...Virginia Woolf Virginia Woolf was born Adeline Virginia Stephen, in 1882. She suffered immensely as a child from a series of emotional shocks (these are included in the biography of Virginia Woolf). However, she overcame these incredible personal damages and became a major British novelist, essayist and critic. Woolf also belonged to an elite group that included Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and T.S. Eliot. Woolf pioneered in incorporating feminism in her writings. “Virginia Woolf’s journalistic and polemical writings show that she made a significant contribution to the development of feminist thought” (Dalsimer). Despite her tumultuous childhood, she was an original thinker and a revolutionary writer, specifically the way she described depth of characters in her novels. Her novels are distinctively modern and express characters in a way no other writer had done before. One reason it is easy to acknowledge the importance of Virginia Woolf is because she wrote prolifically. Along with many novels, she wrote essays, critiques and many volumes of her personal journals have been published. She is one of the most extraordinary and influential female writers throughout history. Virginia Woolf is an influential author because of her unique style, incorporations of symbolism and use of similes and metaphors in her literature, specifically in Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and The Waves. Virginia Woolf’s eccentric style is what causes her writings to be distinct from...
Words: 1905 - Pages: 8
...1882. Virginia Woolf born (25 Jan) Adeline Virginia Stephen, third child of Leslie Stephen (Victorian man of letters – first editor of theDictionary of National Biography) – and Julia Duckworth (of the Duckworth publishing family). Comfortable upper middle class family background. Her father had previously been married to the daughter of the novelist William Makepeace Thackery. Brothers Thoby and Adrian went to Cambridge, and her sister Vanessa became a painter. Virginia was educated by private tutors and by extensive reading of literary classics in her father’s library. 1895. Death of her mother. VW has the first of many nervous breakdowns. 1896. Travels in France with her sister Vanessa. 1897. Death of half-sister, Stella. VW learning Greek and History at King’s College London. 1899. Brother Thoby enters Trinity College, Cambridge and subsequently meets Lytton Strachey, Leonard Woolf, and Clive Bell. These Cambridge friends subsequently become known as the Bloomsbury Group, of which VW was an important and influential member. 1904. Death of father. Beginning of second serious breakdown. VW’s first publication is an unsigned review in The Guardian. Travels in France and Italy with her sister Vanessa and her friend Violet Dickinson. VW moves to Gordon Square in Bloomsbury. Other residents of this Square include Lady Jane Strachey, Charlotte Mew, and Dora Carrington. 1905. Travels in Spain and Portugal.Writes book reviews and teaches once a week at Morley College, London...
Words: 848 - Pages: 4
...her own journey inward in Virginia Woolf’s 1915 novel The Voyage Out. Rachel Vinrace is traveling far away from her home in London. Her fellow passengers are a fascinating and motley assortment of members of Edwardian society whose lives and relationships reveal much about the world from which they come. Through witty comedy and stark tragedy, Woolf examines such themes as family, culture, and the individual in this remarkable portrait of modern life. Its unique and lyrical style, which has garnered the novel praise since its first publication, adds an artistic dimension to this surprisingly current novel. Indeed,The Voyage Out is a beautiful and telling work about self and society that rings as true today as in 1915. 1919, Night and Day [pic] [pic] Originally published in 1919, Night and Day contrasts the daily lives of four major characters while examining the relationships between love, marriage, happiness, and success. Like Virginia Woolf's first novel The Voyage Out, Night and Day is a more traditional narrative than her later novels. Unlike her first novel, however, Night and Day relies much more on its characters' internal struggles to push the its plot forward. What results is a character study of a very quiet group of people who are actually in the throes of deep anxiety and indecision. 1922, Jacob’s Room [pic] Who is Jacob Flanders? In Virginia Woolf’s 1922 novel, Jacob’s...
