Virginia Woolf: A Productive Life Marked by Literature and Mental Illness, Dispense di Inglese

Scarica Virginia Woolf: A Productive Life Marked by Literature and Mental Illness e più Dispense in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! VIRGINIA WOLF Virginia Woolf was a productive writer: she wrote novels, she wrote short stories, she also wrote biographies. She was born in 1882 in London and she was the daughter of Sir Leslie Steven, a distinguished man of letter who was an editor, a journalist and a writer. He was also interested in philosophy and literary criticism. Virginia was the third of 4 children, so she has 2 brothers and 1 sister Vanessa. A part from a few courses at king’s college, she was educated at home with her sister Vanessa; because her father, who was a Victorian man, had a traditional outlook on women, he believed that women shouldn’t be allowed to go to university. So she was educated at home and she had private Greek lessons at home, and she could read whatever she wanted, thanks to her father’s library. WATER FOR VIRGINIA The Steven Family was really happy and the children felt the deep love between their parents. The family spent their summers at Saint Ives, which is a seaside resort in camwall. The sea Saint Ives became a symbol for Vinginia Woolf, they represented 2 things : life and death. 1. Life: water represented something pleasant, armonius and water is usually linked with fertility, procreation, so water represents life. 2. Death: For Virginia Woolf water also represented the possibility of resolution of inner troubles, inner conflicts and as a matter of fact she committed suicide by drowning herself in the river Ouse. MENTAL ILLNESS In 1895 there was a very shocking experience because Woolf's mother died, it was a very tragic experience because the house became very dark and depressed and she also suffered from the first nervous breakdown. She became afraid of people and she started hearing what she later called “those horrible voices”. This was the beginning of a mental illness that accompanied her for the rest of her life. Then, although the relationship with her father was rather conflicting. In 1904, when her father died she suffered from the second nervous breakdown and she tried to commit suicide by throwing herself from the window. Then she recovered and she started writing and she wrote articles and book reviews for the “times literary supplement”. BLOOMSBURY GROUP In 1905 the family moved to Bloomsbury: an area, a district in central London, not far from the British museum, and here her brothers invited their Cambridge’s friends and they gave origin to the Bloomsbury group: a group of intellectuals, writers, philosophers, artists and also thinkers. They rejected traditional Victorian values, ideals, ways of thinking and beliefs. They wanted freedom, above all of sexual freedom: in fact they had frequent homosexual relationship that shocked the society, but fascinated Virginia Woolf, after some doubts and fears, told Leonard Woolf that she loved him and she would marry him. Leonard Woolf was a jewish writer and a member of the “Bloomsbury group”. Their marriage was a deep-loving relationship in which her became more and more dependent on him. HER WORKS (VITA SACKVILLE) In 1913 she finished her first novel “the voyage out” that was published in 1915. It was a traditional novel that followed traditional patterns and traditional narrative techniques. But, when she finished novel, she suffered again from nervous breakdown and once again she want into a nursing home and so she tried again to commit suicide by taking drugs. In 1927 Virginia and her husband Leonard Woolf bought a critic press “the Hogarth press”, that published experimental and unconventional works; work for example by Freud, Svevo, Eliot and also it published all the works written by Virginia Woolf. 1922 was a very important year because Virginia met Vita Sackville-West, who was an aristocratic woman and writer. Virginia Woolf immediately felt attracted by her and she was conditioned by the present of Vitafor the rest of her life. As a homage to Vita she wrote “Orlando” in 1928, a very original story which developed through 3 or 4 centuries, from the age of Elizabeth l, so from the 16th century, up to the 20th century. It is the story of a noble man who turns into a woman, who becomes a very successful writer. JAMES AND BERGSON But before she wrote in 1925 “Mrs Dalloway” and in 1927 “to the lighthouse”. In these novels Virginia experimented new narrative techniques that were influenced by Freud, James and Bergson. William James was an American psychologist who in the Principles of Psychology(1890) first used the expression “STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS” to describe the continuous flow of thoughts, feelings and perceptions that fill the mind of a person. These thoughts and feelings do not generally come to a person in a linear or logical way but are often the result of spontaneous free associations of ideas.(The mind jumps from one idea to another, from a past memory to a future event, from a positive to a with a conventional views of politics and women’s rights, but Clarissa feels protected by him and their relationship is not based on passion and love, but provides Clarissa with a sculpture from her wildness and unsecurity. Clarissa continues to gives parties to gain admiration and approval of others and she imposes severe restrictions on her feelings. MOMENT OF BEING During the party she finally realises that the social life she values so much is false and superficial and this is one moments of being. Moments of being: flashes of each individual awareness when the characters see something that was hidden before when they can see reality behind appearances. So during one of those moments of being Clarissa realised that her social life is false and superficial and she finally accepted herself. Another important character is Septimus who is about 40 and he listed when the first world war broke out, he’s a very sensitive man and he souffres from shell shock after the war. For this reason he suffered from headache, insomnia, fear and panic attacks and feeling of guilt, he felt guilty because he wasn’t able to save his best friend Evans during the war. At the end Septimus commit suicide in order to protect himself form father’s soufering ans so he decide to free his soul from the cosrenints of sociaty. He jumped out of the window. Although Clarissa and Septimus never meet during the novel and Clarissa knows of Septimus’s death at the party, this two characters are too similar first of all they depend on their partner for stability and protection because they are weak and insecure but unlike septimus who is unable to conform to society, he is alienated and he suffered for mental disorder and for this reason he kills himself, Clarissa understands that her social life is false, shallow and she accepted herself, her old age and the idea of death and she finally chooses to go on, to live. Clarissa and Septimus Clarissa decides to buy herself flowers for the party she is going to give in the evening. She goes into Mulberry’s florist shop and is greeted by Miss Pym. Clarissa enjoys the various perfumes and colours of the many flowers. She suddenly hears a noise similar to a pistol shot in the street. Miss Pym went to the window to look and then she smiled apologetically as if the loud of the motor cars were her fault. The explosion made Mrs Dalloway jump and her and other people observed the mysterious person passing in a luxury car. Edgar J Watkiss said it was the Prime Minister's kyar. When Septimus Warren Smith, a veteran of World War I, hears the car backfire, he believes he is responsible for the traffic congestion the passing car causes because he souffred from shell shock, a mental illness caused by the horrors of war. His wife Lucrezia, a young italian woman, is embarrassed for his strange behavior and afraid that everyone will notice that Septimus has recently threatened to kill himself. Modernism Virginia Woolf was a modernist writer. Modernism was a new cultural and literary movement that started after 1910 and developed in the 20s and 30s. So artists wanted to experiment with new forms and styles. Traditional ways are not able to represent reality so they looked for a new form to represent reality. ● In the novel they use stream of consciousness and interior monologue: the written expression of the stream of consciousness, is the metal process, the interior monologue. ● The narrator was no longer an omniscient narrator, who could express his moral view, but the characters are presented through their thoughts, their feelings and emotions. So there was no longer just one point of view, but different ones. ● The events were not narrated in chronological order: the story can be set in only one day (ex Mrs Dalloway) but a moment can tell us about the characters more than the traditional story. ● Time: subjective: time of emotions and feelings. Big Ben it’s a symbol, it’s a connection between the internal and the external time.