On Virginia Woolf & Her Mrs. Dalloway

1. On Virginia Woolf & HerMrs.Dalloway Lecturer： 姜 敏 Email: jiangmin98@hotmail.com

2. Virginia Woolf’s Life "Have you any notion how many books are written about women in the course of one year? Have you any notion how many are written by men? Are you aware that you are, perhaps, the most discussed animal in the universe?” --- Virginia Woolf

3. Nicole Kidman acting as Woolf in the Movie The Hours directed by Stephen Daldry

4. Virginia Woolf’s Life • 1882–1941, English novelist and essayist; daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen. • A successful innovator in the form of the novel, she is considered a significant force in 20th-century fiction. • Educated at home from the resources of her father's huge library. • 1912 , she married Leonard Woolf, a critic and writer on economics, with whom she set up the Hogarth Press in 1917. Their home became a gathering place for a circle of artists, critics, and writers known as the Bloomsbury group.

5. Woolf’s Life (continued) Virginia Woolf suffered mental breakdowns in 1895 and 1915; she drowned herself in 1941 because she feared another breakdown from which she might not recover. Most of her posthumously published works were edited by her husband. --from The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2007. P 52079

6. Woolf’s Novels The Voyage Out(1915) Night and Day(1919) traditional in method. Jacob's Room(1922) Mrs. Dalloway(1925) To the Lighthouse(1927) The Waves(1931) increasingly innovative

7. Orlando(1928) The Years(1937) Between the Acts(1941) Her biography of Roger Fry (1940) experimental novels The biography is a careful study of a friend. Some of her short stories from Monday or Tuesday(1921) appear with others in A Haunted House(1944).

8. Woolf’s Essays • The Common Reader (1925), • The Second Common Reader (1933), • The Death of the Moth and Other Essays (1942), • The Moment and Other Essays (1948). • A Room of One's Own(1929) feminist tracts • Three Guineas (1938)

9. from To the Lighthouse • "So that is marriage, Lily thought, a man and a woman looking at a girl throwing a ball." • “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction” from A Room of One’s Own

10. Woolf’s Achievement 1Stream-of- Consciousness Technique • As a novelist Woolf's primary concern was to represent the flow of ordinary experience. • Her emphasis was not on plot or characterization but on a character's consciousness, his thoughts and feelings, which she brilliantly illuminated by the stream of consciousness technique. • Woolf and Joyce are the most gifted and innovative of the stream of consciousness novelists

11. A Battle against the Traditional Realist Writers • In 1920s, a well-known “ quarrel ’’with some of the established British novelists of the time. • To object strongly to “materialists’’ “ because they are concerned not with the spirit but with the body’’ “ that they write of unimportant things; that they spend immense skill and immense industry making the trivial and the transitory appear the true and the enduring.’’

12. A “ Manifesto” for Stream-of -Consciousness type of fiction • “ Examine for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary day. • “ The mind receives a myriad impressions… From all sides they come, an incessant shower of innumerable atoms…. • “Let’s record the atoms as they fall upon the wind in the order in which they fall”--- Woolf (Chen Jia , Vol IV, 451 ).

13. Characteristics of the Stream of the Consciousnessdevice the traditional narrative devices

14. The Stream-of-consciousness techniques The traditional narrative techniques

15. The Stream-of-consciousness techniques The traditional narrative techniques

16. Reading Time The Excerpt of Mrs. Dalloway (1925) (Wang Shouren, 2005,177) Questions: • How does Woolf present Mrs. Dalloway to the reader? • What is the function of Big Ben?

17. Main Story of Mrs. Dalloway • The central figure, Clarissa Dalloway, is a wealthy London hostess. She spends her day in London preparing for her evening party. She recalls her life before World War I, before her marriage to Richard Dalloway, and her friendship with the unconventional Sally Seton, and her relationship with Peter Walsh. • At her party she never meets the shell-shocked veteran Septimus Smith (his news is brought to her by his doctor), one of the first Englishmen to enlist in the war. Sally returns as Lady Rossetter, Peter Walsh is still enamored with Mrs. Dalloway, the prime minister arrives, and Smith commits suicide.

