Critical Review: Developing an Ear for the Modernist Novel

Developing an Ear for the Modernist Novel:

Virginia Woolf, Dorothy Richardson and James Joyce

Angela Frattarola

Angela Frattarola’s article discusses the attention given to sound in modernist author’s works. Frattarola’s purpose is to prove this newfound focus on sound is a way of evolving past the typical focus, which had been placed on sight in the Victorian period. She focuses on the works of Virginia Woolf, Dorothy Richardson, and James Joyce. Sound became increasingly more prevalent in literature as inventions such as the phone and radio became staple items in the household. Woolf’s attention to the squeak of hinges and the bursting open of windows is compared to Dicken’s lack of sound in Great Expectations. Woolf includes the sound of Big Ben’s chime as Mrs. Dalloway walks through London. Joyce, Richardson, and Woolf chose to put to paper the sounds of war which was at least one thing that almost all Europeans had in-common. While there was much emphasis on sound, Woolf is noted to keep a healthy balance between the “eye and the ear” (138). Woolf’s works included auditory detail more and more. Richardson’s works are studied, as she was skilled in including sight and sound. Her work was described as “distinctly visual and cinematographic” (141). Even her silent films were not silent, there was music included. Frattarola expresses an interesting view on Joyce’s motivations for writing so much about the inner-self; he had very poor eyesight. Each sense is introduced throughout Ulysses. This article argues that modernist artist’s focus on stream of consciousness was vital in the movement from traditional, Victorian, focus on visual, to the inclusion and adoration of sound in their works.

Critical Review: Consciousness as a Stream

Consciousness as a Stream

Anne Fernihough

This article explains Woolf’s stream-of-consciousness writing style along with that of several other authors. Woolf explains that without it a work looses its sharpness and passion. The reader would be unable to find a connection without all of the “trivial” details. Woolf’s work in Jacob’s Room is described in this article as a sort of “mind wandering.” This mind wandering is also an attribute of going mad. The article uses Septimus Smith as an example. His going mad and eventually throwing himself out of a window prove that mind wandering and stream of conscious can be dangerous. The author, Anne Fernihough, explains some causes of the birth of stream-of-consciousness writing, “was just one facet of the complex cultural response to this sense of invasion and contamination, as were movements and trends centring on food reform and on the ‘simple life’” (73). She is referring to the growing trend of the masses choosing urban living. Fernihough argues that Woolf’s writing is unique to the majority because it consists of multiple people’s conscious, rather than sticking to one main character’s stream-of-conscious. It is not rare for several different characters conscious’s to be expressed on just one page. Throughout the article many other authors are studied. Among them are James Joyce, William James, and Henri Bergson to name a few. All of their opinions and techniques on writing in stream-of-consciousness are discussed.

Fernihough, Anne. "Consciousness as a Stream." The Cambridge Companion to the Modernist Novel. 65-81. Cambridge, England: Cambridge UP, 2007. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Web. 18 Nov. 2010.

The Waves

The Waves

The Waves consists of six main characters. Each of them hold a certain importance and act as narrator. Susan is most concerned with nature, and focuses most on smell. Jinny is more tactile and is also the most superficial of the group. She plays more of the city role while Susan plays the tradition county role. Rhonda simply flew away. Louis constantly tries to get back to the very beginning. Neville expressing the most feeling, and is in love with Perciville, who is written in a negative light due to none other than gender roles and politics of the time. Bernard is the most talkative of the group and, is who I was assigned to pay specific attention to. He constantly has something to say. While reading the novel, there were many times that I wanted to tell him to shut up! I hadn’t thought of it before it was pointed out in class, he is the cousin of the biographer in Orlando. He seemed to talk just to hear himself speak. It was not until the end of the book that I formed respect for his character. Everything seemed to come together. His words began to have meaning rather than just sound. The last forty or so pages of the book belong to Bernard. In last five to ten pages his tone changes. We discussed in class the possibility that Woolf’s voice came through in Bernard in the last few pages of the book.

