VIRGINIA WOOLF - A BRIEF GLANCE ON HER LIFE, WORKS AND STYLE.

"World War II, June 1944 Normandy" (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) by Tjflex2 The first world war as a catastrophic break, and as the event which shaped the twentieth century, overshadows Virginia Woolf's work. In her novels there is often a violent moment of destruction or obliteration. All the lights go out; there is a roaring blackness and a sense of ‘complete annihilation’. (Lee 336) Two years after Virginia Woolf's marriage, the First World War broke out ending that period of relative security and stability which all those at least, in western world, which grew up before 1914, look back upon with nostalgia. For Virginia it was a horrible and nerve shattering experience. She already has a sensitive soul because of tortured abused childhood. After witnessing the world war, she became weak and sick consequently she suffered from constant fits of depression. But she continued to work hard with her works.  "Her own apprehension of end attraction to death creates

"Kindle"(CC BY-NC 2.0) by Osbornb "As a woman I have no country. As a woman I want no country, as a woman, my country is the whole world."                                                                                                                                        (Three Guineas) Virginia Woolf is best known to scholars today as a feminist writer. She believes that there should be equality of sexes in social, political and economical issues. Virginia fought against the patriarchal restrictions not only in the literary world, but also in her daily life. "While bookshelves only showcased spines with the names of male author such as Shakespeare, Woolf was secretly penning her thoughts on paper within her father's library. With works such as "A Room of one’s' own" that confront a male – driven society, Virginia Woolf declared the importance of a woman having her own personal space to pursue her creative power."  (Em

There are various psychological as well as literary techniques used by Virginia Woolf in her novels. This post will help to understand them in brief. STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS The novels based on stream of consciousness are the peculiar product of the 20th century. The rise of this art form on the eve of the World War I marks an epoch in the history of English novel. This particular kind of novel is also called the novel of subjectivity or the psychological novel.  The phrase Stream of Consciousness was first used by William James in his Principles of Psychology 1890 , to denote the chaotic flow impressions and sensations through the human consciousness, Dorothy Richardson in England, James Joyce in Ireland, and Proust in France. The chief architects of the novel of subjectivity, and Virginia Woolf is the novelist who imparted from and discipline to it and thus made it in popularly accepted art – form. Woolf is not the founder of the stream of consciousness technique, but

VIRGINIA’S TASTE TOWARDS THE LITERARY TECHNIQUES. Virginia’s theory of fiction is totally different from that of Fielding, Scott, Jane Austen, Dickens, or Hardy etc. Fielding defined fiction as a comic epic in prose, Scott made it a means for the reproduction of history and romance. Whereas for Jane Austen it was just a medium of expressing life’s little experiences, a storm in a tea - cup. Dickens regarded it as a chronicle of social history and a picture gallery of caricatures and characters. Hardy sought through it an expression of the tragic, the fatal and the pessimistic with Hardy again plot and character were of primary importance. It was the misfortune of Virginia that she was born in an age which was so prosaic. Had she been in an age of poetry she would have been a great poet. As a prose writer too she belongs to the tradition of those who have enriched English literature by writing poetic prose. She is however, a poet without the proper apparatus and equipm

"Virginia Woolf Wallpaper"(CC BY 2.0) by lushka1 Descending from the intellectual aristocracy, Woolf is one of the most noteworthy novelists of the twentieth century. She was the one who tried to give a new direction to the English novel with a new spiritual awareness.  She was a novelist of distinction and an artist who whatever her dependence upon tradition had something original to say and who surpassed most of her contemporaries in sensitive fidelity to the most evanescent moments of conscious. Virginia’s style of writing has invented something new which takes a break from tradition and conventional conceptions of the novel; she entirely rejected and replaced all the old notions of writings. She gave more emphasis on incident, external description, and straight forward narrative by an overriding concern with the character presentation by the Stream of consciousness method. The way Proust introduced something new into French fiction, likewise Virginia Woolf d

  "Virginia Woolf Smiling ? Surely not..." (CC BY-SA 2.0) by Spratmackrel "Sigmund Freud" (CC BY 2.0) by immugmania VIRGINIA AND FREUD Sigmund Freud was born on 6 May 1856 whereas Virginia Woolf was born almost a quater of a century later in 1882. So basically Freud was 26 years older than her. He was a father of psychoanalysis. FREUD'S IMPACT ON LITERATURE There is a great impact of Freud’s theories on twentieth century literature. One can hardly find any area of literature which Freudian’s theory have left untouched. It can be said that because of Freud’s theories only, one can understand and appreciate the difficult poems, novels and plays than to write new ones. People can understand the complex play of Hamlet far better because of Freud’s psychoanalytical theories. VIRGINIA'S PROBLEM WITH FREUD So if everything is ok then why Virginia has problem with Freud? The problem lies with the thinking of Freud towards female

