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VIRGINIA WOOLF (1882-1941) - Coggle Diagram
VIRGINIA WOOLF (1882-1941)
LIFE
born Virginia Stephen in London, she was the daughter of an eminent man of letters.
her father's library was her main form of education, together with private lessons and a few courses at King's College
they used to spend the summer in Cornwall at St Ives, the sea being central to her art
Her mother's death when she was 13 affected her deeply. She revolted against her tyrannical father and his idealisation of the domesticated woman
After her father's death in 1904 she began her literary career and moved to Bloomsbury to take part in the
Bloomsbury Group
with her sister, the artist Vanessa Bell
The Group included the avant-garde of early 20th-cent. London. Their common denominators were:
contempt for traditional morality and Victorian respectability
rejection of artistic convention
disdain for bourgeois sexual codes
Their radical thought was founded on:
the pacifist philosophical theories by Bertrand Russel
the Post-Impressionist painting of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant
the
STREAM-OF-CONSCIOUSNESS
prose style developed by Woolf
Themes:
anti-war sentiment and socialism
fragmented perspective aesthetics of Modernism and Post-Modernism
unconventional sexual practices
1912 she married Leonard Woolf
she entered a nursing home and attempted suicide
With the beginning of World War II she became haunted by the terror of losing her mind
1941 she drowned herself in the River Ouse
WORKS
1915
The voyage out
traditional novel
1925
Mrs Dalloway
experimentation of new narrative techniques
The common reader
literary essays that proved her a talented critic
1927
To the lighthouse
1928
Orlando
devoted to Vita Sackville-West, a novelist she had a relationship with
1929
A room of one's own
originally derived from 2 lectures given at Cambridge University
great impact on the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s
explored issues connected with women and writing and the link between economic and artistic independence
1931
The waves
she seems to recognise a link between her creative process and her mental illness
MODERNISM
Aim: giving voice to the complex inner world of feeling and memory
human personality is a continuous shift of impressions and emotions
The focus are not the events, but
the impression events left on the characters who experienced them
the point of view
shifts inside the different character's mind
no omniscient narrator
through flashbacks, associations of ideas, impressions as a continuous flux
in her essay
Modern Novel
, then revised as
Modern Fiction
, she declared:
'Examine for a moment an ordinary mind in an ordinary day. The mind receives a myriad impressions..an incessant shower of innumerable atoms...if a writer were a free man and not a slave..there would be no plot..life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end'
Mrs Dalloway
PLOT
At 10 a.m. on a Wednesday early in June of 1923,
Clarissa Dalloway
goes to Bond Street to buy some flowers for a party she is giving.
While she is in the shop, a car drives noisily past on the street, where
Septimus and Lucrezia Warren
are walking. He is an estate agent's clerk and a shell-shocked veteran of World War I, she is an Italian girl. His mental disorder has needed the help of Dr Holmes first and
Sir William Bradshaw
then.
Clarissa walks back home and receives the unexpected visit from
Peter Walsh
, the man she used to love in her youth. When he leaves Clarissa's house and goes to Regent's Park, he catches a glimpse of the Warren Smiths going to Sir William Bradshaw
After a 3-quarters of an hour interview, Sir William arranges for Septimus to go into one of his clinics, but at 6 p.m. Septimus jumps out of the window of his room. The ambulance carrying his body passes by Peter Walsh, who is going back to his hotel.
All the important characters are present at Clarissa's party (the climax of the novel). When the Bradshaws arrive she hears of Septimus's death, with which she feels a strong connection.
SETTING
a single ordinary day in June
like Joyce's
Ulysses
in a very small area of London
sights and sounds of London, its parks, its flavour
she shows the deep humanity of characters
unlike Joyce, who elevated his characters to the level of myth
using the
tunnelling technique
she allows the reader to experience the characters' recollection of their past
CHARACTERS
SEPTIMUS WARREN SMITH
an extremely sensitive man and lover of Shakespeare
he enlisted for patriotic reasons
his best friend's death, Evan, during the war, caused his panic and sense of guilt
he sought medical treatment in the special centres set up by 1922
he is haunted by Evans's spectrum
he suffers from headaches, insomnia, sexual impotence
SEPTIMUS AS CLARISSA'S
DOUBLE
?
