Mystical Motifs in Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway
The scholarship surrounding Woolf’s mysticism by and large focuses on a psychoanalytical approach. While this paper will somewhat attempt to move away from a psychoanalytical methodology, it is valuable to examine the existing scholarship and the departures from this approach. Within this theoretical structure, the critical discussion further breaks down into two separate, though not incompatible, groups: those who see Woolf’s use of mysticism as a feminist statement and those who see Woolf as a mystic. I contend that both perspectives are valid and are inherent in Woolf’s application of mystical motifs, particularly in Mrs. Dalloway.
Val Gough in his article “With Some Irony in Her Interrogation: Woolf’s Ironic Mysticism” makes an argument for Woolf’s ironic use of mysticism in her works as a feminist statement. Through various syntactical subtleties, Gough points out areas in Woolf’s work where “the mystic quest for truth [is portrayed] in a subtly skeptical manner” (Gough 86). Gough extends her use of irony to examine how it serves “to de-naturalize the relationship between text and reader, to make it overtly complex and problematic” (88). He contends that irony, in operating between the reader and the text, serves to break down, to some extent, the “stability of the sign and of supposed ‘absolute’ truth” (88). Ultimately, he concludes that “Woolf’s ironic mysticism…necessarily involves a feminist challenging of rigid structures of phallic (and imperialist) power, thus making it a mysticism of subversive, politically critical, feminist irony” (89).
Gough’s particular approach is interesting because it contends that an ironic mysticism is inherently politicized and specifica...
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As a final note, Gregory Wigmore`s article really touched upon a unique and unexplored topic on local history in the Windsor-Detroit region. I had never seen the Detroit River as a safe haven for anyone, much less slaves. His article focuses on how the borders provided freedom and screwed over the slave owners that got stuck in red tape trying to retrieve their `property.` Although cross border freedoms were created, laws at the time didn`t protect the slaves in the country they were living in; the only way to freedom was to run away. This article is an interestingly unique and an underexplored topic of slavery before the underground railroads.
Americans must understand that the horrors of slavery and oppression were not just limited to the South, one reason why the Underground Railroad ran to Canada. Although Fugitive Slave Laws were not dated until 1850, slaves—in this case indentured servants—could not be sure of freedom until they reached Canadian soil. This book gives readers a glimpse of who we might have found as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, and what kind of predicaments they put themselves into for the sake of others. The author’s tone generally seems to sympathize with the abolitionist plight, and she refers to the prejudices of southern Illinois society as a “legacy of shame” (Pirtle 120-121).
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SOURCE5: Virginia Woolf, "Modern Fiction," in her Collected Essays, Vol. II, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1967, pp. 103-10.
Zambaldi C., Cantilino A., Albuquerque Farias J., Paranhos Morales G., Botelho Sougey E., Dissociative experience during childbirth, Journal of Psychosomatic Obstetrics & Gynecology, Vol. 32, 204-209 http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.occlib.nocccd.edu/ehost/detail?vid=5&sid=b5b55813-2105-403a-9d40-77106d50c8b8%40sessionmgr115&hid=127&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=pbh&AN=67058653, 3/12/2014
3 Woolf, Virginia: A sketch of the past , Norton Anthology of English Literature Vol.2 , sixth edition
The extensive descriptions of Mrs. Dalloway’s inner thoughts and observations reveals Woolf’s “stream of consciousness” writing style, which emphasizes the complexity of Clarissa’s existential crisis. She also alludes to Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, further revealing her preoccupation with death as she quotes lines from a funeral song. She reads these lines while shopping in the commotion and joy of the streets of London, which juxtaposes with her internal conflicts regarding death. Shakespeare, a motif in the book, represents hope and solace for Mrs. Dalloway, as his lines form Cymbeline talk about the comforts found in death. From the beginning of the book, Mrs. Dalloway has shown a fear for death and experiences multiple existential crises, so her connection with Shakespeare is her way of dealing with the horrors of death. The multiple layers to this passage, including the irony, juxtaposition, and allusion, reveal Woolf’s complex writing style, which demonstrates that death is constantly present in people’s minds, affecting their everyday
To the Lighthouse is an autobiographical production of Virginia Woolf that captures a modern feminist visionary thrusted in a patriarchal Victorian society, as embodied by Lily Briscoe. Lily’s unique feminist vision and her ability to transcend artistic and patriarchal conventions progressively allows her to locate her quest for identity as an aestheticized epiphany journey. However, no matter how Woolf attempts to present Lily’s aestheticized exploration of her identity as a radical opposition to patriarchy alone, therein lies a specific aspect of feminism that Lily secretly wants to achieve. Therefore, I argue that although Lily is a symbolic rebel of patriarchal conventions who strives for women individuality, she brings her struggles a
She speaks highly of the faith and undying hope of these women and their families. She even comes to recognize them as saints as she describes their faith as "so intense, deep, unconscious, the they themselves were unaware of the richness they held" (Walker 694). In a passage in which she speaks about the treatment and social status of the women of the sixteenth century, Woolf explains that a woman who might have had a truly great gift in this time "would have surely gone crazy, shot herself, or ended up in some lonely cottage on the outside of town, half witch, half wizard, feared and mocked" (Woolf 749). Her use of some of these powerful nominative shows that she feels strongly about what she is writing. Also for her, life growing up and stories she may have heard may have influenced this passage greatly.
The Victorian Era perpetually changed the history of literature; ironically, it was also a time period in which men heavily defined the status of women. A woman was at the mercy of her father before marriage and after marriage was dependent on her husband. Woolf asserts through her literature, that men historically belittled women as a means of asserting their own superiority (Roseman). This masculine desire for status and seniority may be exemplified best in a set of Woolf’s extended essays titled, “A Room of One’s Own.” In these essays, Woolf constructs a metaphor of a looking-glass re...
Work Cited Woolf, Virginia. A. Mrs. Dalloway. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, Inc., 2005.
As Woolf narrates her essay in first-person, she introduces “the woman” as her subject. Woolf claims that “the woman” is who remains after killing the Angel in the House (102). Now, we may wonder what kind of woman “the woman” is. Woolf answers this question herself by saying, “I assure you, I do not know. I do not believe that you know” (102). Of course, it is clear what Woolf’s uncertainty implies: since women are shaped by the patriarchal society to be nothing but the Angel in the House, once that Angel is killed, we do not know anything of the capabilities, personality, weaknesses, and strengths of the true woman. Although Woolf’s implication is a fair critique of the effects of patriarchy on feminine gender, does Woolf go far enough in such critique as