VIRGINIA WOOLF'S TASTE TOWARDS LITERARY TECHNIQUES

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 equipment of a poet. Her work has the form and substance of lyrical poetry form.

“Virginia Woolf is a writer who doesn’t waste time with lengthy introductions: she goes straight to the point in few sentences. Her style is very informal which is very pleasant for the readers. She switches of between using the pronouns ‘we’ and ‘you’ making the reader feds included, which makes the reader pay more attention to her context. Virginia also use commands, ‘Do not dictate to your author; try to become him. Be his fellow worker and accomplice.’ Her use of commands contribute to her informal style;’ proving that she doesn’t try to ‘sugar coat’, but instead get straight to the point. Virginia’s syntax consists of long, complex sentences separated by hyphens or commas. She uses allusions to Defoe, Jane Austen, and Thomas Hardy Multiple times to support what she is saying. Finally, Virginia also uses metaphors in her writing”.

(Kmatty)

“ The thirty two chapters of a novel – if we consider how to read a novel first is an attempt to make something as formed and controlled as a building.’ In this quote, Virginia compares the chapters of a novel to a building and both needing to be solid and concrete, never changing and without question, overall, Virginia Woolf is a talented author that included many literary devices in her writing.”

(Kmatty)

These were the different views on Virginia's style of writing different people says different things but all of them agree with one concept that is Woolf has a unique style of writing which makes her different in a crowd of 20th century novelist. She favors simplicity, naturalness and clarity in style. She herself recommends it in essay Modern Fiction

“Any method is right, every method is right, that expresses what we wish to express, if we are writers, that bring us closer to the novelists, intension if we are readers. She does not like affectation and mannerism. That is why she denounces Mr. Belloc, the essayist. It( the style of Mr. Belloc) comes to us not with the natural richness of the speaking voice, but strained and thin and full of mannerisms and affectations like the voice of a man shouting through a megaphone to a crowd on a windy day”.

(Nordquist, Richard)

Therefore Virginia’s style is natural, simple, innocent, child-like, and spontaneous. It is figurative, metaphorical, imaginative, say poetic with some major and important techniques which she used in a most of her novels like, most importantly stream a consciousness technique, Interior monologue, device of symbolism, Impressionistic technique and apart from all these themes of androgynous mind, Gender differences and reaction against reality and autobiographical content can be easily found in her novels.

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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 consciousness' likewise ever

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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