura Brown is driven ill and unsatisfied by the constraints of American motherhood which suppresses her sexual desires and personal fulfillment or aspirations as evidenced by her desire for her neighbor which doesn’t seem to be an attraction to her neighbor so much as an escape from the realities of motherhood and her evident exhaustion in the presence of her son
        
        Capitalism works together with patriarchy and demands free labor from mothers to keep the ‘nuclear’ daily together whilst power is held by men through exclusive access to capital
        
        Brown’s struggle, thus, is the result of combined enforcement of patriarchal and capitalistic aims for the subjugation of women to the benefit of the men in her life, in this case, her husband, and sacrifices her well being for the well-run home life and satisfaction of her husband to live an all American life
        
        On Seeing Illness
        
        This piece focus' on-the narrative of illness in Mrs. Dalloway and the way that Mrs. Dalloway herself, along with Septimus, can be seen as a figure representative of what life with chronic pain and ill can be. But the piece is also a part of a larger discourse on alternative realities during the post WW1 era that demanded a kind of back to normalcy that simply wasn't possible for everyone (the idea that, for many, the war lingered long after the "end"). As she writes, "The novel captures a threat that targeted everyone and that was rendered invisible not simply because the agent was, or because illness isolates, but because illness suggested a weak- ness and vulnerability profoundly at odds with the war’s dominant narrative." A fact that is made all the more significant given the ways that capitalism encouraged a quick return to normalcy for the sake of economic prosperity with great disregard for the weakened peoples.
- - - - Orlando
        
        Film: One of the great advantages of the medium of Film allows for visuals to communicate what must otherwise be imagined; though Orlando does not suffer from the emotional irregularity of other male characters to the same degree, and, of course, only occasionally has the opportunity for it after their transition, he does exhibit one behavior in his unfortunate Russian love. In his despair Orlando languishes in his pain and can hardly carry himself. It is a state that almost resembles his sleeping figure in the dramatics of pain, but one that holds onto the ideas of how patriarchy strangles men's abilities to develop healthy coping mechanisms especially with regards to their emotions.
        
        The inability of the Archduke to understand why his romantic pursuits fail is an indication of the lack of emotional maturity and funadmental misunderstanding of sincere affection
        
        When he is confronted with the slightest push back, after several attempts to communicate displeasure at their current arrangement, by Orlando the Archduke becomes flustered and altogether offended by the slight. It takes very little, in other words, to disrupt the pattern of performance for the sake of male ego.
        
        Also seen in the Archduke’s continued pursuit of Orlando even after the incident of offense → emotionally violatile and immature
        
        Orlando’s joy at womanhood is perhaps a view of how womanhood is freeing in a sense because of how emotions are tied with femininity as is not the case with masculinity [or at least in a limited fashion]
        
        The Sense Of Unending: Woolf teases, perhaps for the benefit of West that she can, or has, fallen in love with Orlando. As the titular character of the faux biography, Orlando's transition into gender nonconformity can itself be seen as an extension of Micir's argument on seeing Orlando as an unfinished text (or rather as a text that benefits from the understanding that it's characters and subjects have no ending). When taking into consideration the radical insistent nature of Woolf's argument in the unfinished nature of her work, the idea that women themselves can and must write their stories and that they are theirs to complete, Orlando's unique ability to largely circumvent the issues that plague other male characters even whilst a man is logical and transparent.
      - 3 Guineas
        
        The inability of men to understand the reluctance of the women in their lives to support the war effort as a result of the ways in which women are relegated to lesser status and occupation in space
        
        Woolf details the ways that they are limited to anger and violence in their reactions in geopolitical conflicts, and perhaps the every day as well, as evidenced by the long history of male violence and warmongering
        
        It is a perpetual cycle of self-neglect when it comes to emotional regulation and thus anger and violence rotate in a way that is alien to women who are not allowed to express such emotions and are asked to regulate those of the people around them
        
        Essentially men create more war than perhaps necessary as a result of emotional irregularity
      - Mrs. Dalloway
        
        The inability of the male romantic protagonists to express their love is the prime indication of a curtailed ability to form and maintain emotional connections to others because of patriarchy
        
        Several attempts are made by various characters to express their deep emotions, taking into consideration the difficulties which Peter Walsh has in really feeling his love for Clarissa without it feeling overwhelming and squashing it down and Mr. Dalloways’ poor attempt to say he loves his wife, and are often left with the remnants of those feelings
        
        Another example; Septimus’ inability to properly communicate with his wife over how pained he feels emotionally/psychologically
        
        He also seems to know and acknowledge how this pains her and that he could, or should, reach out, but does not feel capable or else simply doesn’t
      - To The Lighthouse
        
        Can basically be seen through the entirety of the husband’s character; Mr. Ramsey relies almost entirely on his wife for emotional validation and demonstrates emotional turmoil multiple times concerning his intelligence and sense of self
        
        This turmoil coming, in part, from the fact that he is so detached from ‘womanly’ emotions that his identity is almost entirely based on his intelligence which means that when his intelligence is challenged, or perceived to be challenged, Mr. Ramsey falls into fits of internal despair that requires emotional regulation he does not possess
        
        He cannot self regulate his emotions without external validation from his wife and thus through him it can be seen how men are harmed by patriarchal structures that require men have a woman to aid in their everyday internal struggle (a problem is, for example, your wife dies).
        
        Flesh of the World: Covers the ways in which Woolf used a focus on natural aspects, rather than exclusively human ones, to offer a look at the greater, truer humanity underneath prosperity. As this piece notes, importantly, this is achieved through tranformations of characters like Mr. Ramsey. While the choking effect is demonstrated quite well through him in the beginning, his desire to see the world, really see, allows for a greater appreciation for simpler life and allows for a growth that might've not been expected.