18. An Excerpt from the Text Book • ‘…And then , thought Clarissa Dalloway, what a morning—fresh as if issued to children on the beach. What a lark! What a plunge! For so it had always seemed to her, when, with little squeak of the hinges, which she could hear now, she had burst open the French windows (落地窗） and plunged at Bourton（一休假胜地） into the open air. How fresh, how calm, stiller than this of course, the air was in the early morning… looking at the flowers….until Peter Walsh said, “musing among the vegetables?”’

19. Continued • ‘…a suspense (but that might be her heart, affected, they said, by influenza) before Big Ben strikes. There! Out it boomed…such fools we are, she thought, crossing Victoria street.’

20. The Stream-of-Consciousness Technique Represented in Mrs. Dalloway • A giant web of thoughts of several groups of people during the course of a single day. • There is little action/plot, but much movement in time from present to past and back again through the characters memories. The strike of the clock indicates the real time and brings her back to the present real world. • She did not limit herself to one consciousness, but slipped from mind to mind .

21. Prose Style • Poetic, heavily symbolic, and filled with superb visual images.

22. Characterization • A thoroughly well-depicted picture of the heroine, not only from all her own actions and words and thoughts but also from the description of her relations with her family members and friends. • Mrs. Dalloway is shown with all her defects and foibles but there is a sympathy for her throughout the story. After escorting the Prime Minister in her party, “with Sally there and Peter there and Ricard very pleased”, she was aware that “these triumphs…had a hollowness’’.

23. The spiritual life of the English upper class; her own social circle High condensation and glimpses of moments of experience Her own poetic medium prose); easy to understand The lower middle class in Dublin; people in all walks of life The illusion of a total picture characters expressing themselves in their own idiom; hard to understand Virginal Woolf vs. James Joyce

24. Movies • Mrs. Dalloway (1997) Directed by Marleen Gorris • The Hours(2002) Golden Globe Awards Winner Directed by Stephen Daldry Starring: Nicole Kidman ( Virginia Woolf) Julianne Moore (Mrs. Brown) Meryl Streep (Mrs. Dalloway) (Show 6 minutes of The Hours)

25. The Hours Virginia Woolf Laura Brown Richard ( a mixture of the three male characters in the novel ) • Severely depressed • Richard Dalloway (Mrs. Dalloway’s husband) • Peter Walsh ( her former lover) • Septimus Smith ( the veteran suffering from a sort of mental derangement). 精神错乱，抑郁症

26. On the Treatment of Depression Smith’s doctors different opinions of him: • There is “nothing whatever the matter’’ • “very seriously ill’’, “ a case of extreme gravity”, “ a long rest in bed’’ Does a long rest heal them?

27. Woolf’s Achievement 2A Feminist • She was very much concerned with the rights and position of women, especially of intelligent women and women writers. • She actively took part in the struggle for woman’s rights of suffrage & rights to work which is shown in her Three Guineas • She wrote several essays on the subject, notably in A Room of One’s Own

28. A Room of One's Own • Woolf imagines that Shakespeare had a sister: a sister equal to Shakespeare in talent, equal in genius, but whose legacy is radically different. This imaginary woman never writes a word and dies by her own hand, her genius unexpressed.

29. But if only she had found the means to create, urges Woolf, she would have reached the same heights as her immortal sibling. ----from Amozon.com • “ A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction”

30. A Room of One’s Own • to dissect the world around her & give a voice to those who have none. • to analyzes the differences between women as objects of representation and women as authors of representation • to argue that a change in the forms of literature was necessary because most literature had been"made by men out of their own needs for their own uses.".

31. Her message is simple: • A woman must have a fixed income and a room of her own in order to have the freedom to create.

32. A Room Of Her Own: A Foundation For Women Artists & Writers • The Website of this foundation : www.aroomofherown.org/home.php • Dedicated to furthering the vision of writer Virginia Woolf, AROHO continues to change the lives of creative women by rewarding and showcasing their important voices to their own community as well as the marketplace.

