My Two Novels were: Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, and Mrs. Dalloway
Decent job with your summaries. I'm glad you were able to pull in the first summary into your text though it wasn't directly talked about.
As to the second critic . . . are there antithetical elements in To the Lighthouse? Do we have the idea of inside/outside there as well?
A thought . . . you might consider reading Virginia Woolf's "A Room of One's Own" -- I think it is called. It is an essay that really could relate to Mrs. Dalloway. 10/10 for both
Summary 3: Loved your assessment of her writing (particulary about the star part). You might consider focusing on one aspect of her writing and demonstrating how that helps us understand a larger thematic or character dynamic. (Interesting summaries.) 10/10
CRITIC #1 Article "Freud, Jung, and Joyce: Conscious Connections" by Leam F. Heaney; Contemporary Review 1) summary of main arguments
This article talks about the use of Freud’s Psychological theories in authors’ novels. The article says that most authors find Freud’s ideas appealing because they help them create characters that enable readers to explore their subconscious mind, the ‘inner desires, motivations, and struggles.’ One of the examples of his theory that was focused on was the use of Stream of Consciousness. In the novel, “Mary Olivier: A Life (1919),” Freud’s theory of Oedipus Conflict and the mother and daughter relationship is depicted through Stream of Consciousness. William James (a psychologist) defined this theory as “the way any one idea is fringed with overtones of others.” The article also argues that James Joyce’s and Jung’s writings were a huge influence to the usage of “Stream of Consciousness” in literature. Their reason for using this technique is mainly focused on the idea that they hoped to explore “the key features of personal worlds… the major issues of existence… life, death, paternity and infidelity... the intricate associations between the subconsciousness and the complex yet engaging world of reality.” Beyond these writers, many authors used this technique to portray “lovers' jealousies, neuroses, child-parent relationships and the alienation of artists from society.”
2) something surprising or interesting learned
I never really understood why authors used Stream of Consciousness over other techniques. What was their intention? What effect did it have on the novel? But the part in this article explaining William Golding’s use of this technique in his novel, “Pincher Martin,” made it clearer to me. The article says that the stream of thoughts, emotions, and descriptions enables readers to ‘explore the mind of Pincher in a way not too dissimilar from the psychologist analyzing the thoughts and feelings of his subject.’ I found this very interesting because I never thought it this way before. We readers are reading as psychologists trying to understand our subjects’ inner self, their motivations, desires, and mental struggles. I agree that when I read Woolf’s novel, “The Lighthouse” and “Mrs. Dalloway,” though at first the writing seemed hard to follow, the technique Woolf used drew me in the minds of the characters and enabled me to have some freedom of interpretation. Like a psychologist, I looked at my subject with curiosity and though there was no fixed answer, the more I read, the more I could read the inner workings and complexities of the characters’ subconscious minds, it felt like each thought was another piece to a dangerous puzzle.
3) agree/disagree with the ideas and then apply this to a scene or example from the book (one not mentioned by the critic)
I agree with the ideas presented in this article because when I read “Mrs. Dalloway,” by Virginia Woolf, the momentary thoughts of the characters, particularly those of Clarissa and Septimus, enabled me to see that many themes were related to Freud’s. Septimus’ mental suffering after the war, his depression, the deterioration of his medical condition seemed to be shown through stream of consciousness. I think this technique helps readers think more in depth about the mental situation of the characters and helps bring out our curiosity and sympathy.
Also, the article argues that Jung and Joyce believed that, “At a basic level, the core of a personal world harbours a specific sense of consciousness and the flow of consciousness is characterized by the dimensions of time, space and emotional tone. In our multifarious experiences of the world around us our consciousness is engaged by, and moves from, one frame of meaning to another.” I thought the novel, “Mrs. Dalloway,’ particularly proved this to be true because this novel in particular moves forwards and back in time. The moving of time and emotions enables readers to see the development of Mrs. Dalloway’s character before and after Septimus’ death, and her consciousness moving from “one frame… to another.”
