Virginia Woolf Virginia Woolf.

1. Life ( ) Her father Leslie Stephen was an eminent Victorian man of letters. She grew up in a literary and intellectual atmosphere with free access to her father’s library Childhood experiences of death and sexual abuse led to depression the death of her mother when she was 13 her stepbrothers Virginia Woolf The Prose and the Passion Leslie Stephen with Virginia Woolf.

1. Life ( ) The Second World War increased her anxiety and fears. After rewriting drafts of her suicide note, she put rocks into her pockets and drowned herself in the River Ouse. Suicide Virginia Woolf Virginia Woolf. The Prose and the Passion

2. Literary career The Bloomsbury Group  In 1904 she moved to Bloomsbury and became a member of the Bloomsbury Group. This meant the rejection of traditional morality and artistic convention. Experimentation  best known as one of the great experimental novelists during the modernist period. Virginia Woolf The Bloomsbury Group The Prose and the Passion

2. Literary career Evolution of her style in her main novels The Voyage Out (1915) Night and Day (1917) Jacob’s room (1922) Mrs Dalloway (1925) To the Lighthouse (1927) A more completely developed “stream-of-consciousness technique” Narrative experimentation with the novel Traditional narratives Virginia Woolf The Prose and the Passion

2. Literary career A feminist writer  the themes of androgyny, women and writing Mrs Dalloway (1925) Orlando (1928) A Room of One’s Own (1929) Describes Clarissa Dalloway and Sally Seton’s relationship as young women Deals with androgyny Shows Woolf’s concern with the questions of women’s subjugation and the relationship between women and writing Virginia Woolf The Prose and the Passion

Main aim  to give voice to the complex inner world of feeling and memory. The human personality  a continuous shift of impressions and emotions. Narrator  disappearance of the omniscient narrator. Point of view  shifted inside the characters’ minds through flashbacks, associations of ideas, momentary impressions presented as a continuous flux. 3. A Modernist novelist Virginia Woolf Vanessa Bell, Mrs St John Hutchinson, 1915, Tate Gallery, London The Prose and the Passion

4. Woolf vs Joyce Woolf’s stream of consciousness Joyce’s stream of consciousness never lets her characters’ thoughts flow without control, maintains logical and grammatical organisation characters show their thoughts directly through interior monologue, sometimes in an incoherent and syntactically unorthodox way Virginia Woolf The Prose and the Passion

Moments of being Epiphanies Rare moments of insight during the characters’ daily life when they can see reality behind appearances The sudden spiritual manifestation caused by a trivial gesture, an external object  the character is led to a self-realization about himself/herself Virginia Woolf 4. Woolf vs Joyce The Prose and the Passion

5. Mrs Dalloway (1925) Takes place on a single ordinary day in June Follows the protagonist through a very small area of London, from the morning to the night of the day on which she gives a large formal party. Clarissa Dalloway’s party is the climax of the novel and unifies the narrative by gathering all the people she thinks about during the day. Virginia Woolf Cover for the first edition of Mrs. Dalloway, London, Hogarth Press, The Prose and the Passion

A London society lady of fifty-one, the wife of a Conservative MP, Richard Dalloway, who has conventional views on women’s rights. Had a possessive father, refused Peter Walsh, a man who would force her to share everything. Clarissa Dalloway Vanessa Redgrave as Mrs. Dalloway in Marleen Gorris’s 1997 film adaptation Virginia Woolf 5. Mrs Dalloway (1925) The Prose and the Passion

Characterized by opposing feelings: her need for freedom and independence and her class consciousness. Her life appears to be an effort towards order and peace, an attempt to overcome her weakness and sense of failure. Virginia Woolf Vanessa Redgrave as Mrs. Dalloway in Marleen Gorris’s 1997 film adaptation 5. Mrs Dalloway (1925) Clarissa Dalloway The Prose and the Passion

5. Mrs Dalloway (1925) Septimus Warren Smith A young poet and lover of Shakespeare. When the war broke out, enlisted for patriotic reasons. An extremely sensitive man who can suddenly fall prey to panic and fear, or feelings of guilt. Rupert Graves as Septimus in Marleen Gorris’s 1997 film adaptation Virginia Woolf The Prose and the Passion

5. Mrs Dalloway (1925) Septimus Warren Smith A character specifically connected with the war. Suffers from headaches and insomnia. Finally commits suicide. Virginia Woolf Rupert Graves as Septimus in Marleen Gorris’s 1997 film adaptation The Prose and the Passion