Assignment- Paper No: 106
This Blog is an Assignment of Paper no.106 The Twentieth Century Literature -1900 to World War 2. In this assignment I am dealing with the topic The Feminism aspects of Virginia Woolf's Life and her Novels’.
Information:
Name: Asha Rathod
Paper 106: The Twentieth Century Literature -1900 to World War 2
Subject Code: 22399
Topic Name: The Feminism aspects of Virginia Woolf's Life and her Novels
Batch: M.A. Sem-2 (2023-25)
Roll No: 3
Enrollment No: 5108230038
Email Address: asharathod1451@gmail.com
Submitted to: Smt. S. B. Gardi, Department of English, MKBU
The Feminism aspects of Virginia Woolf's Life and her Novels
Introduction
Virginia Woolf (born January 25, 1882, London, England—died March 28, 1941, near Rodmell, Sussex) was an English writer whose novels, through their nonlinear approaches to narrative, exerted a major influence on the genre.
While she is best known for her novels, especially Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and To the Lighthouse (1927), Woolf also wrote pioneering essays on artistic theory, literary history, women’s writing, and the politics of power. A fine stylist, she experimented with several forms of biographical writing, composed painterly short fictions, and sent to her friends and family a lifetime of brilliant letters.
Her parents were Leslie Stephen, editor of the Dictionary of National Biography and Julia Prinsep Jackson Duckworth Stephen. Both parents had been married before and had children from those unions. Together, the Stephens had three other children in addition to Virginia Woolf was educated at home where she had free access to her father's extensive library. In 1895 her mother died, and Woolf experienced the first of many psychological breakdowns that would plague her throughout her life.
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was one of the most important female authors in the transitional period from Victorian age to the Edwardian age. Until her death at the age of 59 she published several novels, feminist essays and held two classes in Cambridge about “Women and Fiction”.
In this ,I would like to introduce the feminism aspects of her life and novels.
After giving a short introduction with the most important facts about Virginia Woolf’s life, my first intention is to define the theory of feminism and show how it affected Virginia already as a young girl and mainly as an independent woman.
Later, three of her novels are taken to demonstrate how Virginia Woolf’s development influenced her literary output. I would also like to show the differences between Virginia Woolf’s attitude towards women and men and compare it to theories of the feministic movement in the 20th century.
A short introduction into Virginia Woolf’s life
Born as the third child of Sir Leslie Stephen, the editor of the “Dictionary of National Biography”, and his second wife Julia Duckworth, January 1st 1882, Virginia and her siblings grew up in London where she had always had easy access to education, such as private classes in Latin and Greek - which was not a common case for girls in Victorian times - and also to her father’s library.
There were two major incidents in Virginia’s youth that caused serious mental breakdowns: Her mother’s death in 1895 and seven years later, her father’s death of cancer.[1] After recovering from this mental crisis, Virginia enjoyed her new independence, travelling to Spain and Italy, accompanied by her sister Vanessa and her brother Thoby, who later died of Typhus.
Virginia returned to London where she made friends with Leonard Woolf. After getting married in 1912, Leonard had to find out that Virginia not only refused any sexual relationship with him, but also had numerous breakdowns during the following years, including several tries of committing suicide. This mental illness carried on during her whole life, usually appearing shortly before finishing her most recent novel.
Definition of the “Feminism”
To analyse Virginia Woolf’s attitude towards feminism and how this is demonstrated in her books and essays, there has to be a definition first of what “feminism” means in general: Feminism is “the belief in the principle that women should have the same rights and opportunities as men” also “the movement in support of this” But there are also different types of feminism, such as the “cultural feminism”, the “Individualist or Libertarian Feminism”, the “Moderate Feminism” and several more. What they all have in common is that they have the same origin which is to call attention to the problem of discrimination between men an women concerning different issues, social and private.
The feminism movement started already in the 19th century although it did not develop as fast as in the beginning of the 20th century when the female presence in public, work-life and also in the media at that time was accepted.
The media and female writers were the main supporters of the feministic movement, that achieved and changed a lot, but still has not reached his goal, for it still works with the same principles such as for example the “Emma”.