Also, Woolf probably used this technique because she wished to reflect her own mental sufferings and complexities to the readers. Through brief research, I found that Woolf suffered from bipolar disorder (like the character in “Mrs. Dalloway”: the shell-shocked war soldier,
Septimus) and even attempted suicide by throwing herself out of a window. It seems to me that the Stream of Consciousness was the best way to successfully convey to readers, not only the feelings of her fictional characters, but Woolf’s own mental trauma and wretchedness.
CRITIC 2#: "Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life" by Julia Briggs (pg 130 - 147)
1)Summary of main arguments
Briggs contrasts between the two characters, Clarissa and Septimus, in the novel by Woolf, “Mrs. Dalloway.” She also argues that the suicide and party both set up the climax of the novel. She introduces a common theme of individual vs. group consciousness and ‘solitude vs. company,’ both aspects of Woolf’s own experiences from being ambivalent about her social status. The book also discusses how Woolf was worried about the ‘value of sympathetic feelings that have no practical outcome,’ regarding Clarissa’s fruitless identification with Septimus and his death. The critic also mentions how Woolf came to write her novel, “Mrs. Dalloway.”
2) Something surprising or interesting learned
Briggs argues that Clarissa and Septimus are ‘at once linked and antithetical’ because Clarissa could be regarded as the ‘insider, living at the heart of the English establishment’ while Septimus is the ‘outcast; the victim of shell shock, he embodies the troubled unconscious of a society that has buried its dead and turned back to the business of living.’ Though, I thought it was obvious that these two characters were antithetical, I never thought about the idea of insider vs. outsider. I also thought the point about Septimus being the unconscious part of the society after the war was particularly interesting, because now that I look at it, it seems Septimus, who lived at the front lines, the outside world, and had lost his friend due to the war, knows the harsh truth about life and death. He experienced the indescribable horror that he could no longer pretend to live a normal life. So as a result, he goes through mental decline and ultimately suicide. He ceases to try hiding behind a mask or disguising himself to fit in society. He ends his life because he chooses death over a life that is fake and void. In contrast to Septimus, it seems Clarissa endures through her pain and imprisonment. She puts on the mask of an ideal woman and prepares for a party that she knows in her heart is meaningless. After Septimus’ death, Clarissa has great admiration for his courageous act, and she takes her thoughts and continues to live on in ‘the heart of the English establishment.’
3)Agree/disagree with the ideas/ apply to scene and examples of a book.
I disagree with Brigg’s idea when she says that ‘the value of sympathetic feelings… have no practical outcome.’ She tries to prove this idea by saying that when Clarissa learned about the death of Septimus, her identification with him did not amount to anything. But, I disagree because though Septimus’ life may have ended in the story, Clarissa’s life continued on. Though she might not have made a radical change of character or action by the end of the novel, this does not mean she may not have changed in the future. Just because the novel ended does not mean the character and the plot ended there as well. I think it is up to the readers to imagine the future of Mrs. Dalloway, and how Septimus’ death was not in vain. Furthermore, on page 141 of the book, “Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life,” by Julia Briggs, she says that Woolf’s initial idea was not to have the character Septimus, but have Mrs. Dalloway commit suicide and end her life at the end of the party. In my opinion, there is no difference between Clarissa continue living on as a prisoner, and her ending her life. So, Woolf's creation of Septimus ends the novel at not such a negative and pessimistic tone. Mrs. Dalloway continues to live which means there is hope. However, I guess it’s fair to say that the coming times of Mrs. Dalloway is up to the readers’ imagination.