Words: 1559 - Pages: 7
...Every written work has inscribed meaning and purpose intended by its author, but it is a person’s personal perspective as to which elements of the text provide that meaning. Because reading is a reflection of the reader, one person’s summary or analysis cannot reflect the full importance of a certain passage. In her essay, A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf explores the dichotomy between men and women to conclude her purpose that a woman needs an income and her own space in order to create things in the same way that a man is able to. In such, there are numerous examples of where Woolf employs techniques such as similes, metaphors, and the way in which these relate to one another in order to have the reader come to this conclusion. However, an overarching and general summary of this work does not...
Words: 1033 - Pages: 5
...Virginia Woolf was an English writer in the twentieth century who was born in Kensington, Middlesex, England. Woolf’s mother, Julia Prinsep Stephen, was born in India then later served as a model for several Pre-Raphaelite painters. Her mother was also a nurse and had written a book about the profession. At the age of 13, her mother died. Woolf had her first nervous breakdown soon after her mother died. She called it “the greatest disaster that could ever happen.” Her mother’s death nearly killed Sir Leslie Stephen (Woolf’s father). His grieving was so intense, demonstrative, and so hyperbolic that it affected his children deeply. Stella (Woolf’s sister), had fallen into the role of mother since both Vanessa and Woolf were still young and since Sir Leslie was hopeless. Feminist writer, Virginia Woolf,...
Words: 945 - Pages: 4
...Her Life Story Virginia Woolf, renowned author and journalist. She was born on January 25, 1882 to Sir Leslie Stephen and Julia Prinsep Stephen. Woolf’s father was a historian and author, whereas her mother was a nurse and model. Her parents had many connections in both social and artistic aspects, which helped to situate Woolf with the art of writing. She was educated at home within the confines of her family’s Victorian library with her sisters. When she grew up, she took classes in multiple languages at the Ladies’ Department of King’s College London. However, before this happened, her half-brothers sexually abused her sending her into a deep depression, which only got worse as her mother and half-sister died two years later. After her father’s death, she was even reported to have attempted...
Words: 679 - Pages: 3
...Flirting with Social Conventions A generation of turmoil emerged during the First World War in Britain. With innovations such as mustard gas and heavy artillery, it caused not only the deaths of close to 60,000 people in Britain alone, but the destruction of the social policies of the time as well. Pandemonium ensued, and World War I, with a profound influence on British society, brought down one world, and created an entirely new one. World War I was a violent awakening for the British people, though they still remained oblivious to the detriment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and the now unstable social conventions of the time. In Mrs. Dalloway, written by Virginia Woolf, mental illness and social conformity are used to illustrate the connectedness between Septimus Smith and Clarissa Dalloway, and the difficulties with a developing society that fails to understand just how great of an impact the postwar Empire has. By drawing parallels between the two characters it is revealed that there is true chaos amidst the superficial calm, that there is an unwillingness to conform to societal conventions, and that emotions are sometimes like flowers hidden beneath the snow. Septimus Warren Smith is a veteran of war, misunderstood by those around him, and is ultimately unable to function in the postwar society. Septimus "went to France to save England" during the First World War and shows the classic symptoms that he suffers from “shell shock” or PTSD, which, until after...
Words: 973 - Pages: 4
...“The Death of the Moth” by Virginia Woolf Moths that fly by day are not properly to be called moths; they do not excite that pleasant sense of dark autumn nights and ivy–blossom which the commonest yellow–underwing asleep in the shadow of the curtain never fails to rouse in us. They are hybrid creatures, neither gay like butterflies nor sombre like their own species. Nevertheless the present specimen, with his narrow hay–coloured wings, fringed with a tassel of the same colour, seemed to be content with life. It was a pleasant morning, mid–September, mild, benignant, yet with a keener breath than that of the summer months. The plough was already scoring the field opposite the window, and where the share had been, the earth was pressed flat and gleamed with moisture. Such vigour came rolling in from the fields and the down beyond that it was difficult to keep the eyes strictly turned upon the book. The rooks too were keeping one of their annual festivities; soaring round the tree tops until it looked as if a vast net with thousands of black knots in it had been cast up into the air; which, after a few moments sank slowly down upon the trees until every twig seemed to have a knot at the end of it. Then, suddenly, the net would be thrown into the air again in a wider circle this time, with the utmost clamour and vociferation, as though to be thrown into the air and settle slowly down upon the treetops were a tremendously exciting experience. The same energy which inspired the...