they both respond to experience in physical terms
they depend upon their partners for stability
BUT
unlike Clarissa, he isn't able to distinguish between his personal response and external reality
his psychic paralysis leads him to suicide, while Clarissa recognises her deceptions and is prepared to go on
CLARISSA
the wife of a conservative MP
opposing feelings
desire for freedom from
her husband's conventional views on politics and women
the influence of her possessive father
the need to refuse her young love Peter Walsh
her class consciousness
her life is an attempt to overcome her weakness and sense of failure
THEMES AND STYLE
changes in the social life of the time (newspapers, cars, new standards in the marital relationships)
cinematic devices
the use of
clocks
(particularly the Big Ben) as a symbol of the awareness of
death
flashbacks, close-ups, tracking shots
moments of vision both objective and subjective
STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS
A technique to show the character's thoughts
maintaining logical and grammatical organisation
, combining the streams of thoughts into a
third-person, past tense narrative
unlike Joyce's
INTERIOR MONOLOGUE
which let the thoughts flow without control, in a sometimes incoherent and syntactically unorthodox way
MOMENTS OF BEING
rare occasions of insight
during the characters' daily life when they can see the
reality behind appearances
similar to Joyce's
EPIPHANIES
LANGUAGE
poetic, allusive, emotional and
fluid
to express the most intricate feelings
unlike Joyce's experimentations and accumulation of details
FILM VERSIONS
The Hours (1998) - a novel by Michael Cunningham inspired by Mrs Dalloway and turned into a film in 2002 by Stephen Daldry, with Meryl Streep as Clarissa Vaughan
Mrs Dalloway (1997) by Marleen Gorris, with Vanessa Redgrace
To the lighthouse
PLOT
a series of experiences and memories held together by symbols
Just before WWI,
Mr and Mrs Ramsay
take their 8 children to their house by the sea,
James
, 6 y-o, wants desperately to go to the lighthouse across the bay. Mrs Ramsay promises they will go the next day but according to Mr Ramsay the weather doesn't improve.
The Ramsays have some guests: the botanist
Willam Bankes
, the poet
August Carmichael
, Ramsay's admirer
Charles Tansley
, the young artist
Lily Briscoe
, who paints Mrs Ramsay, and the 2 young lovers
Paul Rayley
and
Minta Doyle
.
Mrs Ramsay wants Lily to marry William but Lily decides to remain single. So, she arranges the marriage of Paul and Minta.
In the afternoon, Lily begins her painting, Paul proposes to Minta, Mrs Ramsay reads to James and knits a stocking, Mr Ramsay worries about his failure as a philosopher and turns to Mrs Ramsay for comfort.
In the evening, they have a memorable dinner party. Mr Ramsay asks her wife to say she loves him, but she agrees that the weather will be fine for a trip to the lighthouse the next day and he thus knows she loves him.
Time elapses: the children grow up, war breaks out, Mrs Ramsay dies suddenly one night. The eldest son Andrew is killed in battle and the daughter Prue dies too (deaths recorded in parentheses). The summer house falls into a state of decay for 10 years until the family comes back. Mrs McNab, the housekeeper, tries to set the house in order before Lily Briscoe returns.
Mr Ramsay sails to the lighthouse with James and his daughter Cam. On the same morning, Lily succeeds in finishing the painting she had started on her last visit. James and his father experience a moment of connection. Lily makes a definitive stroke on the canvas and finally achieves her vision (the changing light, the view of the bay, Mrs Ramsay's essence)
TIME
Time experienced replaces outer time
CHARACTERS
autobiographic setting: the couple is modelled on Woolf's parents and the setting on St Ives, in Cornwall.
Through them she explores the relationship between male and female (he: rational-division, sterility, she: emotional-light, fertility)
the sea: symbol of feminine fluidity and masculine rigidity
THEMES
the idea that nothing lasts
the rejection of gender conventions
represented by Lily's painting
belief in a feminine artistic vision
the use of colours
red and brown: individuality and egotism
blue and green: impersonality
white: definite meaning of science
yellow: positive avoidance of logical meaning
symbols
window
connecting point between the self and the society
lighthouse
enthusiasm, hope, but inaccesible destination leading to frustration
at the end, James realises that it has 2 competing images that both contribute to its essence
STRUCTURE AND STYLE
3 PARTS
Time Passes
: 10 years
To the lighthouse
: less than 1 day
The window
: a summer afternoon and a evening on the Isle of Skye in the Hebrides
first- person narration in the first and last section, impersonal third-person narrative in the middle to describe the deaths