CRITIC #3: A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf (Entire Part One)
1) Summary of main arguments
At the beginning she informs us why the title is “A Room of One’s Own” and what it has to do with women and fiction. She says “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction; and that… leaves the great problem of the true nature of woman and the true nature of fiction unsolved. She goes on to say in her introduction that the short fiction she will write would most likely “contain more truth than fact… Lies will flow from [her] lips, but there may perhaps be some truth mixed up with them.” She says it is for the readers to interpret the text and seek out the truth from fiction, and if readers are not able to see the truth, they should rather throw the book in the bin. Woolf looks at the careers of different female authors like Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters, women’s historical experience and struggles as artists. Woolf invents a character called Judith (who is supposedly ‘the sister of Shakespeare’) and illustrates that even if Judith had the gift of writing, she would have been denied of privileges and opportunities that would have been granted to men like Shakespeare. Near the end of Part One, Woolf asks some interesting questions about the older generation of women, and ponders on how different life would be for women (at the beginning of the twentieth century) if women had money, jobs, “a room” of their own. She continues to differentiate between the experience of men and that of women, and ponders on whether women could produce high-quality art like men.
2) Something surprising or interesting learned
I though the “what-if’s were interesting. Near the end of Part One, Woolf talks about the events that would have unraveled if women in the older generations had a job, an education that men had obtained such as archaeology, botany, physics, math, geography and more. I liked the quotation, “If only Mrs. Seton and her mother and her mother before her had learnt the great art of making money and had left their money, like their fathers and their grandfathers before them… we might have dined very tolerably up here alone off a bird and a bottle of wine… we might have looked forward without undue confidence to a pleasant and honorable lifetime spent in the shelter of one of the liberally endowed professions. We might have been exploring or writing… going at ten to an office and coming home comfortably at half-past four to write a little poetry.”
This reminded me of Woolf’s novels like “To the Lighthouse” and “Mrs. Dalloway.” It seems I anticipated her works to be about feminism and the deprivation of women’s rights during the twentieth century. But, now I think of it, it does not seem Woolf forthrightly told the readers that women were contained in a box. She told it by creating these characters who acted in ways that showed their confinement and repression. But “A Room of One’s Own,” seems to pour out emotions and tell the readers through stream of consciousness the brighter future of women if the older generations had the privileges that men were granted with so easily. Another interesting part of Woolf’s writing was the very end of Part One, where Woolf writes about pondering on various ideas. “I pondered… I thought… I remembered.. I pondered…” The whole of the last paragraph showed another set of stream of consciousness: "I pondered… what effect poverty has on the mind; and what effect wealth has on the mind… I remembered how if one whistled one of them ran… and I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse perhaps to be locked in; and, thinking of the safety and prosperity of the one sex and of the poverty and insecurity of the other and of the effect of tradition and of the lack of tradition upon the mind of a writer… A thousand stars were flashing across the blue wastes of the sky. One seemed alone with an inscrutable society. “ I especially liked the end where it talks about the thousand stars and that one star seemingly isolated from the society that is unfathomable and insoluble like the “the true nature of women” and that of fiction. The star seemed to be a metaphor for Woolf's female character. Their beauty and shimmering are masks that cover up their deepest, saddest secrets and emotions.
3) agree/disagree with the ideas and then apply this to a scene or example from the book (one not mentioned by the critic)
The ideas in Part One about women and their deprivation of opportunities because of their lack of rights for money and jobs was illustrate through a fictional novel by Woolf, “Mrs. Dalloway.” In Mrs. Dalloway, Clarissa Dalloway could be the perfect example of the typical women during the beginning of 20th century. With the lack of money and jobs, she has to choose a husband with sufficient wealth and reliability. She chooses someone safe over Peter Walsh, who is a more risky choice. Like “A Room of One’s Own,” “Mrs. Dalloway,” also contains a conventional party. Clarissa Dalloway prepares for a meaningless party full of pretension just as Mary Seton has a luncheon party. Woolf makes an interesting point in “A Room of One’s Own” by saying straightforwardly, “It is a curious fact that novelists have a way of making us believe that luncheon parties are invariably memorable for something very witty that was said, or for something very wise that was done.” This quotation forthrightly tells the readers that the parties are foolish and monotonous. In addition, Woolf gives a tedious, long list of food and desserts that were provided at the party. I felt Woolf was trying to make the point that these parties were really full of nothing memorable or worthwhile except the extravagant display of food.