The beginning of the book reads like a poem. We are informed, “the sun has not yet risen” (0). This is the first of the seasons that the reader is introduced to. Bernard is the first to speak—shocking, I know. He begins a game of what I saw as eye-spy. This game begins with Bernard, Susan, Neville, and Jinny seeing, while Rhoda and Lewis hear different sounds. Woolf’s decision to tell the first few pages of the book the way that she did was unique and compelled me to continue reading. It was as if they were each singing a different line of a song, or poem. Everyone had relatively short sentences and ordinary words. They are simple lines that a child could keep up with, again, making me think of the adolescent game of eye-spy. Jinny quickly grows up a bit as she describes to the reader running through the leaves to the tool-house where she found Louis. She kissed him, “with my heart jumping underneath my pink frock like the leaves, which go one moving, though there is nothing to move them” (7). Jinny is still a girl, in her pink frock, which illuminates her innocence. Thus, beginning the growing up and the changing and evolving that comes with the act of aging.

The structure that Woolf wrote The Waves in makes the book more interesting yet more difficult to follow. Someone will begin telling a story, as if they were being interrogated in a crime show. They are not defensive as much as picture perfect recollections. They remind me of when a character in a show like CSI, Cold Case or Without a Trace is interviewed. As they begin to talk the show always resorts to a flashback moment so that the audience can see exactly what happened. The story is slowly built and put together by several characters. The change in tenses is also unique. As an English major who has done my fair share of writing essays and reports, I have always been told to pick a tense and stick with it. Woolf bounces between past and present constantly. This is used at times to let the reader know that a character has left the narrator role and begun talking to another character. It also lets us know when the narrator is talking in real time. An example of this is on page 8. Bernard tells the reader that Susan has left all of them and is walking thought a field. He also says that he must follow her. When Susan speaks again, it is not to the audience, it is to Bernard, “I saw her kiss him” (8). They go into dialogue. They begin speaking in more developed paragraphs, which I saw as signs of growing up, maturing, and developing.

At the beginning of each episode there is a page that lets the reader know the location of the sun and the movement of the waves. Throughout the play, as the characters grow and the sun rises and falls, the buds bloom, and the waves rise and fall, we see many climaxes and declines. The symbolism is impossible to ignore. Life is full of repetition. Who has ever lived a life with only one dramatic event? No one. Life is full of unexpected ups and downs; it is a cycle. Just like the waves in the ocean, the sun in the sky, and the buds on trees. When I first found all of these symbols I was impressed, as usual, but then my emotions changed. I can’t help but find it depressing. Life is not a complete cycle, at least not when looked at from an individual standpoint. I will die, we all will. In the grand scheme of things that is a cycle but, our individual cycle ends. We will leave this earth and depending on your personal beliefs, will never return. But all of that is not the part that saddens me most. It is the fact that after we die the waves will continue crashing, the sun will keep rising, and the buds will bloom. While there is beauty in the power of a cycle, comes also a feeling of utter insignificance.

Critical Review: Suffrage and Virginia Woolf: 'The Mass Behind the Single Voice'

Suffrage and Virginia Woolf: ‘The Mass Behind the Single Voice’

Sowon S. Park

Sowon S. Park begins this article by explaining that Virginia Woolf is viewed as the ‘mother’ of feminism for the 21^st century. Park focuses on Woolf’s lack of action toward the suffrage movement. It is argued that A Room of One’s Own and Three Guineas have strong ties to the suffrage movement. They were reviewed as “ahead of their time.” It is brought to light that Woolf worked in a suffrage office, but privately expressed concerns about the movement. Woolf did not work there for very long, and was believed to be of higher class than the women who were typical activists. Woolf chose to put her energy towards the Women’s Co-operative Guild which was a way to show her feminist views. She viewed the suffrage movement as limiting. In A Room of One’s Own, Woolf invents Shakespeare’s sister who is equal to him in intellect. In Three Guineas, Woolf proves the power of women through the narrator. This article explains Woolf’s participation in the suffrage movement as compared to her activism as a Feminist as a whole.

Critical Review: A Rediscovered Eulogy: Virginia Woolf's "Miss Janet Case: Classical Scholar and Teacher"

A Rediscovered Eulogy: Virginia Woolf’s “Miss Janet Case: Classical Scholar and Teacher”

Henry M. Alley

This article is about Janet Case, Virginia Woolf’s tutor, and the affect that she had on Woolf throughout her life. She began as a Tutor who taught Woolf of Plato and other great classics. Woolf was eager to learn, and especially enjoyed embarrassing George Duckworth with her knowledge. There relationship eventually evolved into a deep friendship that was based on a great deal of respect and adoration. This relationship turned for the worst over time as Case grew older. Woolf began to see Case’s beliefs as those of a “rigid classical view of literature.” Case and Woolf’s relationship dwindled, especially after Woolf visited Case at her home. She was instructed to give up fiction and focus on biographies as Case said that they were more “useful.” Case began to stand for the classical views, which inhibited and did not except Woolf’s modern writing style. This brought about a great deal of discomfort, self-consciousness, and anxiety in Woolf as she continued to pursue her writing. Woolf’s studies of Greek under Case were also a great influence throughout her work. She was even accused of following in Case’s footsteps by being too rigid. Eventually Woolf’s confidence grew and she was able to at least partially put Case’s criticisms of her work aside. Although their relationship was rocky, it began and ended with great respect. There is no doubt, after reading this article, that Janet Case played an important hand in Woolf’s developing as a writer and as a Woman through their differing opinions on classical vs. modern writing styles.

Critical Review: Significant Form in Jacob's Room: Ekphrasis and the Elegy

Significant Form in Jacob’s Room: Ekphrasis and the Elegy

Kathleen Wall

Kathleen Wall’s article discusses the form that Woolf used in Jacob’s Room. The form used throughout the novel is considered abnormal when studying the plot and character development. Wall brings the readers focus to the less discussed and studied topic of the “narrator’s uneven authority and inconsistent relationship to the textual world.” It is said that through the form the worlds of art and life’s differences are put on the stand. Wall goes on to say that this broken relationship, the reader is incapable of processing and knowing the perception of the world that has been created. Woolf is described to be bridging the gap between reality and literature, or the real world and art. Woolf’s brother, Thoby, died at an early age, which forced Woolf into a motherly role of protecting Violet by writing letters as if they were from Thoby. Wall goes on to infer that Jacob’s Room is so realistic because of an inscription of Thoby’s name was written across the bottom of the final page of the draft of Jacob’s Room. It would have been an elegy soley for her brother but Woolf decided that Jacob should die in the war. Because there was war during that time, the book served as an elegy that served an entire generation. Another interesting stance on Thoby’s elegy is that Woolf saw it as a way to blurry the distinction between public and private. Clive Bell is referred to quite often throughout the article. His theories, opinions, and beliefs are discussed.

Critical Review: The Spaces in Jacob's Room

Mind the Gap: The Spaces in Jacob’s Room

Edward L. Bishop

Edward Bishop discusses the importance of silence in Jacob’s Room. Bishop puts a great deal of emphasis on the gaps and spaces in the pages of the novel. He goes so far as to say they are “the essence of the text itself, the vital ingredient that makes it possible for the narrative to exist at all.” Bishop describes the silences as a way to give the reader a steady pace that helps their minds move into and through the silence. Harvena Richter is referenced in an argument that wolf “uses negative ‘blank spaces’ or ‘intervals’ in a positive way so as to make them contribute to subject feeling.” Bishop goes on the further argue that the gaps are necessary in order to engage the reader. He expresses extreme displeasure with the fact that the novel has been reprinted, shrunk, and edited so much that these valuable space breaks have been ignored and discarded. Bishop explains how to read the works best and what to avoid. It is noted that one should not read Jacob’s Room on a screen. The article describes the differences between the original book published by the Hogarth Press and the American Addition that came three months after. There were several sections missing in the American edition. Bishop gives detailed examples of the differences between the two texts. This article places a great deal of emphasis on the spatial gaps on the pages that he believe Virginia Woolf and the Hogarth Press intended to include, that were ignored in the American editions. Without these spaces, Bishop argues that the novel does not reach its full potential and purpose.

