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Virginia WoolfA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
“I am a child, I love and I hate.”
This declarative statement from Susan (as a child) emphasizes the pure value of the childhood experience. Woolf has Susan make a statement that lacks any adult self-censorship. The grammar here recalls Descartes’s maxim “I think therefore I am”: Susan knows her existence through her feelings. The strength of feeling that Susan expresses here suggests that children are more in touch with their elemental feelings than adults, a transition traced in the narratives of the characters as they age.
“The others are allowed to go. They slam the door. Miss Hudson goes. I am left alone to find an answer. The figures mean nothing now. Meaning has gone.”
This passage is the first moment when Rhoda begins to lose a sense of meaning. In this first instance, “meaning” can be taken literally to signify the meaning of the lesson but it foreshadows Rhoda’s deeper existential despair and her recurrent anxiety about life’s meaning. This passage links Rhoda’s angst to her feeling of isolation: In this first instance, her isolation is literal but through the novel, it will become increasingly metaphorical and internalized.
“But here I am nobody. I have no face. This great company, all dressed in brown serge, has robbed me of my identity. We are all callous, unfriended.”
Rhoda’s identity crisis is emphasized in boarding school because the girls are in uniform, follow the same routine, and match the same expectations. The uniformity of this experience is dehumanizing.
By Virginia Woolf
A Haunted House
A Haunted House
Virginia Woolf
A Haunted House and Other Short Stories
A Haunted House and Other Short Stories
Virginia Woolf
A Room of One's Own
A Room of One's Own
Virginia Woolf
Between The Acts
Between The Acts
Virginia Woolf
Flush: A Biography
Flush: A Biography
Virginia Woolf
How Should One Read a Book?
How Should One Read a Book?
Virginia Woolf
Jacob's Room
Jacob's Room
Virginia Woolf
Kew Gardens
Kew Gardens
Virginia Woolf
Modern Fiction
Modern Fiction
Virginia Woolf
Moments of Being
Moments of Being
Virginia Woolf
Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown
Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown
Virginia Woolf
Mrs. Dalloway
Mrs. Dalloway
Virginia Woolf
Orlando
Orlando
Virginia Woolf
The Death of the Moth
The Death of the Moth
Virginia Woolf
The Duchess and the Jeweller
The Duchess and the Jeweller
Virginia Woolf
The Lady in the Looking Glass
The Lady in the Looking Glass
Virginia Woolf
The Mark on the Wall
The Mark on the Wall
Virginia Woolf
The New Dress
The New Dress
Virginia Woolf
The Voyage Out
The Voyage Out
Virginia Woolf
Three Guineas
Three Guineas
Virginia Woolf