Decent job with your summaries. I'm glad you were able to pull in the first summary into your text though it wasn't directly talked about.
As to the second critic . . . are there antithetical elements in To the Lighthouse? Do we have the idea of inside/outside there as well?
A thought . . . you might consider reading Virginia Woolf's "A Room of One's Own" -- I think it is called. It is an essay that really could relate to Mrs. Dalloway. 10/10 for both
Summary 3: Loved your assessment of her writing (particulary about the star part). You might consider focusing on one aspect of her writing and demonstrating how that helps us understand a larger thematic or character dynamic. (Interesting summaries.) 10/10
CRITIC #1
Article "Freud, Jung, and Joyce: Conscious Connections" by Leam F. Heaney; Contemporary Review
1) summary of main arguments
This article talks about the use of Freud’s Psychological theories in authors’ novels. The article says that most authors find Freud’s ideas appealing because they help them create characters that enable readers to explore their subconscious mind, the ‘inner desires, motivations, and struggles.’ One of the examples of his theory that was focused on was the use of Stream of Consciousness. In the novel, “Mary Olivier: A Life (1919),” Freud’s theory of Oedipus Conflict and the mother and daughter relationship is depicted through Stream of Consciousness. William James (a psychologist) defined this theory as “the way any one idea is fringed with overtones of others.” The article also argues that James Joyce’s and Jung’s writings were a huge influence to the usage of “Stream of Consciousness” in literature. Their reason for using this technique is mainly focused on the idea that they hoped to explore “the key features of personal worlds… the major issues of existence… life, death, paternity and infidelity... the intricate associations between the subconsciousness and the complex yet engaging world of reality.” Beyond these writers, many authors used this technique to portray “lovers' jealousies, neuroses, child-parent relationships and the alienation of artists from society.”
2) something surprising or interesting learned
I never really understood why authors used Stream of Consciousness over other techniques. What was their intention? What effect did it have on the novel? But the part in this article explaining William Golding’s use of this technique in his novel, “Pincher Martin,” made it clearer to me. The article says that the stream of thoughts, emotions, and descriptions enables readers to ‘explore the mind of Pincher in a way not too dissimilar from the psychologist analyzing the thoughts and feelings of his subject.’ I found this very interesting because I never thought it this way before. We readers are reading as psychologists trying to understand our subjects’ inner self, their motivations, desires, and mental struggles. I agree that when I read Woolf’s novel, “The Lighthouse” and “Mrs. Dalloway,” though at first the writing seemed hard to follow, the technique Woolf used drew me in the minds of the characters and enabled me to have some freedom of interpretation. Like a psychologist, I looked at my subject with curiosity and though there was no fixed answer, the more I read, the more I could read the inner workings and complexities of the characters’ subconscious minds, it felt like each thought was another piece to a dangerous puzzle.
3) agree/disagree with the ideas and then apply this to a scene or example from the book (one not mentioned by the critic)
I agree with the ideas presented in this article because when I read “Mrs. Dalloway,” by Virginia Woolf, the momentary thoughts of the characters, particularly those of Clarissa and Septimus, enabled me to see that many themes were related to Freud’s. Septimus’ mental suffering after the war, his depression, the deterioration of his medical condition seemed to be shown through stream of consciousness. I think this technique helps readers think more in depth about the mental situation of the characters and helps bring out our curiosity and sympathy.
Also, the article argues that Jung and Joyce believed that, “At a basic level, the core of a personal world harbours a specific sense of consciousness and the flow of consciousness is characterized by the dimensions of time, space and emotional tone. In our multifarious experiences of the world around us our consciousness is engaged by, and moves from, one frame of meaning to another.” I thought the novel, “Mrs. Dalloway,’ particularly proved this to be true because this novel in particular moves forwards and back in time. The moving of time and emotions enables readers to see the development of Mrs. Dalloway’s character before and after Septimus’ death, and her consciousness moving from “one frame… to another.”