Feminist Narrative in Virginia Woolf
Individual Quest and the Transformation of Hero and Heroine into a Communal Protagonist. The protagonist, a large family, a group of friends, an audience, contains members of all ages and sexual persuasions, fostering close bonds and blurring the lines between public and private spheres, polarized sexes, and familial boundaries. In Woolf's narrative, eros is liberated from forced or conventional bonds, particularly heterosexuality and marriage.
In 1927, Woolf anticipated intergeneric works that would reject the realist sociological novel focusing on facts, incomes, and environment, as well as the psychological novel centered on the analysis of falling into and out of love, and plots of quests ending in success or failure and romance. Her later novels replace these narratives with the invention of a communal protagonist and a collective language.
The communal protagonist shifts the focus away from individual development against a backdrop of supporting characters or the formation of heterosexual couples. Instead, it places the group at the center of the narrative. This approach emphasizes collective Bildung and communal effect rather than individual Bildung or romance, suggesting a plausible utopia of social change in narrative structures.
Woolf equalizes characters to discredit the social practice of privileging certain individuals in narratives. In works like "The Years" and "Between the Acts," no character stands higher in the plot than any other; value is conveyed collectively. Woolf employs rhetorical and stylistic tactics to make community plausible, intertwining choral remarks and utilizing conversational ellipses and question marks to encourage dialogue and openness.
Woolf's rejection of traditional narrative structures is evident in her use of rejected working titles for her novels, such as "The Caravan" and "Ordinary People," which emphasize collective journeying and the multiplicity of ordinary lives. Overall, Woolf's novels express a rejection of the individual "I" in favor of the collective "we."
How the theory of Feminism influenced Virginia as an adolescent
The relationship between her parents, the talented and highly respected Leslie Stephen and his beautiful wife, who was always there to give him support and her unshared attention, had a great effect on Virginia’s attitude towards men. It is said that she inherited her mother’s beauty but that she could not deal with it the way her mother did. She regarded her mother's ability to get along with other people so well with great approval but she could not cope with her mother’s behavior as it was appropriate for a woman in Victorian times – a role her mother fit perfectly in. After her mother died in 1895 at the age of 49, Leslie Stephen tried to force his daughters into the empty space the mother left as being a perfect hostess, which made them fear and hate their father, and which had also a great effect on Virginia striving for a way out of this Victorian tradition.
Another influence in her development towards an important author of modern feminism was her two step-brothers, George and Gerald Duckworth, but also her own brothers, Thoby and Adrian, who enjoyed a full education at Cambridge University, while she stayed at home, taught by her parents and later receiving private classes, an untypical phenomenon in Victorian times, as already mentioned above.
The Famous Novels of Virginia, which differ from The feminist Issues of the Woman.
A Room of One's Room
To The lightHouse
Orlando
Mrs. Dalloway
The voyage Out
These are the famous Novels of Virginia Woolf. In that reading through we can get the idea of She was a FEMINIST.
The modernist classic writer and ecofeminist Virginia Woolf was born on 25 January 1882. During the Interwar period she played a vital role in Bloomsberry and London group of intellectuals. Woolf started her literary career in 1900 and her first publication was Haworth, November 1904. She was one of the prime modernist in the 20th-century English literature. Virginia Woolf has Inscribed prodigious novels and has also mentored her fair share of efficacious English movies. Nature veracity plays a vigorous role in her fictions. Her works are meticulous as a crucial trendsetter in the English Language. She meticulously used stream of consciousness, Nostalgia, ecofeminism and woman empowerment strategies in her characters. She is disputably the paramount lyrical novelist in the English language. Her craving of poetic prophecy hoists the wartime milieus.
These researchers found out there is a close relationship between patriarchal dominance and vehemence against women. Numerous ecofeminist writers also highlighting these points in their writings. such as Susan Griffin (1978) and Mary Daly in (1978). Carolyn Merchant at (1980). Ynestra King at (1981), Ariel Kay Salleh at (1984), Karen Warren from (1987-1990), Val Plumwood (1993) and others. Ecofeminists ruminate an mals, water, trees, loxins, food production and more ypicaly naturalism. In literature, there are ten types of
possessions incorporated in ecofeminism discussed widely they are historical, conceptual, empirical, epistemological, socioeconomic, spiritual and religious, linguistic, symbolic interconnections. literary, political and ethical
Virginia Woolf followed non-linear free form prose style which impressed many of her cohorts. Her mood smacks style and striking of dejection get pictured in her novel. She suffered from severe mental trauma and closeness with nature at last she drowned herself at the age of fifty nine in the year 1941. Her stream of consciousness and her urge to escape from the monotonous mundane world is expressed vividly in her novels. She wrote thirteen non-fiction books, four volumes of collected essays, she published three biographies, six short story collections, one drama, one translation seven autobiographical writings and diaries, three bulk collections of her letters and best nine novels of hers.
