Death: A Perpetual Consciousness In The Life And Works Of Virginia Woolf - Dissertation Example

xv]Indeed much has been written about Virginia Woolf's mental illness, the accompanying death instinct and her perceptions of death as a woman writer's response to the complex realties of contemporary life. Nevertheless, the complexities of her life and works offer scope for further readings as fresh meanings and inferences may be arrived at depending on the context and purport of research. Therein lies the significance of this study, a comprehensive look at the theme of death from all possible dimensions may be worthwhile in understanding the authoress, whose suicide has been described as "a work of art" by itself, and whose novels considered as "elaborate drafts of a suicide note.

" [Caramagno; p.9] The present review shall endeavour to analyse and understand Woolf's preoccupation and/or fascination with death, and the diverse perceptions of death apparent in her novels and writings. Chapter One shall attempt to present a psychobiography of Virginia Woolf, a tracking of the psychic consciousness being considered equally significant as the life events in understanding Woolf's suicide instinct and her incessant preoccupation with death. Woolf remains one of the few writers whose life has been analysed from distinctly different perspectives, each analysis attempting to explain her death instinct in one way or other.

Yet, a focussed and comprehensive attempt towards understanding her through the 'stream of consciousness' revealed in her autobiographical writings, diaries, journals and letters in conjunction with the biographical accounts of her life may be helpful in gaining a coherent and conscientious insight into the source of her perpetual awareness and attraction to death. Writing at a time when. Chapter One shall attempt to present a psychobiography of Virginia Woolf, a tracking of the psychic consciousness being considered equally significant as the life events in understanding Woolf’s suicide instinct and her incessant preoccupation with death.

Woolf remains one of the few writers whose life has been analysed from distinctly different perspectives, each analysis attempting to explain her death instinct in one way or other. Yet, a focussed and comprehensive attempt towards understanding her through the ‘stream of consciousness’ revealed in her autobiographical writings, diaries, journals and letters in conjunction with the biographical accounts of her life may be helpful in gaining a coherent and conscientious insight into the source of her perpetual awareness and attraction to death.

Writing at a time when many new movements and representations were emerging in art and literature, Woolf experimented with new forms and aesthetics in fiction and non-fiction, gaining her the reputation of being one of the most original modernist women writers of her time. Presenting the complex realities of modern life in an exceptionally feminine voice, and constantly experimenting with innovative forms and narrative styles, her writings offers scope for analysis from distinct, at times overlapping perspectives –viz.

the psychoanalytic, modernist and feminist constructions of reality. Given the fact that death remains a constant theme in most, if not all, of her prominent works, a comprehensive review of her works may be illuminative in understanding