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Virginia Woolf, Screen Shot 2023-05-10 at 3.45.46 PM, Screen Shot 2023-05…

- - - - In Orlando, Orlando rejects the traditional class system by intermingling with people from classes other than her own. Although she is a member of the aristocracy, she seeks refuge with those of lower classes as both a man and a woman. As a man, she seeks out women of lower classes to pursue romantically, and as a woman she befriends prostitutes and forms a community of women with them. Upon participating in the high society of London, she recognizes the shallow, hollowness of their behavior and thought and rejects it in favor of individuality and communication with those of lower classes.
    - - In A Room of One’s Own, Woolf asserts the equality of men and women in regards to innate literary capability. She posits that women have historically been deprived of three basic necessities required to write: time, privacy, and financial security. Because they have lacked these conditions, women’s voices have been silenced. This claim relies on the assumption that if women did have these conditions, they would be able to produce literature just as men do. Woolf furthers this feminist proposal with the example of Judith, an imaginary sister of Shakespeare who shares his talent for writing but is not given the opportunity to foster it – ultimately leading her to choose suicide.
      - In To the Lighthouse, Woolf displays a feminist lens through the character of Lily Briscoe, who rebels against the patriarchal figures of the household. As characters such as Mr. Ramsey and Charles Tansley look to Lily for sympathy and support and to ensure their own superiority by looking down on women, Lily resists their ideologies and pleas for praise by continuing her art and refusing to give in to their demands. Similarly, Lily defies Mrs. Ramsay’s desire for her to marry, and chooses not to fall into the role of wife and mother. When she returns to the house a decade later, it is clear that she has continued to reject the patriarchal environments she has been imposed to, as she completes her painting and displays a sense of confidence and self-worth.
      - In Orlando, Woolf portrays the idea that the differences between the sexes are largely formed by cultural phenomena rather than inherent biological contrasts. When Orlando woke up as a woman, she still maintained the same traits that she possessed as a man. However, as Orlando begins to adapt to the role of being a woman and starts to take part in more culturally feminine activities, her behaviors and perspective also begin to shift towards more traditionally feminine patterns. Her clothing, for example, acts as a mold that shapes her behavior to the sex that it identifies with. This suggests that sex is not the determiner of traits, but rather the cultural norms applied to the sexes, and thus that men and women are inherently equal when culture is removed from the equation.
  - - - In A Room of one’s Own, Woolf emphasizes the importance of ambiguity in terms of both gender and sex when creating literature of quality. Woolf introduces the idea of being “woman-manly” or “man-womanly,” and how this androgynous nature is beneficial to writing (120). She describes it as “fatal” to think of one’s sex as one writes, and to write as purely a man or a woman. To let go of your gender and write while lying along the blurred lines of gender is to create works that are unimpeded by bias and will thus withhold the test of time.
      - Princess Sasha is portrayed with a degree of gender ambiguity and fluidity, as she displays traditionally masculine characteristics while also being the feminine love interest of Orlando. Her apparel, athleticism, and confidence all contradict traditional ideals of femininity, and reveal that Orlando desires androgyny in a partner even before switching sexes.
        
        Archduke Harry blurs the lines of gender in his attempts to win over Orlando, as he dresses as both a man and a woman. In his pursuit of love, he abandons gender norms and embraces an androgynous nature that complements Orlando’s own fluidity. He and Orlando both question one another’s gender, emphasizing the ambiguity of both their behavior and physicality.
        
        Orlando is portrayed as crossing gender boundaries, distinct from the shift in sex that she experiences. When biologically male, the descriptions applied to her physical appearance have both feminine and masculine elements, as her shapely legs and red cheeks evoke a feminine appearance while the masculinity of her sunken cheeks and handsome body draw the overall physical appearance into a range of gender ambiguity. Even when Orlando transitions into being biologically female, she still retains the traditionally masculine qualities that she had developed when biologically male. In this way, she remains both a man and a woman simultaneously throughout her life, appearing as one or the other as she pleases. She also cross-dresses and displays androgynous behavior that blurs the gender she appears to be based on her sex, as seen when she dresses up as a male to sneak out and visit the prostitutes. Her sex is separated from her gender, and her gender is presented as fluid.
    - - In Mrs. Dalloway, Mrs. Dalloway, although in a heterosexual relationship, displays a clear attraction for women, evident in her relationship with Sally Seton. Mrs. Dalloway and Sally even share a kiss, which Mrs. Dalloway reminisces over as “the most exquisite moment of her whole life,” (35). Her loveless relationship with Mr. Dalloway could in part be due to these repressed lesbian desires, as she remains in love with Sally even decades later. This expression of bisexuality challenges the traditional idea of female sexuality as heterosexual.
      - In Orlando, Orlando displays a modern lens on sexuality, as she rejects the traditional notions of heterosexual love being the only accepted bond. When biologically male, she is drawn to Princess Sasha immediately, even when she assumes her to be a man. This reveals Orlando’s open mindedness when it comes to sexuality, as she doesn’t attempt to banish her attraction even when the relationship would be between two males. She is also described as enjoying the love of both sexes equally, and seeks out those whose genders are ambiguous, such as Archduke Harry.
- - - - Mrs. Ramsay is portrayed as the “angel of the house,” a Victorian image of a submissive housewife who is pure, passive, and submissive to her husband. She behaves as the perfect mother and wife, putting all her energy into her children and her husband even over her own needs, as she is described as both a sponge “sopped full of human emotion” with “scarcely a shell of herself for herself.” However, she upholds the patriarchal nature of the Ramsay household and trusts Mr. Ramsay completely.
        
        Mr. Ramsay is the patriarchal force of the house, as the other characters revolve around him. He views himself as the intelligent force of power in the house, and looks down on his wife as a beautiful, subservient object. This becomes clear with the scene in the library, in which he questions whether she understands what she is reading.
      - A Room of One’s Own emphasizes the role of patriarchy within the literary tradition, as Woolf looks at written work through time and the ways in which it largely excludes women. Men have used literature as a field in which they hold control and subordinate women to reinforce their own superiority as a sex. By depriving women of the basic necessities required to create written work, privacy, funding, and time, patriarchal values have been enforced and legitimized.
      - Kitty's line, "you can’t really call yourself a woman until you’re a mother" also suggests that a woman’s significance is only in relation to a man – her purpose and womanhood come from the act of bearing children for a man. As Kitty and Laura play the role of suburban housewife, they act under the patriarchal ideals of male superiority and power.
    - - In Mrs. Dalloway, a distinct division between classes is made clear through the presence of the war and the character Septimus, a WWI veteran. The aristocrats of the novel show a degree of separation from the war that was achieved through privilege, whereas the lower classes were directly affected and killed. Septimus deals with PTSD upon returning from the war, and these struggles with mental illness go largely ignored by the upper classes or are responded to in a disconnected way. He blames the aristocracy for the horrors of the war, as shown in his horror at the car containing royalty.
      - In "Mrs. Dalloway and the Social System," it is emphasized how Woolf uses the language of observation as social criticism rather than explicit propaganda, as seen in her critique of social class in Mrs. Dalloway. She analyzes the behavior of the governing class and their control over England, noting the relationship between master and servant and the “cocoon” in which the upper class is swathed. The preparations for the dinner party, in particular, highlight the illusion created by the lower classes for the upper class that preserves the distinct divide between the two.
    - - In “Kissing a Negress in the Dark,” the underlying racism in Orlando is made clear. One example of this is through the example of Orlando’s return to society after her time spent with the gypsies. The gypsies are described as “savages,” and Orlando has trouble readjusting to English society, depicted in the narrator’s deployment of colonialist images to reveal the English culture’s constraints.
  - - - Although Mrs. Dalloway experiences inner turmoil surrounding her path in life in Mrs. Dalloway, she abides by the traditional gender roles assigned to women of her class at the time. She portrays herself as a feminine socialite, and constantly worries about properly satisfying her husband emotionally. She hides the internal conflicts she experiences from the public eye by appearing feminine in dress and manner, attempting to behave as the “perfect hostess.”
      - "The Hours" places a strong emphasis on gender roles, particularly in the character of Kitty. Kitty displays the makings of a picture-perfect suburban housewife, who has conformed to the traditional ideals of how a woman should behave within society. Similarly, Laura adopts the traditional role of housewife to her husband, but has more trouble than Kitty fully accepting the lifestyle. Kitty, on the other hand, displays a severe adherence to her role as she even states, “you can’t really call yourself a woman until you’re a mother.” This suggests that a woman’s role is to bear children.
- - - - Throughout To the Lighthouse, Lily Briscoe finds inspiration in the natural landscapes around her, manifesting in her paintings. She struggles to finish her painting, and constantly references the tree which she means to move over.
      - Orlando uses the oak tree and nature as inspiration for her poetry, the art form she pursues throughout her life. Her childhood poem “The Oak Tree” was inspired by the oak tree of her youth.
    - - Mrs. Ramsay seeks refuge in nature, with the sea in particular acting as a soothing escape from the rest of the house. The ocean seems to act almost maternally towards her, as the waves beat a “measured and soothing tattoo to her thoughts” and console her as a supporting guardian figure, just as she supports her children and husband. Nature whispers to her an old cradle song, “I am guarding you–I am your support,” (10).
      - Orlando uses nature as an escape, as clear in the recurring motif of the oak tree. She seeks out the physical oak tree of her childhood to ground her, and flees to it when wishing to leave behind society. Similarly, she takes refuge in her poem “The Oak Tree,” which she crafted in her childhood and keeps throughout her hundreds of years of life as the only constant – every other material item and piece of written work fluctuates as she changes.
  - - - When Orlando finishes her book after bottling herself up in her house to write for an extended period of time, she goes to the window and sees the world going on as usual, leading her to exclaim, “And if I were dead, it would be just the same!” (272) Orlando experiences a shock at the lack of significance her own life holds in the grander scheme of things, and realizes that the world will continue on in the same way with or without her.
      - A fear of the inevitability of time and human mortality is portrayed in Mr. Ramsay’s internal monologue, as he states, “The very stone one kicks with one’s boot will outlast Shakespeare. His own little light would shine, not very brightly, for a year or two, and would then be merged in some bigger light, and that in a bigger still,” (26). Mr. Ramsay, similarly to Lily, struggles with the idea that a natural form such as a rock is more long lasting than not only himself, but also to the artistic geniuses of history. He recognizes that he is a small part of something far greater than himself, and that time will continue on after he passes. Mr. Ramsay fears this inevitable passage of time, as his insecurities lie in his life and work being forgotten.
        