Also, Woolf probably used this technique because she wished to reflect her own mental sufferings and complexities to the readers. Through brief research, I found that Woolf suffered from bipolar disorder (like the character in “Mrs. Dalloway”: the shell-shocked war soldier,
Septimus) and even attempted suicide by throwing herself out of a window. It seems to me that the Stream of Consciousness was the best way to successfully convey to readers, not only the feelings of her fictional characters, but Woolf’s own mental trauma and wretchedness.
SOURCE: http://www.questiaschool.com/read/5000233586
CRITIC 2#: "Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life" by Julia Briggs (pg 130 - 147)
1) Summary of main arguments
Briggs contrasts between the two characters, Clarissa and Septimus, in the novel by Woolf, “Mrs. Dalloway.” She also argues that the suicide and party both set up the climax of the novel. She introduces a common theme of individual vs. group consciousness and ‘solitude vs. company,’ both aspects of Woolf’s own experiences from being ambivalent about her social status. The book also discusses how Woolf was worried about the ‘value of sympathetic feelings that have no practical outcome,’ regarding Clarissa’s fruitless identification with Septimus and his death. The critic also mentions how Woolf came to write her novel, “Mrs. Dalloway.”
2) Something surprising or interesting learned
Briggs argues that Clarissa and Septimus are ‘at once linked and antithetical’ because Clarissa could be regarded as the ‘insider, living at the heart of the English establishment’ while Septimus is the ‘outcast; the victim of shell shock, he embodies the troubled unconscious of a society that has buried its dead and turned back to the business of living.’ Though, I thought it was obvious that these two characters were antithetical, I never thought about the idea of insider vs. outsider. I also thought the point about Septimus being the unconscious part of the society after the war was particularly interesting, because now that I look at it, it seems Septimus, who lived at the front lines, the outside world, and had lost his friend due to the war, knows the harsh truth about life and death. He experienced the indescribable horror that he could no longer pretend to live a normal life. So as a result, he goes through mental decline and ultimately suicide. He ceases to try hiding behind a mask or disguising himself to fit in society. He ends his life because he chooses death over a life that is fake and void. In contrast to Septimus, it seems Clarissa endures through her pain and imprisonment. She puts on the mask of an ideal woman and prepares for a party that she knows in her heart is meaningless. After Septimus’ death, Clarissa has great admiration for his courageous act, and she takes her thoughts and continues to live on in ‘the heart of the English establishment.’
3) Agree/disagree with the ideas/ apply to scene and examples of a book.
I disagree with Brigg’s idea when she says that ‘the value of sympathetic feelings… have no practical outcome.’ She tries to prove this idea by saying that when Clarissa learned about the death of Septimus, her identification with him did not amount to anything. But, I disagree because though Septimus’ life may have ended in the story, Clarissa’s life continued on. Though she might not have made a radical change of character or action by the end of the novel, this does not mean she may not have changed in the future. Just because the novel ended does not mean the character and the plot ended there as well. I think it is up to the readers to imagine the future of Mrs. Dalloway, and how Septimus’ death was not in vain. Furthermore, on page 141 of the book, “Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life,” by Julia Briggs, she says that Woolf’s initial idea was not to have the character Septimus, but have Mrs. Dalloway commit suicide and end her life at the end of the party. In my opinion, there is no difference between Clarissa continue living on as a prisoner, and her ending her life. So, Woolf's creation of Septimus ends the novel at not such a negative and pessimistic tone. Mrs. Dalloway continues to live which means there is hope. However, I guess it’s fair to say that the coming times of Mrs. Dalloway is up to the readers’ imagination.
CRITIC #3: A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf (Entire Part One)
1) Summary of main arguments
At the beginning she informs us why the title is “A Room of One’s Own” and what it has to do with women and fiction. She says “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction; and that… leaves the great problem of the true nature of woman and the true nature of fiction unsolved. She goes on to say in her introduction that the short fiction she will write would most likely “contain more truth than fact… Lies will flow from [her] lips, but there may perhaps be some truth mixed up with them.” She says it is for the readers to interpret the text and seek out the truth from fiction, and if readers are not able to see the truth, they should rather throw the book in the bin. Woolf looks at the careers of different female authors like Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters, women’s historical experience and struggles as artists. Woolf invents a character called Judith (who is supposedly ‘the sister of Shakespeare’) and illustrates that even if Judith had the gift of writing, she would have been denied of privileges and opportunities that would have been granted to men like Shakespeare. Near the end of Part One, Woolf asks some interesting questions about the older generation of women, and ponders on how different life would be for women (at the beginning of the twentieth century) if women had money, jobs, “a room” of their own. She continues to differentiate between the experience of men and that of women, and ponders on whether women could produce high-quality art like men.
2) Something surprising or interesting learned
I though the “what-if’s were interesting. Near the end of Part One, Woolf talks about the events that would have unraveled if women in the older generations had a job, an education that men had obtained such as archaeology, botany, physics, math, geography and more. I liked the quotation, “If only Mrs. Seton and her mother and her mother before her had learnt the great art of making money and had left their money, like their fathers and their grandfathers before them… we might have dined very tolerably up here alone off a bird and a bottle of wine… we might have looked forward without undue confidence to a pleasant and honorable lifetime spent in the shelter of one of the liberally endowed professions. We might have been exploring or writing… going at ten to an office and coming home comfortably at half-past four to write a little poetry.”
This reminded me of Woolf’s novels like “To the Lighthouse” and “Mrs. Dalloway.” It seems I anticipated her works to be about feminism and the deprivation of women’s rights during the twentieth century. But, now I think of it, it does not seem Woolf forthrightly told the readers that women were contained in a box. She told it by creating these characters who acted in ways that showed their confinement and repression. But “A Room of One’s Own,” seems to pour out emotions and tell the readers through stream of consciousness the brighter future of women if the older generations had the privileges that men were granted with so easily. Another interesting part of Woolf’s writing was the very end of Part One, where Woolf writes about pondering on various ideas. “I pondered… I thought… I remembered.. I pondered…” The whole of the last paragraph showed another set of stream of consciousness: "I pondered… what effect poverty has on the mind; and what effect wealth has on the mind… I remembered how if one whistled one of them ran… and I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse perhaps to be locked in; and, thinking of the safety and prosperity of the one sex and of the poverty and insecurity of the other and of the effect of tradition and of the lack of tradition upon the mind of a writer… A thousand stars were flashing across the blue wastes of the sky. One seemed alone with an inscrutable society. “ I especially liked the end where it talks about the thousand stars and that one star seemingly isolated from the society that is unfathomable and insoluble like the “the true nature of women” and that of fiction. The star seemed to be a metaphor for Woolf's female character. Their beauty and shimmering are masks that cover up their deepest, saddest secrets and emotions.
3) agree/disagree with the ideas and then apply this to a scene or example from the book (one not mentioned by the critic)
The ideas in Part One about women and their deprivation of opportunities because of their lack of rights for money and jobs was illustrate through a fictional novel by Woolf, “Mrs. Dalloway.” In Mrs. Dalloway, Clarissa Dalloway could be the perfect example of the typical women during the beginning of 20th century. With the lack of money and jobs, she has to choose a husband with sufficient wealth and reliability. She chooses someone safe over Peter Walsh, who is a more risky choice. Like “A Room of One’s Own,” “Mrs. Dalloway,” also contains a conventional party. Clarissa Dalloway prepares for a meaningless party full of pretension just as Mary Seton has a luncheon party. Woolf makes an interesting point in “A Room of One’s Own” by saying straightforwardly, “It is a curious fact that novelists have a way of making us believe that luncheon parties are invariably memorable for something very witty that was said, or for something very wise that was done.” This quotation forthrightly tells the readers that the parties are foolish and monotonous. In addition, Woolf gives a tedious, long list of food and desserts that were provided at the party. I felt Woolf was trying to make the point that these parties were really full of nothing memorable or worthwhile except the extravagant display of food.