"IMG_2742" (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) by acjetter Virginia Stephen and Leonard Woolf first met while Virginia was visiting her brother Thoby at Trinity College in the year 1900. When she was wearing white gown, Leonard fell in love with her at first sight. Few years later one of their mutual friends named Lytton Strachey wrote to him to propose Virginia. “Your destiny is clearly marked out for you, but will you allow it to work? You must marry Virginia. She’s sitting waiting for you, is there any objection? She’s the only woman in the world with sufficient brains, it’s a miracle that she should exist; but if you’re not careful you’ll lose the opportunity…She’s young, wild, inquisitive, discontented, and longing to be in love.”         (Brooks) On which Leonard replied: “Do you think Virginia would have me? Wire to me if she accepts. I’ll take the next boat home.”    (Brooks) The above lines show that somewhere Leonard was not at all confident about Vir

"loneliness copy" (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 by St' John's  Catholic Comprehensive INTRODUCTION  “These memorable moments were of ecstasy but also of fear. She always remembered from her first ten years of her life, a feeling of desolation she used to have at St. Ives, as she saw the clouds darkening over the waves, while she sat at lessons worth her mother; a feeling of shame associated with the mirror in the hall and the stone slab outside the dining- room a feeling of hopeless sadness while she was fighting with Thoby on the lawn so that she stopped and let him win"                                                                                                         (Lee 105) She always feels herself as a desolated girl who has no one to share her feelings and emotions. She was the one who has faced all the terrible tragedies in her life and has no one to even share those worst reveries.  "I seemed to be dragged down, hopelessly, int

"Virginia Woolf /Through the Looking Gla"(CC BY -SA 2.0) by Christiaan Tonnis “She suffered from major onslaughts of the illness and in almost all (possibly all) of these attacks she attempted to kill herself.”  (Lee, Hermione) She had ample problems starting from depression, anxiety or a sudden faint, headache, back ache, an attack of influenza or a high temperature. A reluctance to eat and severe weight loss was one of the most extreme symptom out of these physical problems.  Her first breakdown took place in the year 1895 after Julia’s death. The treatment and remedies which she has provided in later life severely affected her personality, nature, behaviour, writing and politics. Ultimately her illness has become her language. Later it was came to know that her physical condition was badly torturing her soul and mind. She tried to kill herself by jumping out of the window.  She started hearing horrible voices after her first nervous breakdown.  She st

Thanatos is a concept, in which the person feels that he or she can get rid of all his sorrows only by death. In fact  this urge for death exists in every person’s inner consciousness. At the same time there are people who feel that there is no death instinct in their personality,  because somewhere their life instinct is strong. Depressive and negative people  have more desire for death than life. For example in a drama called Hamlet by Shakespeare when Hamlet came to know that his father was murdered by his uncle and his own mother, he was in such an agony that he sighed and said: "To be or not to be … that is the question" It happens even when a person is very much happy, in that extreme joy, he or she sometimes feels to die. The word called 'Death' can be easily seen in Woolf's most of the novels like example in Mrs Dalloway. It’s like a ghost that cannot be expelled from the consciousness of the mind. The question which has been raised here is f

This was the question hitting  everybody's mind when it was declared publicly, that Woolf is no more, she drowned herself into the river Ouse near her house and committed suicide on 28 March, 1941. The above is the news in The New York Times regarding Virginia, who was missing from her house. Sources were saying that she already planned to kill herself because she did not find any charm in her life. Still she neither informed anybody nor she shared it with her husband. Eventually people of her area found her clothes in the river then everyone came to know about the sad demise of her. WHY SHE CHOSE RIVER ONLY ? "Virginia Woolf"(CC BY -SA 2.0) by Wolf Gang Now the question is again unanswered that if she was enjoying her  life with her husband, everything seems to be happy and gay then why she took this decision? Even if she decided to kill herself then why she chose river to be the option ? Why not any other ways to do it? Does she not like her existence

Here the question is, can Anita Desai be an Indian version of Virginia Woolf ? Well,  It has been seen that there is a vast similarity between Woolf's and Desai's style of writing. In spite of the fact that both are from different centuries and countries. Virginia is a modernist literary figure of twentieth century whereas Anita is also powerful contemporary English novelist. The former represents the British English sophisticated society whereas the later the Indian culture and tradition. Although both belongs to different era and literary period but still their method of writing is quite similar, they both follow the same techniques in their writings. They showed interest in representing the character's inner thoughts and consciousness rather than social and political representation of it. Their keen interest has always been in telling about their personal life or  autobiographical content as well as portraying their family members.  It can be seen that their se