        In a scene in To the Lighthouse, Lily Briscoe watches the waves and the dunes beyond, and is overcome by sadness at the thought of time and the brevity of her own lifetime. She thinks to herself, “...distant views seem to outlast by a million years the gazer and to be communing already with a sky which beholds an earth entirely at rest,” (15). Briscoe’s sadness is rooted in the boundless, vast nature of time as she recognizes that the natural forms around her will live long past her own lifetime.
      - While walking towards Bond Street, Mrs. Dalloway states, “...did it matter that she must inevitably cease completely; all this must go on without her; did she resent it,” (7). She finds herself questioning her own purpose as she grasps the concept of human mortality and the flow of time.
        
        When Mrs. Dalloway finds out about Septimus’s suicide in the middle of her dinner party, she is led to ponder death and the suicide. She thinks to herself, “In the middle of my party here’s death,” and initially views it almost as an intrusion, revealing a distinct separation between the upper classes and the war. As she thinks about the suicide, she takes on a tone of admiration, and begins to view the act of death as an expression of beauty.
    - - “The Hours” grapples with depression, particularly in the character of Virginia Woolf. Woolf displays the characteristic signs of depression, and faces internal turmoil that ultimately leads to her suicide. As Woolf attempts to explain her feelings to Leonard Woolf, she states, “Only I can understand my own condition.”
      - In “On Seeing Illness,” Mrs. Dalloway is framed as an influenza survivor, and her perspective as a lens of a post-pandemic survivor. One way that this is shown is through the ways in which her mind always returns to thoughts of death. These thoughts are accompanied by a weakened state of the body in which she is described as “corpeslike,” caught in a state between life and death.
      - Mrs. Dalloway’s ailments are alluded to throughout the text, but never explicitly discussed. It is evident that she is recovering from influenza, but the extent of the illness is unclear. She states that since her illness, she had turned almost white, and she worries that her illness aged her.
        
        As a WWI veteran, Septimus experiences PTSD and mental illness that isolates him from the rest of society. Upon witnessing his friend die in the war, he constantly experiences visions from the war. These symptoms lead him to depression, and his eventual suicide.
    - - In Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf paints a portrait of life following the first world war. Her characters navigate a society in recovery, and allusions to the war and its lingering effects are littered throughout the novel. An explicit example of the war’s surviving presence in society is shown in the continuation of the grieving process. In one passage, Woolf states, “The War was over, except for some one like Mrs. Foxcroft at the Embassy last night eating her heart out because that nice boy was killed and now the old Manor House must go to a cousin; or Lady Bexborough who opened a bazaar, they said, with the telegram in her hand, John, her favourite, killed,” (4).
      - In To the Lighthouse, allusions to WWI are made, although not overtly or in a political way. In the second section of the book, “Time Passes,” there are hints towards the presence of the war occurring, and the sections surrounding both prepare readers for the war and reveal its consequences. In one scene, Woolf mocks the war using the children of the house. The kids’ games parody elements of the war, with James cutting out objects from a military catalog, and the voyage to the lighthouse described as an “expedition,” comparing it to a navy’s expedition.