Few of her prodigious elite was The Voyage Out ner first novel published in the year 1915. The second novel was Night and Day published in 1919, and the third was Jacob's Room (1922), the fourth was ecoleminist nectar Mrs. Dalloway (1925), the fifth nature kindling novel was To the lighthouse (1927). The sixth novel was Orlando in 1928 The seventh was The Years (1937) and the last novel was Between the Acts which was published in 1941
Let's see The Feminist quotes by Virginia Woolf.
Woolf writes:
CLOTHES HAVE, THEY SAY, MORE IMPORTANT OFFICES THAN MERELY TO KEEP US WARM. THEY CHANGE OUR VIEW OF THE WORLD AND THE WORLD’S VIEW OF US.
ORLANDO AS A PERSONIFICATION OF THE IDEAL STATUS OF ANDROGYNY; SOMEONE WHO KNOWS THE SECRETS OF BOTH SEXES AND CAN ACCESS THE WHOLE SPECTER OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE.
The novel exuberantly conveys its message of the urge of gender equality in our society. Ergo, my feminist reading of Orlando salutes Woolf as an author, who so beautifully cultivates the fluid identities of the notions of sex and gender in her piece.
"Orlando is not a woman acting like a man. Orlando is a man. And a woman. And there is nothing unnatural about it. Orlando had become a woman, there is no denying of it. But in every other respect, Orlando remains precisely as he had been. The change of sex, though it altered their future, did nothing whatever to alter their identity."
When in Constantinople amongst the natives, Orlando did not experience gender differences due to her changed sex. However as soon as she boards the Enamoured Lady to return to England, appropriately dressed as a “young Englishwoman of high rank”, she realizes that English “women are not exquisitely apparelled by nature”.
Conclusion
If we see the character of Virginia Woolf. so we can get the idea of a feminist woman of the 20th century. whose novel is to be part of the feminist idea of women. who are suffering and fighting for the rights, that are not found for the woman. Also, The Victorian age is one of the Examples of it. exploring the feminist aspects of Virginia Woolf's life and her novels reveals a profound commitment to challenging patriarchal structures and advocating for gender equality. Through her life experiences and literary works, Woolf offered insightful critiques of societal norms and conventions that oppressed women, advocating for their liberation and empowerment.
Woolf's personal struggles, including experiences of gendered discrimination and limitations imposed by societal expectations, deeply influenced her feminist perspective. These struggles are reflected in her novels, where she explores themes of female identity, agency, and the constraints imposed by gender roles. In her writing, Woolf experimented with narrative techniques to portray the inner lives of women, giving voice to their experiences and emotions. Through works like "Mrs. Dalloway," "To the Lighthouse," and "Orlando," she challenged traditional notions of femininity and masculinity, disrupting binary constructions and exploring the fluidity of gender and identity.
Thank You
Resources:
BLANCHARD, LYDIA. “VIRGINIA WOOLF AND HER CRITICS: ‘ON THE DISCRIMINATION OF FEMINISMS.’” Studies in the Novel, vol. 17, no. 1, 1985, pp. 95–103. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/29532328. Accessed 24 Apr. 2024.
DE GAY, JANE. “Virginia Woolf’s Feminist Historiography in ‘Orlando.’” Critical Survey, vol. 19, no. 1, 2007, pp. 62–72. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41556201. Accessed 24 Apr. 2024.
Duplessis, Rachel Blau. “Feminist Narrative in Virginia Woolf.” NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, vol. 21, no. 2/3, 1988, pp. 323–30. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1345500. Accessed 24 Apr. 2024.
Reid, Panthea. "Virginia Woolf". Encyclopedia Britannica, 16 Apr. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Virginia-Woolf. Accessed 24 April 2024.
Sivaranjani, Dr k. “Eco feminism in Virginia Woolf's novels.” Wikipedia, February 2017, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319957566_Eco_feminism_in_Virginia_Woolf's_novels. Accessed 24 April 2024.
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