Communications in Humanities Research
- The Open Access Proceedings Series for Conferences
Communications in Humanities Research
Vol. 27, 03 January 2024
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The Stream-of-Consciousness in “The Mark on the Wall”
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Abstract
The chaos and destruction brought about by World War I prompted people to seek new forms of expression. In the 20th century when Woolf lived, women were greatly constrained, and they had almost no time of their own. However, this was also the period when the first wave of feminism began to emerge. By studying Woolf's work, we can see that the pioneers of modernism and feminism had completely different views and perspectives from people who hold traditional techniques. Woolf is famous for her stream-of-consciousness technique; therefore, it is necessary to examine how she uses this technique to express her thoughts in “The Mark on the Wall,” her first venture into the realm of stream-of-consciousness. This paper examines Woolf’s attenuation of narrative time and her use of a single character, “I.” In addition, I suggest that the images and personal pronouns used by Woolf also demonstrate her pursuit of freedom and her feminism. Studying Woolf's first stream-of-consciousness short story “The Mark on the Wall” is essential for understanding Woolf’s early writing as well as tracing her evolution as a writer.
Keywords
Woolf, Stream-of-Consciousness, freedom, feminism
References
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3. For the discussion on weakening of narrative time, see Qv, S.J. (1997). Stream-of- Consciousness Novelist Woolf. Shanghai: Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House; for the discussion on changing the way of depicting characters, see Huang, H. H., & Shi, M. (2021). The Spot on the Wall’ and the Character Aesthetics of Woolf’s Modernist Novels. Journal of Mudanjiang Institute of Education, no.5, p.6.
4. Kumar. S. K. (1963). Bergson and the Stream-of-consciousness Novel. New York: New York University Press.
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- Volume Title
- Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Interdisciplinary Humanities and Communication Studies
- ISBN (Print)
- 978-1-83558-257-2
- ISBN (Online)
- 978-1-83558-258-9
- Published Date
- 03 January 2024
- Series
- Communications in Humanities Research
- ISSN (Print)
- 2753-7064
- ISSN (Online)
- 2753-7072
- DOI
- 10.54254/2753-7064/27/20232148
- Copyright
- 03 January 2024
- Open Access
- This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited