Virginia Woolf e i suoi romanzi: To the Lighthouse e Mrs. Dalloway, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica Virginia Woolf e i suoi romanzi: To the Lighthouse e Mrs. Dalloway e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! VIRGINIA WOOLF Virginia Woolf was born in London in 1882, her real surname was Stephen but she adopted her husband’s surname. She grew up in a highly intellectual and wealthy environment, she couldn’t go to school so she and her sister were educated at home, because her father was a very traditional man. She also suffered very much from her mother’s death, because she lost her mother when she was only 13. This event changed her life completely because her father got married with a widow, who already had four children, so they became a huge family. She had some problems with her half brother, because he abused her sexually and this influenced her personal life and also sexual one. She was very active in the femminist movement, especially for the fight of the vote of women. She was also homosexual, she had many relatioships with women, one of her most important lovers was Vita Sackville-West. Beside the fact that she was married to a man but she deeply loved him, in fact she used to say that she fell in love with his way of being. Her husband was Leonard Woolf and together they set up a printing house in 1917 known as Hogarth Press eich promoted the publication of experimental and controversial work. They also joined an important intellectual group called the Bloomsbury group, which was an intellectual society and they used to meet once or twice a week to talk about cultural questions but also political and socio-economic ones. During her life she suffered from several breakdowns, because she never recovered from her mother's death and sexual abuses. Her life was ruined by these continuous breakdowns, and she had been forced twice to be recovered in an asylum. She tried to commit suicide twice and at last she put stones in her dress and drown herself in the river Ouse. STYLE Virginia is not so much different from Joyce, because both were dealing with interior monologue,but Joyce’s way of writing is more revolutionary because it’s more extreme. She didn't use chronological events, because she didn't want to focus on the plot instead on the psychological side of the character. All her novels are not important because of the plot. TO THE LIGHTHOUSE Written in 1927 To the lighthouse is a novel which is highly symbolic and it’s structured in three main parts, and each part corresponds to a moment of activity of the lighthouse which have alternating moments between darkness and light: ● The window: light; ● Time passes:darkness; ● To the lighthouse: light; In the first part we have the representation of the Ramsay family. They are spending a summer vacation on their villa in one of the Hebrides, near Scotland and they are planning a trip to the lighthouse. But what matters isn't the plot of the story, but the interior life of each character, especially the difficult relationship between Miss. and Mr. Ramsay, because they can’t communicate between them. In fact one of the main themes is the impossibility to communicate. For example Miss. Ramsay would like to tell him that she loves him, instead she can’t do it she isn’t able to tell that. What matters is the use of interior time expressed by the interior monologue, which is a way to explore the mind of a character. It's also essential to the relationship among the characters, the loneliness between them and the impossibility to talk to each other. The lighthouse is a symbol because it represents what we can’t get. But also the sea has a symbolic meaning because, the sea with its waves could be compared to our consciousness, because the water is never the same, it changes continuously and it hasn’t smell or taste. The sea is always present in Woolf’ stories. Beside that in this first part there’s also the description of a party planned by this family, but was totally a failure, because all the guests can’t communicate to each other. For example there is an argument between a friend of the Ramssay family, a painter woman called Lily with another guest who believed that because she’s a woman she can’t paint, so he’s an antifeminist and she accused him of being arrogant, and Miss. Ramsay is really upset about this. But at the same time at the end of the party, the children are told that they can’t go to the lighthouse the day after because of the bad weather. So we also have this disillusionment and the difficult relationship between the children and their parents. The first part of the book ends with the failure of the party. This first part is full of pages that cover one afternoon and one evening, because what is fundamental isn't the objective time but the interior one. Instead in the second part of the book the time of narration is shorter but covers 10 years, in fact we have 20 pages which tells what happened immediately after the beginning of the First World War till the end. During these years there’s also the death of Miss. Ramsay and of two children. After these years of dark we have again the light represented by the third part. In this part there’s the rest of the Ramsay family, Mr. Ramsay is alone and together with his sons they finally go to the lighthouse, so they can realise this desire. So the book has an happy ending because of the realisation of this desire, however even if they go to the lighthouse it isn’t the same as 10 years before. Also we find again the painter, Lily, who now can complete her portrait of Miss. Ramsay, that she had stopped ten years before. So beside the realisation of the trip at the end of the story there’s also the realisation of the painting, which has also an optimistic message. MRS. DALLOWAY Mrs. Dalloway is Woolf’s masterpiece. The novel has simple plot and it is developed on two parallel lines: on the one hand we have Mrs. Dalloway, a very important and wealthy woman who lives in a really elegant side of London. All the novel is settled in one single day in June 1923, during which Mrs. Dalloway is planning a party. She has to organise everything, such as buying flowers, making a list of all the guests. But she also spends this day remembering past memories, especially memories which concentrate on one particular summer when Clarissa was 18 and rejected her old flame Peter Walsh, in favour of her actual husband Richard Dalloway. However during this day there’s also the surprise visit by this man. Peter is also a way used by Woolf to express her position against colonialism, such as her husband. On the other hand we also have a parallel life of a man, called Septimus Warren Smith, who is a soldier just came back from the First World War and because of that he’s shelled-shock. Virginia is highly affected by the First World War, this shock is expressed by this character who, true to life at the time, was left alone to deal with his mental breakdown caused by the trauma of shell-shock after the war.