A Room of One's Own Virginia Woolf
"Every secret of a writer's soul," Virginia Woolf said, "every experience of their life every quality of their mind is written largely in their works." This is a deliberate extravagance but, in her case, nothing is so true as her fiction to her most cherished experiences. "I wonder, " she asked herself, "whether I really deal in autobiography yet call it fiction?" As a writer, Virginia Woolf, took hold of the past, of ghostly voices speaking with increasing clarity. When the voices of the dead - those of her mother, father and siblings - urged to impossible things they drove her mad, but controlled, they became the material of a fiction novel. Virginia's persistent memories of her parents helped shape her writing. Many have agreed that Ms. Woolf's literary work is a result of her childhood memories and of her intense sense of her past ties The experience of losing so many loved ones at a young age, along with the psychological traits lending themselves to madness that Virginia Woolf had inherited from both sides of her family is clearly portrayed in her writing (Ingram, 5). During times of mental clarity, Virginia writes and writes plentifully. However, during the times of breakdowns, and mental despair, Virginia's writi
The day before her death, she was in the midst of writing Between the Acts, her last novel. Throughout 1940, Virginia was energetic and productive, actually writing three works simultaneously. She had asked the writer, John Lehmann to read the final draft of Between the Acts and one day before her death wrote him a letter describing the novel as "silly and trivial." A letter accompanied this letter from Virginia from Leonard explaining that she was on "the verge of a breakdown" (Ingram, 18-19). Almost every time she came down with an attack, Virginia almost always had a similar criticism for whatever work she was currently writing. After her father's death, an episode of mental illness did not manifest in Virginia until one month had passed. Until then, she wrote regularly to her correspondents and her letters were lengthy and even cheerful. Virginia may have been fighting off the "attack," as she was already familiar with the feelings of despair that accompanied losing her mother and sister. Two years after losing her father, Virginia would again lose a sibling, her brother Thoby. Each of these deaths brought about mental disturbances for Virginia Woolf. This clearly depicts an unstable mental state of being. Grief is a state that all go through at some point in their lives as a result of the loss of a loved one. Virginia did not have the same mental make-up that most people have. She could not overcome the feelings of hopelessness that often arise during the grieving process. Virginia would hear voices urging her do to "wild things of folly" (Ingram, 8). During these breakdowns, Virginia would ultimately stop writing, and would soon criticize the work she had already done. After one of these breakdowns, when Virginia was on her way back to a healthy mental state, she wrote to her friend Violet Dickenson, "I think the blood had really been getting into my brain again. It is the oddest feeling, as though a dead part of me were coming to life. I can't tell you how delightful it is - and I don't mind how much I eat to keep it going" (Ingram, 8-9). What is interesting is that Woolf could understand her mental breakdowns so fully without denying them; she would almost embrace their existence. Although she had no control over them, she accepted them in a truly inspiring manner. 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 poss
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Approximate Word count = 1744
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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