33. The Foundation • AROHO is committed to bridging the often fatal gap between a woman’s economic reality and her artistic creation. • Since its beginning the Foundation has given almost $500,000 to creative women American) through their $50,000 Gift of Freedom awards, scholarships, retreats, public readings, the AROHO Book Club, and other customized web-based resource center.

35. Lessing’s “To Room Nineteen” • 40 years later,at the beginning of the new wave of postwar women’s writing, Dorris Lessing addressed the subject of the secret room in “To Room Nineteen” in a collection called A Man and Two Women.

36. The Main Story of “To Room Nineteen” • The wife, Susan, gives up her job to bring up her four children, finds domestic life and marriage increasingly meaningless, and begins to rent a room in a seedy (somewhat disreputable) hotel. She sits there, day by day, in a wicker chair, doing nothing. Her husband, reasonably suspecting that she has a lover, discovers her secret and is more than willing to condone forgive her. Her response is to lock herself into her room and turns on the gas.

37. Opposing Voices from Men 意味着 An Article “Motherhood Need Not Spell the End of Literature” Byline: SEBASTIAN SHAKESPEARE From www.questia.com .

38. Some of the best female writers of the 20th century found it difficult to combine motherhood and creativity • ‘ Doris Lessing abandoned her two infant children (both under five) after leaving her first husband. "I had these two children and just couldn't afford to keep them," she said. Her two prams were not only enemies of promise but became emblematic (symbolic ) of female poverty.’

39. ‘Colette, who never wanted children, hardly ever saw her daughter whom she left in the hands of an English nanny. She chillingly, albeit rather brilliantly, described children as "those happy unconscious little vampires who drain the maternal heart". And as for Virginia Woolf, well, we all know what happened to her. The author of A Room of One's Own, who argued that "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction", ended up without children and committed suicide.’ satiric

40. While some other of the best female writers of the 20th century managed to combine motherhood and creativity • ‘What about Toni Morrison (1993 Nobel Prizewinner), who continues to collaborate with her musician son Slade on children's books? Motherhood, far from being a hindrance, can be a spur to creativity. ’

41. The Author of Harry Porter Books • ‘Look at JK Rowling, one of the most successful writers of the modern (or any) era, worth [pounds sterling]500 million, who was a single mother when she embarked on writing her Harry Potter books. ’

42. Discussion • Question 1: Can a woman /man become truly independent and free to have both a happy life and a successful career? • Question2: What is your understanding of women’s situation in China? • Question 3: Do you think it is still necessary to discuss the equality between men and women nowadays?

43. Woolf’s Achievement 3An Insight into Gender • She waged literary war on gender. To engage in a war or campaign Sexual identity, especially in relation to society or culture See Sex; Sexuality; Gender

44. The Meaning of Gender • ‘The meaning of the word "gender" has evolved as differentiated from the word "sex" to express the reality that women's and men's roles and status are socially constructed and subject to change.’ –from the statement of the 4th World Women Conference held in Beijing

45. Possibility of an Androgynous Mind Having both female and male characteristics • In the last chapter of A Room of One’s Own , Woolf refers to Coleridge who said that a great mind is androgynous and states that when this fusion takes place the mind is fully fertilized and uses all its faculties. "Perhaps a mind that is purely masculine cannot create, any more than a mind that is purely feminine..."

46. Orlando (1928) • a fantasy novel, traced the career of the androgynous protagonist from a masculine identity within the Elizabethan court to a feminine identity in 1928. • a play of gender

47. Judith Butler’s Theory: Gender Performativity(性别表演理论） • Note: This part is for your further study in the future Sexual Difference ≠Men and Women The End of Sexual Difference? • Man and woman are, according to the perspective of sexual difference, ways in which sexual difference has assumed content. • Butler even challenges the idea of homosexuality

48. Critical Thinking Mode--what we shall learn from Woolf and Butler • If one calls such terms into question, does that mean that they cannot be used anymore?... Or is it simply that the terms do not function in quite the same way as they once did? –from Undoing Gender,Judith Butler

49. Virginia Woolf’s Last Words( to her husband) • “Dearest, I feel certain I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came.

50. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that - everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. ”