Analisi opere Virginia Woolf per esercitazione testo PDF

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Analisi del testo di virginia woolf per esercitazione scrittura di un testo riassuntivo...

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CLARISSA AND SEPTIMUS “Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself”: this is how the novel opens, and in the following pages Clarissa Dalloway is seen walking through Green Park Then up Bond Street to the flower shop. Just before reaching the shop, Clarissa is thinking about the relationship between her 17-year-old daughter, Elisabeth, and her disagreeable history teacher, whom Mrs Dalloway feels to be her enemy. This thought arouses a feeling of hatred in her, which she calls “her brutal monster” Summary: Clarissa Dalloway decides to buy flowers herself for the party she is going to give in the evening. She goes into Mulberry’s florists shop and is greeted by Miss Pym, Clarissa enjoys the various perfumes and colours of the many flowers. She suddenly hears a noise similar to a pistol shot in the street. Miss Pym looks apologetic as if the loud motor cars were her fault. Clarissa and several other people turn to observe the mysterious person passing in a luxury car. They wonder whether it is the queen or the prime minister behind the blinds. Septimus Warren Smith, a veteran of World War I, also hears the car backfire. He suffers from shell shock, a mental illness caused by the horrors of war, and he believes he is responsible for the traffic congestion the passing car causes. His young Italian wife Lucrezia, is embarrassed by his odd manner and also frightened, since Septimus has recently threatened to kill himself. Division in sections: • Part 1: Mrs Dalloway’s visit at the florist’s is interrupted by the explosion of a tyre in the street. • Part 2: Various people’s reactions to the explosion and their speculations about who might be un the car. • Part 3: Introduction of Septimus Warren Smith • Part 4: The busy traffic in the streets and Septimus’s thoughts • Part 5: Description of Lucrezia’s appearance and thoughts. She is worried because Septimus wants to kill himself. Exercise 2

- Yellow: The setting in time and place: it is a late afternoon in summer, at a florist’s in London.

- Gray: Words and phrases describing Miss Pym, the florist, and conveying her opinion of non-behaviour towards Mrs Dalloway.

- Pink words: The main event in the passage is a violent explosion due to the bursting tyre of a car driving along Bond Street. The fact that the chauffeur draws the blind makes everyone think that there is someone important in the car.

- Pink: Words describing the character of Mrs Dalloway. She is presented as a kind, elegant woman; she is sensitive to smell and colours and likes flowers, yet she is also capable of hatred. She is also curious.

- Green: Words describing the character of Septimus Warren Smith.

- Violet: Words describing the character of Lucrezia, Septimus’s wife. - Underlined in blue: Words giving an insight into the changes in society, such as cars another vehicle, newspapers. The idea conveys is that of busy city life.

- Blue words: Words referring to the senses. There are references to sight, hearing, smell, and touch but the prevailing sense is sight. Woolf wants to emphasize that the characters’ response to the outside world is both emotional and physical

- Underlined in pink: Examples of free indirect speech, a literary technique that describes the interior thoughts of characters using third person singular pronouns (he and she). Reactions to the explosion: Miss Pym went to the window and looked apologetic from the noise coming from the street (lines 21-23); Mrs Dalloway jumped (line 24); passers-by stopped and stared (line 26); Edgar J. Watkiss said it was the Prime Minister’s car (line 36-37). Mrs Dalloway came to the window and looked out with curiosity (lines 45-46). Septimus was frightened and thought he was blocking the way and that everyone was looking at him (lines 49-53). Lucrezia at first wondered who might be in the car (lines 56-57), but she was afraid everyone might notice her husband’s strange behaviour (lines 63-66). The narrative is organised piece by piece through association.

Narrator The omniscient narrator is a commenting voice who knows everything about the characters. This voice appears occasionally among the subjective thoughts of the characters. The point of view changes constantly, often shifting from one character’s stream of consciousness (subjective interior thoughts) to the other within a single paragraph. Woolf most often uses free indirect speech; a literary technique that describes the interior thoughts of characters using third person singular pronouns (he and she). The technique allows settle and smooth transitions between the thoughts of different characters. The author’s aim is to convey reality as a continuous shift of subjective impression and emotions and to stress the importance of apparently meaningless facts as stimuli to psychological responses. Action There is a continuous passage from outer to inner realty. The text mostly consists of perceptions and thoughts. Syntax and pronunciation Dashes, semicolons, question marks, exclamations, and noticeably short sentences. Septimus is in a grip of a very serious mental illness • • • • •

Alienation: “the world has raised its whip” (line 41); Panic: “Septimus … flames” (lines 47-51); Feeling of guilt: “it is I who is blocking … purpose” (lines 51-53); Anger: “but … him” (lines 61-62); Madness: “Septimus had said … thing to say” (line 65).

