Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf

Stream on Consciousness

- Buddhist meditation technique to clear mind

- Relation of physiology and psychology

The Principals of Psychology
- "Stream of thought"
     - Thoughts are personal consciousness
     - Thought is always changing
     - Sensibly continuous

Narrative Style
- Omniscience
- Interior Monologue
     - Indirect
     - Direct
- Soliloquy
- Sensory impression
     - 5 senses

Traits
- Long narrative covering small amount of time
- Rapid shifts in POV
     - subject, setting, and tone
     - chaotic images, descriptions
     - simple plot to focus attention on thoughts

Effects
- illuminates perception an enhances dramatic irony
- Time can be recorded meticulously for realism
     - distortion of time due to brain's interpretation
- Stream = constant flow of action
     - time
     - memory
     - Are we simply a collection of our memories?

Mrs. Dalloway
- Individualistic
     - All about themselves, though a lot of people are like that
- The problem with Modern time
     - thinks about world effecting themselves
     - not how they can contribute to the world
- Less of a moralistic story/judging
     - certain people have opinions and judgemetns, but not whole story

Septimus
- PTSD
     - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
     - Refers to a severe anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to any event that results in psychological trauma
- He killed himself
     - Threw himself out the window
     - Escaping from modern act of selfishness, or was he the selfish one?
          - Is the act of suicide selfish or an escape?
     - Was he heroic for rejecting the modern world, or a coward for running?
- Holmes talks about it at the party

Fragmentation/Disconnection
- Inability of human begins to connect
- Humans are icebergs
     - 10% seen is the mask
          - What the outside world sees
     - 90% is unseen
- Is it the world that changes people?
     - Or just the natural occurance of change
- Doesn't everyone think about those who touched their lives?

Time ------------ Death
- Memories
- Clocks

Identity
- Collection of individual experiences
     - The past plays big role in who we are today

Septimus and Clarissa
- Parallels
- Pessimistic world views
- Both ill on some mental level?
- Septimus's suicide takes place instead of Clarissa's

Communication
- A lot of miscommunication
- People unable to say things to each other