Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway: Invisible Presences

Author(s):  
Molly Hoff

This book provides a synopsis and analysis of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. In her close reading, Molly Hoff collects the literary fragments scattered in the novel and gathers them into a discussion of style, narrative and intertextual references. The author supplements her breakdown of individual lines and words in the novel with her own knowledge of the city of London and the idioms used by its residents, therefore providing a useful context on place and language. Hoff also draws on poetic convention from Classical and modern literature, including Greek myth and Alexandrian poetry, to supplement her discussion of the novel’s use of characterisation, recurring motifs and imagery. Hoff’s annotations are organised according to the novel’s twelve unnumbered ‘section’ breaks, indicated by Woolf with vertical spacing.

2020 ◽  
pp. 26-58
Author(s):  
Jessica R. Valdez

While Benedict Anderson has argued that newspapers enable readers to imagine national community, Charles Dickens’s writings are attentive to the varying ways that the newspaper press might shape, inhibit, or fragment community through its uncontrolled production of miscellaneous content and matter. This first chapter shows the growing distinction that Dickens drew between fiction and nonfiction, novel and newspaper, in his communal visions for serial publication. Early Dickens characterised the newspaper press as a meteorological force of destruction, a thunderstorm threatening to engulf the city of London, yet continually produced to meet the endless public appetite for more news. Over the course of his career, Dickens experimented with other metaphors for the working of serial narrative and its influence on a reading public. From an intangible creature telling stories to a weaver at his loom, Dickens encourages readers to see the instance of a particular serial output linked to its larger structure over time. In doing so, he privileges the power of serial fiction to cultivate new ways of envisioning community.


Author(s):  
Molly Hoff

Chapter eight follows the action that takes place in the eighth section of Mrs. Dalloway. In Hoff’s discussion of the plot she provides useful, factual context as well as her own personal interpretation of the novel which is greatly inspired by conventions of Roman and Greek myth. Also included in Hoff’s analysis is a broad understanding of ancient and modern literature which often provokes comparison to the whole of Woolf’s literary works. This chapter in particular focuses on the concept of rooms as a motif, and discusses the areas of Woolf’s writing that allude to the work of Socrates, Plato, Shakespeare and Dante.


Author(s):  
Silvana Colella

In the 1860s and 1870s Charlotte Riddell was well-known as the “novelist of the City” of London. Too Much Alone (1860), her first narrative foray into the world of commerce and finance, is both a business novel and a novel of adultery. Focusing on how the text configures the emotional regimes of capitalism, this essay examines Riddell’s representation of irregular desires and capricious feelings in relation to what she sees as endemic in commercial society: not fraud, but insecurity and uncertainty, whether “glorious” or dreary. The experience of uncertainty, I argue, provides the point of intersection between the two narrative strands of business and adultery. Explicitly addressed to business people, the novel offers a lesson in sentimental education, a type of training in the ability to tolerate the uncertain, repackaged as an intense emotional experience.


Author(s):  
Confidence Gbolo Sanka ◽  
Charity Azumi Issaka ◽  
Portia Siaw

The aim of this paper is to examine the correlation between the Orpheus Myth and Atogun’s novel Taduno’s song through the lense of mythopoetics. It also aims at analysing the manner in which the eponymous hero fights against political corruption in particular in Nigeria. The study is important because it enables us discover the ways in which Atogun adapts the Orpheus myth and marries it to his own strategy of fighting corruption so as to address the contemporary political situation in his country, Nigeria. The primary data for this paper is the novel Taduno’s song and the Orpheus myth. Secondary data in the form of works and papers on myth and mythmaking as well as on political corruption have been reviewed and used to support arguments in this paper. A close reading method has been used to analyse words, expressions, situations and contexts in the primary sources in terms of themes and style. The secondary sources have mainly been used to adduce evidence in support of arguments in the paper. The study establishes that Atogun adapts the Greek myth to the Nigerian situation in order to bring the contemporary political situation of his country to the fore. This is because the Orpheus myth encapsulates universal themes that allow it to be adapted to the present century. The study also concludes that evidence from the narrative indicates that in addition to stronger institutions, Africa also needs stronger, morally principled, courageous and selfless citizens who can rise against political corruption anywhere it rears its ugly head in the continent.


Author(s):  
Molly Hoff

This first chapter provides a close reading and synopsis of the exposition of Mrs. Dalloway and breaks down individual lines of the novel in order to produce a discussion of imagery, narrative style, and context. It details significant conventions that run throughout the novel, and refers to the use of Alexandrian poetry and Greek myth to reflect on Woolf’s choice of motif, language, and metaphor.


