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.