Critical Review: The loss of roses: mother-daughter myth and relationships between women in Mrs. Dalloway

The loss of roses: mother-daughter myth and relationships between women in Mrs. Dalloway

This essay deals with the use of the Demeter myth in Mrs. Dalloway. It first discusses the lack of study of the myth in the novel with regards to the relationship between Mrs. Dalloway and her daughter, who ventures out on her own for a bit in order to explore the world of liberal gender roles rather than the conservative lifestyle that she has been brought up in throughout her entire life. The myth deals with a “motherless daughter.” As we know, Virginia Woolf lost her mother at an early age. This essay argues that Clarissa is Demeter, the goddess of vegetation, which is why she is always associated with flowers. The author, Lisa Tyler, states that Mrs. Dalloway’s constant association with flowers throughout the novel is also one with motherhood. Tyler makes an interesting observation about Clarissa’s obsession with being a perfect hostess; she is a “high priestess” because she is a “mediatory between people, is the closest thing to a holy person that there is.” Clarissa’s lifestyle definitely reflects this importance of the hostess. All she cares about throughout the day is putting on a perfectly wonderful party. Clarissa’s daughter, Elizabeth, is Persephone because she wonders off from her mother’s choices in lifestyle. Tyler also points out that Clarissa’s trying to find and know Elizabeth stands for Clarissa’s need to find and approve of herself. There are several other examples of characters who follow along with the myth of Demeter and Persephone. One of which is that of Peter as Hades because he asks Clarissa why she did not choose him over Richard, which is inappropriate especially because of Elizabeth.

Tyler sums up her essay by admitting that Mrs. Dalloway does not end in the same way that the myth does. It does however show that Elizabeth decides to return home to her mother, Clarissa, rather than following the independent path of Ms. Kilman, which is the approval and desire that Clarissa had been in search of all along.

A Room of One's Own

The role of the women was portrayed very well in Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. Woolf focused on the importance of money to a woman in the Renaissance. I couldn’t help but think about the fact that money has always been important to women. An example of this is Mrs. Dalloway. She chose Richard over Peter because he was more secure and had better standing in society. Perhaps I should rephrase myself, material goods have always been important to women. They alone define a woman’s worth and depth in the eyes of the rest of society. So what is the difference between Woolf’s, Room of One’s Own and every materialistic socialite throughout history? The will to write. For the first time women were breaking the mold and daring to do what only men could do, unthinkable in those times. Women couldn’t write and if they could, certainly not as well as men. Because women were not allowed to write so much talent has been lost throughout history. Woolf’s creation of Shakespeare’s sister is very powerful. It made me think not only of what would have happened without Shakespeare’s mark on literary history but of what we have missed out on. There were most likely dozens of women who obtained the ability to write as well as Jane Austen who have been lost in the crowd. I would be willing to bet that more than once, a woman sat in the audience at one of Shakespeare’s productions who was just as talented, but trapped in the cramped role that society had placed on her gender.

Woolf further explains exactly how drastic the limitations placed on women are in chapter 3, “Some of the most inspired words, some of the most profound thoughts in literature fall from her lips; in real life she could hardly read, could scarcely spell, and was the property of her husband” (43). To think that I may have never had the chance to read Pride and Prejudice because Jane Austen never learned to read and write is devastating. So many women were limited and confined to a simple lifestyle while their husbands read and wrote right in front of them.

I fell in love with the metaphor that Woolf came up with to describe fiction, “Fiction is like a spider’s web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners” (41). The spider’s web is perfect because they are flexible and almost transparent. In my opinion a good fiction work must have some resemblance to reality (attached at four corners) and they should also have uniqueness about them. They do not have to conform to a specific “shape” or story.

Like Woolf, I adore Jane Austen. It was not until reading A Room of One’s Own that I understood what it is that I love so much about her work. She and Shakespeare share the unique ability to write without being affected or bogged down with their own emotions. While Jane Austen wrote some of the greatest love stories of all time, it is important to note that they are not full of sappy romance. It is equally important to realize that thought in most of her books the couple lives “happily ever after” Jane Austen’s love life did not work out as smoothly. Still, Austen was not bitter and was able to write timeless pieces due to her ability to take her emotions out of the equation.