CLARISSA’S PARTY This passage is set at Clarissa’s party. Sir William Bradshaw, Septimus’s doctor, and lady Bradshaw explain why they are late, and Clarissa feels like withdrawing for a while. In the first paragraph the Bradshaws bring the news that a young man has committed suicide by throwing himself out of a window. His body was wounded by “the rest spikes” and smashed onto the ground. There is various evidence in the text that the setting is a party; for example, in lines 1-2,7, 910 (rooms were crowded), 38-39, 51-52 (people al laughing and shouting) , 56-57 (extraordinary night), 60-61. “The young man” is Septimus Warren Smith; “they” are the Bradshaws and the people at the party. Clarissa Dalloway: • Her reaction to the news: She is annoyed by the fact that the Bradshaws talked about death at her party. She identifies with the young man and wonders why he has killed himself. • What she sees out of the window: An old woman staring at her from the window in the opposite room; she is alone, and she is going to bed. • What she ears: Her guests “laughing and shouting”; the clock “striking the hour”. • What she resolves to do: To come back to her guests; to find Sally and Peter, two old friends of hers. Exercise 6 Thoughts about the past: lines 8-11, 34-42, 53. Thoughts about the present can be seen in the rest of the text. Clarissa respond to the experience by translating her emotions into physical metaphors, which become indistinguishable from the emotions themselves. Lines 3-4: her dress flames and her body burnt Lines 27-30: metaphor with a bird The relationship between Clarissa and her husband: Richard is a conventional man (he reads the Times) and Clarissa feels protected and reassured by him. Their relationship is not based on love and passion but provides her with shelters from her weaknesses and insecurity (lines 27-30). Climax of the party/ moments of being of Clarissa She experiences a moment of clarity, or “moment of being”, when she realizes that the social life, she values so much is false and superficial. However, she finally accepts herself and chooses to go on living. Unlike Septimus, who is not always able to distinguish between his personal response and the nature of external reality, Clarissa never loses her awareness of the outside world as something external to herself. In the end she recognizes her deceptions, accepts the idea of aging and of death and is prepared to go on.

Terms of opposition between Clarissa and Septimus 1. Tolerance of superficial and false life (Clarissa) // inability to conform (Septimus) 2. Sanity (Clarissa) // madness (Septimus) 3. Social success (Clarissa) // alienation from society (Septimus) 4. Final self-acceptance (Clarissa) // rejection of existence (Septimus) 5. Life (Clarissa) // death (Septimus) Poetic devices used in the description of the suicide • Line 5: “up had flashed the ground” - inversion • Line 5: “blundering bruising” - alliteration • Line 6: “thud thud thud” - onomatope and repetition • Line 6: “a suffocation of blackness” - metaphor There are two quotations of Shakespeare:

If it were now to die, ‘twere now to be most happy(lines 16-17): it is better to die in a moment of absolute happiness rather than to bare the suffering of life. Fear no more the heat of sun (line 56): death is seen as a shelter from the hardship of nature and the blows of life. However, Clarissa repeats this line from Cymbeline, and she continues to endure. These quotations help us understand the meaning of Septimus suicide by choosing death, he has protected himself form further suffering and freed his soul form the constraints of society. There are three images which act both as structural connections and symbols: Image: the sky; the older woman; the clock Structural connection: past →present →future; Clarissa sees herself in old age; inner and outer reality Symbol: the continuity of life; the awareness of the passing of time; the voice of reality Various elements of Woolf personal experience came together into her novel: Virginia Woolf suffered from nervous breakdowns and mental illness and spent some time in a nursing house. She attempted suicide and eventually drowned herself. moreover, Clarissa’s relationship with Richard reminds us of that between Woolf and her husband Leonard. The influences o the development of the author, in the context of the age The feeling of rootlessness, anxiety and frustration following the First World War is reflected in Woolf’s choice of themes and in the use of short, “broken” sentences. Sigmund Freud’s influence can be seen in the importance given to the human psyche, William James’s, and Henri Bergson’s in the concept of time. The technical experimentation of the stream of consciousness is one of the features of modernism in literature, as well as the idea that reality is not perceived objectively but subjectively and the importance of isolated moments, which provide an insight into the nature of things.

A little summary of the concepts of Woolf’s novel: • The novel deals with the characters’ inner realty (their emotions, thoughts, and memories) and their response (both physical and psychological) to external reality. Woolf juxtaposes the themes of youth and old age, life and death, sanity, and madness. • The concept of time is not chronological but linked to “moments of being”. There is a continuous shift from inner to external time and vice versa. • Woolf fuses stream of thought into a third-person past-tense narrative. • The characters are introduced through their perceptions, thoughts, and feelings....