Words: 1193 - Pages: 5
...Virginia Woolf’s memoirs are filled with diction, and imagery. Through these devices Woolf shows that it is okay to accept and respect ideas or perceptions that are different. The detail and use of words leads to the significance of memories, which is to grow and learn from them. The memoir is filled with amazing uses of diction that help convey the significance. The diction helps show the excitement of the speaker’s memories. The line “thrilled” as the boat “shot through the water.” The feeling of the fish being caught with a “leaping tug” was her “thrill.” Her “passion” of catching fish had been “the most acute.” She had such a passion for fishing, she became blind to how her dad felt about it. The diction shows all of the excitement her and her brother had for fishing, because they see it as a “treat.” Using extreme detail and imagery the speaker is able to describe the significance of her fathers “perfect lesson.” His lesson was not a “rebuke, or a “forbidding” of her “passion.” He simply was making a “statement of his own feeling” when he said “Next time if you are going to fish I shan’t come, I don’t like to see fish caught.” Her “passion” of fishing had been “extinguished” by her father’s words. The speaker realized that her love for fishing was not as great as the love for her father and his feelings. From the memories of her “passion” she once had, she is able to imagine the “sporting passion.” It is a “seed” that will grow and “represent” ideas that are alike and...
Words: 334 - Pages: 2
...-Quentin Bell: Virginia Woolf A Biography, Harcourt Books, 1972, Pp. 314- Virginia Woolf: The Scrutiny of Her Depiction The nephew of Virginia Woolf, Quentin Bell, does his best to define and reveal whom his aunt was, but I did not get what I wanted from Bell’s book. In my accounts of reading Virginia Woolf’s writings like “To the Lighthouse” and “Mrs. Dalloway”, I found myself captivated by Woolf’s observant and insightful mind that seemed to clearly see into itself and the minds of others including those in her family. Many of Woolf’s works alluded to views of distributive justice, socioeconomic processes, social exclusion, and assessments of patriarchy, but what I found in this biography was a person who appeared to be self-centered, and difficult to understand. Although Bell saw her as an elegant women with a brilliant mind that at times sporadically had nervous breakdowns it seemed that too often her brilliance didn’t come through to me because Bell failed to do what Woolf did in her writings, which was to create an image of a character that revealed her [Woolf’s] nature without constantly having to remind me. Both Bell and Woolf had great minds and an excellent sense of artistry, so it is unfair to compare Quentin Bell to Virginia Woolf. So my critique is not of Quentin Bell as a person, but his ideas of who Virginia Woolf was. And in this case Bell has plenty of insight on Woolf but tends to focus on details and journals in her life that do not help to truly resonate...
Words: 1933 - Pages: 8
...Adeline Virginia Stephen was born January 25, 1882, in London, United Kingdom. Sadly, at the age of 59, Virginia Woolf died due to suicide in the River Ouse in Rodmell, Sussex, United Kingdom. Once Virginia’s body was found two weeks after her suicide, her body was cremated. Therefore, her husband spread her ashes around their house (Biography). Virginia was a feminist writer, a women’s rights advocate in her time, and a journalist. Her well-known novels include: Mrs. Dalloway, To The Lighthouse, and A Room of One’s Own. Virginia had a lot of hurt in her life and used writing to cope. Virginia Woolf grew up in a home with seven siblings and parents with connections to artistic icons. In the Britannica Biography of Virginia Woolf the author says, “Her father, Leslie Stephen, was an eminent literary figure and the first editor (1882–91) of the Dictionary of National Biography. Her mother, Julia Jackson, possessed great beauty and a reputation for saintly self-sacrifice; she also had prominent social and artistic...
Words: 657 - Pages: 3
...Feminism and Virginia Woolf Virginia Woolf was an incredible lady, but especially for her time. Her thoughts and ideas were what was important to society in that day. She was in the breaking edge of the feminism movement through Europe and the United States of America. The events that happened in her life are what made her writing so relatable and thought provoking, like the World Wars and different relationships throughout her life. Early in her life, she had some significant struggles like her mother and sister dying within 2 years of each other, being sexually abuse by her half-brothers and her father dying. These events had a large impact on her life and her writings. Some people that have reviewed her life believe that these events could have caused part or most of her mental illnesses throughout life (“Virginia Woolf”- Biography). Today she would have diagnosed with bi-polar disorder. Even with mental illness, she continued to write incredible works,...
Words: 774 - Pages: 4
...Final Critical Essay | Mrs. Dalloway: Perceptions of One’s Life | Brittney Davey | In Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf involves two main characters whose personalities and life styles are on complete opposite’s sides of the spectrum, which do not know one another but are linked through the concept of different ways each person views the world they live in. Clarissa Dalloway is a high-class, wealthy woman who cares about what others think of her so she indulges herself in parties to be commonly liked, yet struggles with her internal thoughts and memories to the outside world. Septimus Warren Smith is a man who survived the war with severe post-traumatic stress from witnessing many tragic events including watching his friend Evans die from an invasion. Through each of these individuals experiences, and what they both have been through – tragic or sane – they have perceived the world differently, therefore, they both have one view of the world. These two characters were most important in the sense of perception of two different worlds because not every life is the same, many people grow up in a terrifying neighbourhood, whereas others grow up in a wealthy secure home, others witness death and others never break a bone in their body. It depends on how and where you were raised, what background you came from, what hobbies interests you, which group of friends you fall into, every step can lead to a different life, but it is the independent persons choice on which...
Words: 1356 - Pages: 6
...kinds of relationships with our family, our friends and our neighbors. A romantic or sexual relationship is a bit different from other relationships and it can be wonderful, fulfilling and fun, but it can also be stressful or complicated. A healthy relationship could be influence with many different things but the five most important things that a good relationship must have is trust, communication, respect, equity and love. I want to talk about a play that involves a relationship that brings to the forefront the ineffectiveness of a make- believe world. The play defines the "anxieties" and "fears" of two couples "who are born in conflict between private needs and public values. The play is called Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf? The play Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a 1962 play that was written by Edward Franklin Albee. Albee was born on March 12th 1928 in Washington D.C. He was adopted by Reed A. and Frances Cotta Albee. While Albee attends Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, he wrote his first play Aliqueen in 1940s. He published one of his poems “Eighteen” in 1954. A year later his play “Schism” appeared in Choate Literary Magazine. After his graduation he moved to Greenwich Village and tried odd jobs as an office boy, a salesperson, and a barman. He continue writing plays that were staged much later while being supported by a trust fund established by his maternal grandmother. He wrote The Zoo Story in 1958 and it staged at the Schiller Theater Werstatt, Berlin in September...
Words: 1078 - Pages: 5
...In what ways does a comparative study accentuate the distinctive contexts of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and A Room of One’s Own? A Room of One’s Own (1929) by Virginia Woolf and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962) by Edward Albee, when compared, accentuate the difference in values and beliefs that pervaded the context in which they wrote. Woolf’s critical yet creative essay explores truth and gender equality in a period driven by progression and the first wave of feminism. Contrastingly, Albee attempts to confront his audience through satirical dialogue and bombastic characters. Although Albee also explores truth and gender equality, the difference in context allows him to examine the way in which these values have been discarded in the moral decline masked by the American Dream. When paralleled, it is evident that both texts reflect the differences of their context. Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own digs beneath the veneer of social progress to expose the patriarchal values entrenched in society. Woolf first establishes the subjectivity of truth, so that the readers draw their own conclusion as “they observe the limitations, the prejudices, the idiosyncrasies of the speaker.” By making them conscious on the subjectivity of truth, Woolf is forcing the reader to draw their own conclusions on what is logical, rather than accepting the patriarchal beliefs of their context. The anecdotal evidence of the fictitious Mary Seaton’s experience at the British Museum exposes the...
Words: 1268 - Pages: 6
