VIRGINIA WOOLF & ANITA DESAI ARE THEY SAME ?

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 selection of themes for their works are quite similar, both writes on feminism, isolation, loneliness, deaths, stream of consciousness, time and timelessness, psychoanalitical contents. Both the novelist never ever focussed on the plot, structure and characters of the novel, no proper beginning, middle and end.

On personal front they both showed unhappy, desolated characters in their novels who were not happy at all. Woolf's famous novel Mrs Dalloway can be compared with Desai's Cry the Peacock and To the Lighthouse with Clear Light of Day.

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VIRGINIA WOOLF AND STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN MRS DALLOWAY

INTRODUCTION The stream of consciousness is a narrative technique on which so many writers have given their views whether they are essayist, novelists etc, but the most well known is Virginia Woolf who is considered as the forerunner of this style of writing. "Influenced by the works of French writer Marcel Proust and Irish writer James Joyce, among others, Woolf strove to create a literary form that would convey inner life. To this end, she elaborated a technique known as stream of consciousness" (Bouzid) Richardson is the pioneer of the stream of consciousness technique. He is the first 20th century British author to publish a full length stream of consciousness novel Pointed Roofs. On one side was the little grey river, on the other long wet grass repelling and depressing. Not far ahead was the roadway which led, she supposed to the farm where they were to drink new milk. She would have to walk with someone when they came on the road, and talk. She wond...

VIRGINIA WOOLF AND STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

INTRODUCTION "stream of consciousness"(CC BY-SA 2.0) by planeta To the Lighthouse is not an easy novel to read. Its style of writing is quite critical. Readers can get confused because there are none of the standard novelistic signposts telling the readers what is the location, where the action is being done. who is speaking, when this takes place. For example the novel begins with the answer to a question that has not been asked, and that question is answered by the person who has not been described, and addressed to a child who seems to be sitting on the floor in an unspecified location. Every single thing is ambiguous. Nor is there much respect for the standard novelistic conventions of clock time or consecutive action. Woolf seems to delight in confusing the readers by using and inserting a recollection or anticipating a reaction, consequently past and present and future seem to flow into one another in an unbroken stream of consciousness. STREAM OF CONSCI...

VIRGINIA WOOLF AND INTERIOR MONOLOGUE IN HER NOVELS

"Blah Blah Blah (CC BY-NC 2.0) by id.-iom INTRODUCTION "A monologue is presented by a single character, most often to express their mental thoughts aloud, though sometimes also to directly address another character or the audience." (Hargrave) Virginia Woolf beautifully uses both the techniques whether its stream of consciousness or interior monologue she continued to use the same technique in her subsequent novels as well. It is already mentioned that Woolf was not at all satisfied with the traditional method of writing novels. In an essay Modern Fiction she had criticized novelist like Arnold Bennet and John Galsworthy for the 'Naturalistic' manner in which they had written their novels. James Joyce probed the same inner consciousness in Ulysses which Woolf probed in Mrs. Dalloway. Although there is an incessant flow of thoughts which has been given the technical name of 'the stream of consc...

WHY DID VIRGINIA WOOLF COMMIT SUICIDE ?

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...

VIRGINIA WOOLF AND OEDIPUS COMPLEX

INTRODUCTION In Freudian Theory: "The complex of emotions aroused in a young child, typically around the age of four, by an unconscious sexual desire for the parent of the opposite sex and wishes to exclude the parent of the same sex. The term was originally applied to boys, the equivalent in girls being called the Electra complex." (Schuller) Freud's theory of Oedipus complex has become a major theme for various renowned English novelists like example: - D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers, Shakespeare's Hamlet, Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms, Sophocles’s Oedipus the King and last but not the least Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, Orlando etc. Another thing apart from all the literary techniques, which caught attention while reading To the Lighthouse is the language that Virginia uses to describe James and her mother Mrs. Ramsay’s relationship. One can easily forget that James is Mrs. Ramsay's six year old son and think ...

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

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