Term Paper on "Life and Works of Virginia Woolf"

Term Paper 5 pages (1514 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Virginia Woolf is considered to be one of the most influential writers of her time because of her experimental style and modern approach to writing. Many of Woolf's pieces reflect a unique perspective, which allow her to explore areas such as stream of consciousness writing and feminist views. In "A Room of One's Own," Woolf does achieves both of these, expressing her desire to work against the traditional ways of writing literature. Another piece that illustrates Woolf's stream of consciousness writing is "The Mark on the Wall," which is also written in a very nontraditional manner. Woolf's contribution to literature cannot be underestimated, for she paved the way for other feminist Modernist writers that were interested in stream of consciousness writing.

Virginia Woolf was born in 1912 in London, where she was lucky enough to be around smart and talented people. Woolf educated herself in her father's library and she was known for her intelligence and frankness, especially regarding sexual issues. She married Leonard Woolf and her marriage can be described as very "unconventional" (Rosenberg). Beth Rosenberg notes that Woolf and her husband were neither "interested in a sexual relationship though they were deeply engaged in an intellectual one" (Rosenberg). Her sexual preferences have been explained by child abuse when she was younger. Rosenberg notes that in many ways, Woolf's husband was her "caretaker; he worked to create an environment where she could pursue her writing. He took care of the practicalities of their lives while also reading and commenting on her manuscripts" (Rosenberg). After being with her husband for thirteen years and she "fell passionately in love with the poet Victoria Sackville-West, wife of the bisexual diplomat and author, Harold Nicolson" (Abrams 1986). Her relationship with another woman led to some of her most interesting work, such as Orlando.

Woolf's life was not without difficulty, however. In 1895, she had one nervous breakdown after her mother died and struggled with two more later in her life. Her husband helped her through these dark times but in 1941, the stress of World War II caused her to believe that she would have yet another breakdown. Rosenberg notes that in her diary, Woolf wrote that she feared she "would not recover from this one and felt she could not sentence Leonard to taking care of her for the rest of his life" (Rosenberg). Louis Untermeyer notes that are the publication of her book, the Voyage Out, "It was evident that a refined and highly sensitive intelligence was at work" (Untermeyer 1268). According to Untermeyer, Mrs. Dalloway was the "turning point" (1268) in her creativity in that she was one of the first writers that experimented with the stream of consciousness technique.

One story that illustrates Woolf's unique style is "The Mark on the Wall." In this story, Woolf was recovering from an illness, which happened to be the "breakthrough into a new experimental form of fiction" (Marder). In this new style, Woolf concentrated on "the narrator's thoughts and mental states, Woolf tested the limits of the short story form by placing her emphasis on the inner life rather than on external action" (Marder). Interestingly, the narrator is pondering something so small as a mark on a wall that she cannot identify from where she is.

The mark sets the writer on a stream of consciousness line of thinking. For example, she considers what the mark could be "and yet that mark on the wall is not a hole at all. It may even be caused by some round black substance, such as a small rose leaf..." (Woolf Mark on the Wall 1989). She also writes:

No, no nothing is proved, nothing is known. And if I were to get up at this very moment and ascertain that the mark on the wall is really -- what shall we say? -- the hard of a gigantic old nail, driven in two hundreds years ago, which has now... revealed its head above the coat of paint, and is taking its first view of modern life in the sight of a white-walled fire-lit room, what should I gain? Knowledge? (1991)

This passage demonstrates her spontaneous writing style. Marder notes that the story is "amplified by the disclosures at the very end. The final angry remark about World War I broadens the frame of reference... The war is symptomatic of an imbalance between outer and inner realms " (Marder). Again, we see how Woolf's experimental style allows her writing to flow just as the mind does, from one topic to another.

Another essay that works with the same type of flow with time is the essay, "A Room of One's Own."

In this essay, we can see how Woolf was working with nontraditional ways of writing. Woolf's larger message is for women to have to courage to discover their own voice and unique style in the world. By simply writing the essay, she proves that this can be done. The essay also "investigates the issue of androgyny" (Rosenberg) in that it is a "classic in Anglo-feminist literary theory, Woolf's work discusses the androgynous mind, a mind that transcends gender and that is necessary for any writer, male or female, to be great" (Rosenberg). The structure of the essay is unique and how Woolf arrives at her conclusion is unique as well.

The essay is significant for many reasons but primarily for its feminist views. It provides a modern writing setting and style which with many writers of her time were experimenting. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the essay is that it begins with a question. This automatically allows us to feel as though we are taking place in a conversation with the writer. We feel as though Woolf is speaking to us in a personal way. Her approach to her own question is unorthodox in that she does not attempt to win us over with any amount of reason to answer this question. Instead, Woolf admits that she "should never be able to fulfill what is the first duty of a lecturer" (Woolf Room of One's Own). With this admission, she knows that she will not be able to provide us with a logical answer to her question but she can, however, present her point-of-view. Because the problem cannot be solved, we can see how important it is. In addition, Woolf illustrates her courage by attempting to find an answer to this problem. Her stream of consciousness style and setting in this essay demonstrate the modernist technique that many writers of her time were using as a form of expression.

In this essay, Woolf also brings attention to the sad state that women live in. She describes how difficult it was for her to earn money and survive. Woolf also recognizes the importance of talent. In addition, Woolf realizes the importance of education. In regard to female poets, she states:

Intellectual freedom depends upon material things. Poetry depends upon intellectual freedom. And women have always been poor, not for two hundred years merely, but from the beginning of time. Women have had less intellectual freedom than the sons of Athenian slaves. Women, then, have not had a dog's chance of writing poetry" (Woolf).

In this passage, we have another example of how Woolf is pondering a problem that she knows she will not be able to solve. It is important to note that this does not stop her from thinking about it. However, while reading this, we know that while her statement cannot be totally truthful, it cannot be completely false, either.

To conclude, Virginia Woolf is significant to the modernist movement in literature because she was able to think and write in such a way that caused others to think as well. Her style shows illustrates how she is able to create a… READ MORE

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