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WHY VIRGINIA WOOLF OPTED FOR THEORY OF THANATOS ?


INTRODUCTION

Sigmund Freud initially described in his book Beyond the Pleasure   Principle that “the goal of all life is death”

 (Cherry)
 He has observed that,

"After people experience a traumatic event (such as war), they often re-enact the experience. He concluded that people hold an unconscious desire to die, but that this wish is largely tempered by the life instincts." 

(Cherry)

Freud's view says that self deteriorating and destructive behavior is an expression of the energy which is built by the death instincts. When this energy is directed outward onto others, it is expressed as aggression and violence.

Thanatos is a concept, in which the person feels that he or she can get rid of all this sorrows only by death. This urge for death exists in every person’s inner consciousness many people feel that there is no death instinct in their personality because somewhere their life instance is very strong. Sometimes person has more desire for death than life.

For example in a drama called Hamlet written 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:

"Hamlet"(CC BY-NC 2.0) by Robson Magalhaes

"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. Woolf has preferred Freud's theory Thanatos in her several major novels like e.g. Mrs. Dalloway is a good example of it. It can be seen that this novel has an insight into another instinct in people's subconscious. It’s the best illustration of Freud's theory of Thanatos.

The word called 'Death' can be easily seen in mostly all of her novels like example in Mrs. Dalloway. It’s like a ghost that cannot be expelled out of the consciousness of the hero of the heroine. The question raising here is from where does the death instinct came from why Woolf's own personal life has an urge for death instincts.

THANATOS IN MRS DALLOWAY

In the novel, Mrs. Dalloway it can be seen that Mrs. Dalloway’s party and Septimus’s, suicide has an intrinsic connection with each other. Although they both are not aware of each other’s existence in a novel, but it can be felt by readers that they are coming closer and closer. Which bind them together? Woolf shared how she came to write this novel, she wrote.

"That in the first version Septimus, who later is intended to be her double had no existence: and that Mrs. Dalloway was originally to kill herself, or perhaps merely to die at the end of her party." 

(LI)

THANATOS IN WOOLF'S LIFE

If the readers can put a glance on Woolf's life they will come to know that Woolf's thanatos is closely related to her past life. There was a problem of psychosis in her father's history. Virginia's father's life was full of sadness, lamentations and melancholy. When one of his daughters died, he also wanted to die. He walked past her, saying that he wished that he were dead. After the death of his wife, he got depressed Woolf's mother was born a melancholy woman. After her first husband died, she became more sad and silent. Woolf's parent’s melancholy character had a great influence on her and planted the death instinct in her gradually.

Woolf's disease is another source of her Thanatos. The psychological problem is haunting Woolf throughout her life. There was a great darkness in her past life when she suffered from her first mental breakdown; she used to talk to herself continuously which lasted for several days. She was lost to all around her. The mental disease led to her depression, despair and eventually her death instinct.

"Why is life so tragic; so like a little strip of pavement over an abyss?"

(Zwerdling 80)

The two great world wars also brought her great trauma. In her dairy in 1920, she wrote.

"Its life itself, I think sometimes, for  in our generation so tragic... no newspaper placard without its shriek of agony from someone…unhappiness is everywhere; Just beyond the door; or stupidity which is worse.”

(Singh 42)

During the period of Second World War when she notices that London was under the bomb, she wrote to her friend,

"And then the passion of my life, that is the city of London… to see London all blasted, that too raked my heart." (Lee 732)

It can be seen from the above paragraph theory of Thanatos can be seen in Woolf's works she had a great desire for death. This desire has come from her childhood tragedies, her bad and abusive experiences of life. For her probably death is the only way to overcome it. This is the reason Woolf drowned herself in the river, freeing herself forever from the unbearable sufferings.

Theory of Thanatos was the theme of most of her novels. It has been found that after finishing her each and every novel she used to feel a kind of terrible depression. It is said that she destroyed every journal in which she had her works published the question arises that, why did she has such a strange response? Why couldn't she reread her own works? That is because she saw herself in her words.


Bibliography:

  • Cherry, Kendra. "Life and Death Instincts." About Education. About.com. Web.10 Apr. 2015.
  • Lee, Hermione. Virginia Woolf. New York: Vintage, 1999. 732.Print.
  • LI, Qiuxia. "A Study of  from the Perspective of Freud’s Theory of Thanatos." Journal of Cambridge Studies 6.1 (2011). Web. 10. Arp. 2015.
  • Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. 13th ed. New York: Iberica, 1915. Print.
  • Singh, Randhir Pratap. Novels of Virginia Woolf. New Delhi: Sarup & Sons, 2004. 42. Print.
  • Zwerdling, Alex. Virginia Woolf and the Real World. London: U of California, 1986. 80.Print.
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