The Notion of the Subject in Virginia Woolf's Short Fiction

Abstract

Virginia Woolf’s aspirations in fiction display a modernist attitude towards art and life that results in a unique narrative technique and characterization. From the convergence of what she regards valuable in traditional narrative methods and in contemporary impressionist fiction she created her own, unique way of depicting reality and human beings. As Douglas Mao suggested, “Woolf’s emphases and sympathies show clearly how, under modernism, experience seemed to came into its value not as it transpired, but rather as it was recorded and fixed in the work of art” (Mao 36). Art, which is a solid form, is the means of capturing life; in Woolf’s work explanation is always created as a completing framework around sheer experiences. Moreover, the strong suggestive power of Woolf’s fiction derives from her desire “that fiction become poetry, no longer representing but rather presenting or constructing reality,” which is apparent in a way the main idea she whishes to convey in a piece of work is always positioned onto the visual level (Minow-Pinkney 3).