2020 ◽  
pp. 7-22
Author(s):  
Shaima Muzher Abid Alreda Alsaedi

Dystopian literature is important in old and modern literature. It depicts a world in which everything is imperfect, chaotic and distorted. It shows a nightmarish image yet it is true in some afflicted communities. It mainly deals with war, oppression and disastrous situations. Almost all the characteristics of dystopian literature are real in Ahmed Saadawi’s novel Frankenstein in Baghdad. These characteristics are real and tangible in the place where the events of the novel occurred. These characteristics are manifested in people’s fear from the government, the American troops and terrorism attacks. Also the unstable life that they are forced to adapt.  In addition, the lack of freedom and independence create a huge gap between citizens and the government. Baghdad was devastated by many oppressive factors like: American annoying troops, terrorists’ explosions attacks, incompetent government highly officials, and militias’ sectarian attacks. The only imaginative tool of dystopia that Saadawi use is the creation of Whatsitsname.  Saadawi tries to drag his readers’ attention to a magical-realistic world. All the other incidents are real and present in everyday life in Baghdad in 2005; like the unsafe capital, the disintegration of family members, the separated limps of victims. Saadawi virtually described the dark era in Baghdad at that time. The bloodshed, the torture and massive killing was overwhelming the city.  Dystopian fiction links elements of truth that is specific to the time in which it is written in with science or imaginary elements that represent the terrifying direction we are winding to. Frankenstein in Baghdad converses this classic formula: the dystopian fundamentals of the novel are not engrained in its hypothetical and mythical elements but rather in the very real, frightening violence that Baghdad witnessed in 2005.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-145
Author(s):  
İsmail Güllü

Yarım aşırı aşan bir geçmişe sahip Almanya’ya göç olgusu beraberinde önemli bir edebi birikimi (Migrantenliteratur) de getirmiştir. Farklı adlandırmalar ile anılan bu edebi birikim, kendi içinde de farklı renkleri de barındıran bir özelliğe sahiptir. Edebi yazını besleyen en önemli kaynaklardan biri toplumdur. Yazarın içinde yaşadığı toplumsal yapı ve problemler üstü kapalı veya açık bir şekilde onun yazılarına yansımaktadır. Bu bağlamda araştırma, 50’li yaşlarında Almanya’ya giden ve ömrünün sonuna kadar orada yaşayan, birçok edebi ve düşünsel çalışması ile Türk edebiyatında önemli bir isim olan Fakir Baykurt’un “Koca Ren” ve Yüksek Fırınlar” adlı romanları ile birlikte Duisburg Üçlemesi’nin son kitabı olan “Yarım Ekmek” romanında ele aldığı konu ve roman kahramanları üzerinden din ve gelenek olgusu sosyolojik bir yaklaşımla ele alınmaktadır. Toplumcu-gerçekçi çizgide yer alan yazarın, uzun yıllar yaşadığı Türkiye’deki siyasi ve ideolojik geçmişi bu romanda kullandığı dil ve kurguladığı kahramanlarda kendini göstermektedir. Romanda Almanya’nın Duisburg şehrinde yaşayan Türklerin yeni kültürel ortamda yaşadıkları çatışma, kültürel şok, arada kalmışlık, iki kültürlülük temaları ön plandadır. Yazar romanda sadece Almanya’daki Türkleri ele almamakta, aynı zamanda Türkiye ile hatta başka ülkeler ile de ilişkilendirmeler yaparak bireysel ve toplumsal konuları ele almaktadır. Araştırmada, romanda yer alan dini ve geleneksel unsurlar sosyolojik olarak analiz edilmiştir. Genel anlamda bir göç romanı olma özelliği yanında Yarım Ekmek romanında dini, siyasi ve ideolojik birçok yorum ve tartışma söz konusudur. Romandaki bu veriler, inanç, ritüel, siyaset ve toplumsal boyutlarda kategorize edilerek ele alınmıştır.  ENGLISH ABSTRACTReligion and identity reflections in literature of immigrant: Religion and Tradition in Fakir Baykurt’s novel Yarım EkmekThe immigration fact which has nearly half century in Germany have brought a significant literal accumulation (Migrantenliteratur) in its wake. This literal accumulation, which is named as several denominations, has a feature including different colours in itself. One of the most important source snourishing literature is society. Societal structure and problems that the writer lives inside, directly or indirectly reflect on his/her compositions. In this context, the matter of religion and tradition by way of the issue and fictious characters in the novel of Fakir Baykurt who went to Germany in her 50’s and lived in there till his death and who is a considerable name in Turkish literature with his several literal and intellectual workings; “Yarım Ekmek” which is the third novel of Duisburg Trilogy with “Koca Ren” and “Yüksek Fırınlar” are discussed sociologically in the study. The political and ideological past of the socialist realist lined writer in Turkey where he spent his life for a long time, manifest itself on the speech and fictious characters of novel. In the novel, themes of new Turks’ conflict, cultural shock, being in the middle, bi culturalism in their new cultural nature in Duisburg which is the city they live in. The writer not only deals with Turks in Germany but also personal and social subjects via comparing them to Turkey and even other countries. In the study, religious and traditional elements analyzed sociologically. Besides the speciality of being a migration novel in general, there are a lot of religious, political and ideological interpretations and discussions in the novel. These datum in the novel are examinated in the context of belief, ritual, politics and social categorisation. 


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