Mahmut Deniz
Modernism and Virginia Woolf
Virgina Woolf exhibited the most
important elements of modernism in her works very effectively. As she rejected
the conventional techniques of Nineteenth Century literature, Woolf used poetic
and symbolic language in her works, especially in The Waves, so that her works are mostly considered to be beautiful
in form and not meaning. Along with a poetic language, she used also irony effectively in her A Haunted House
which differentiates the short story from its classical sorts and simple ghost
stories. Woolf, in order to emphasize inner psychological and emotional motives
of her character and to let us see what is inside her character’s head, she
used Stream of Consciousness literary technique in her both works. In my essay, I will focus on the use of
language, irony and stream of consciousness technique as modernist techniques by
Virginia Woolf in her works A Haunted
House and The Waves.
Woolf used stream of consciousness
literary technique in her short story A Haunted House. In the story, the use of
stream of consciousness is very important, since the technique itself helps
meaning to be conveyed to readers by characters. Woolf used the technique very
effectively, but complicated. Its being complicated, actually, is not the way
we should see the story in my opinion. As we read her story, it resolves itself
like a puzzle gradually. However, For instance, stream of consciousness which
was used in the story creates ambiguity in Woolf’s A
Haunted House. “Here we left it,” she said. And he added, “Oh, but here
too!” “It’s upstairs,” she murmured. “And in the garden,” he whispered
“Quietly,” they said, “or we shall wake them.” (Woolf, 3) In the quotation, we
see “they”, “we” or “she”, but who are they? Or who is she? These questions are
not clear till we read the story to the end and find out who are these people. Despite
being rather ambiguous, in her story, stream of consciousness not only gives
the story a mystic aspect, but also makes the story much more interesting to
us. Besides, with the help of stream of consciousness, we can easily understand
ghostly couple’s past and association of their past with the story, because
couple’s conversations and inner thoughts reveal the realities to us: “Here we slept," she says. And he adds, "Kisses
without number." "Waking in the morning" "Silver between
the trees " "Upstairs " "In the garden " "When
summer came " "In winter snowtime” (Woolf, 4)
Poetic language is almost everywhere
in the story. Repetition of words in a prose is good example of poetic
language. For example, we see “Safe, safe, safe, the heart of the house beats
proudly” (Woolf, 5), apart from the repetition in the story the metaphorical
language supports Woolf’s poetic language quiet effectively, as well. “the
heart of the house beats proudly” (Woolf, 5) As normally, heart is an organ
related to human being, but the metaphor “heart of the house” creates very good
image as Woolf allows us to feel the atmosphere of the house much better and
deeper.
Woolf’s short story A Haunted House might seem as a ghost
story from the term “Haunted” in its title.
In fact, the story is not a simple ghost story that gives us horrific and
creepy images, but it is a story that has a meaning which is revealed at the
end, that’s why she uses irony of “Haunted” in her work. At first glance, the
term “Haunted” might seem rather horrific as one can understand that the house
is simply haunted by ghosts. However, at the end, the story reveals its meaning
and we understand that ghostly couple does not haunt the people in the house,
but they try to make them understand the joy of life they have, as a valuable
treasure.
Symbols are mostly used in poetry
in modern times, but quickly spread out to the novels which helped the novelist
and his/her novels to gain more meanings and value, but, again, they are rather
obscure in language. Being complicated and difficult to understand, The Waves is among the best example of
modernist style novels. Woolf used symbols in The Waves which made her novel difficult to understand due to
metaphorical meaning of the words. For example, The Waves itself is a symbol which symbolizes the life, because, in
the novel “Woolf presents the ocean as a symbol of procreation and life-giving
energy.” (J.Ward, 2003) With an elastic language, Woolf writes her novel The Waves like music in a poetic
language. She writes to rhythm, not to plot. So what concerns the reader is not
the meaning or the message in the novel, but the beauty of the language itself.
Stream of consciousness technique
in the The Waves adds novel a great
sense of understanding inner thoughts of character. In realist writers works,
for example, it was not possible to get this feeling because of the omniscience
point of view or fixed point of view narrative technique which was only
controlled by author. So the characters were like puppets as we were aware that
they were being managed by their authors. However, Woolf breaks these rules
with her technique and let characters act freely.
In conclusion, both works A Haunted House and The Waves blaze the trail in modernist literature. By using some
modernist techniques in a great efficiency, Woolf presents her works not in a
language that is based on strict rules, but she prefers to play with the
language and shape her works in a better form with her own creativity. In spite
of being rather difficult to understand, language of her works and symbols show
the beauty of Woolf’s works. She is not an author who relies on conventional
narrative style which is rather insufficient for her, as she says: “Life is not a series of gig lamps
symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope
surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end.” (Faulkner, 31)
Works Cited
Woolf,
Virginia. A Haunted House and
Other Stories : The Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia Woolf. New York:
Harvest Books, 2002.
"Virginia Woolf. A post-symbolist writer who relies on
symbols?!" ENGLISH LITERATURE CRITIQUES. 27 Jan. 2009
<http://www.english-literature-essays.com>.
Faulkner, Peter. Modernism. New York: Routledge, 1977.
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