Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Defining Virginia Woolf


           I was having a difficult time trying to figure out what it was about Virginia Woolf that kept drawing me in. The writing style presented in each of the essays we read is so unique and creative, that all of those authors deserve to have a spotlight shone on them, highlighting the key features that encompass their writing, defining who they are. So then, what was it that made me specifically draw out Woolf? What made me want to take the spotlight and shine it on her out of all the other authors?
              With her impeccable ability to mold the English language in a way that allowed her to make the thoughts in her head take on physical existence, she accomplished in her writing, what I thought couldn’t be done in the constraints of an essay. So when I decided to satisfy this curiosity for Woolf and dig deeper into her essays, a light came on and life—for a spilt second at least—made sense. As with all epiphanies and “Ah ha!” moments, mine is best explained with a story:
             I was never much for writing about reality.
             Whenever I’m sitting in my room and decide to pick up a pen the words that materialize on the page would never appear in a history book or a documentary. Likewise, you won’t find me in the non-fiction section of Barns and Nobles or reading the Sunday newspaper—unless, of course, there is some breaking news that my well-being would benefit from reading. 
             My world was ruled by fiction, in which case all the rules could be broken. It never occurred to me just how far away reality was in my conscious when it came to writing until one day when my dad was joking around. We had landed on the subject of golf (his favorite sport), and he was expressing how that when he got old enough for the senior golf tour and became famous, he wanted me to write his memoir. Now, imagine driving down the road and after constant conversation an awkward silence creeps into atmosphere. This is exactly what happened when I couldn’t force myself to respond—I was too busy quivering in fear. The word memoir actually frightened me!
           The thought of writing a ten page research paper, something that has to be rooted in fact, doesn’t cause me to hyperventilate—well, at least the part about it having to be factual doesn’t cause me hyperventilate. Even the thought of a future career in writing for a magazine or newspaper, in which fictional words would never appear on my computer screen doesn’t produce a reaction as the one I had when the words: you (me), write, and memoir were all formed into one coherent sentence. But then it began to make sense.
                  I root my life in fact. I function within the boundaries of a step-by-step process in which there is no room for innovation, there is no room spontaneity because everything has already been planned out. When I pick up a pen those boundaries disappear. I can create a world where there are no step-by-step processes, there are no set in stone facts, there are no rules. Academic and career writing fit nicely into my boundaries of life; they are things that are necessary but at the same time are things that I don’t personally connect myself too.  But a memoir on the other hand—especially for a close family member—is something that is meant to be personal and enlightening, not something that should be set up in the form of a structured five-paragraph paper, complete with a thesis, body and conclusion. But I felt that sense it was situated in reality, I would end up turning it into such, because when fiction was involved I had all the freedom in the world, I had control, but once reality came into the picture that freedom went away; the control went away. Fiction was my outlet to free myself from the constricting boundaries I had set up in my life and now all of a sudden, outside of an academic or career setting, I was being asked to write something that I hadn’t placed in my category of free writing, and thus I felt those boundaries surrounding me again.
               So where does Virginia Woolf come in? What’s the point of my story? The point is that when I read my first Woolf essay, “The Moment: Summer’s Night”, the essay—you know, that structured thing with a thesis, body, and conclusion—maybe didn’t have to be so structured, maybe, just maybe I had more freedom than I thought, not only with writing style but with themes and ideas as well.
That’s what kept drawing me to Woolf; the way she presented an idea was her defining feature that I found a spotlight falling upon.  They were abstract ideas—ideas that may show up in a dictionary or in an account by Plato, but in reality they are ambiguous, they are not rooted in fact and they have no set definition because their definition is created by experience and experience is different with every individual.
               Woolf took an abstract idea—a moment, the essence of life, the struggle looming over every women writer—and through her writing style and personal experience personified it. She gave it an image; she gave it a story that it didn’t have before. I wasn’t just reading an essay; I wasn't just reading words; I felt dragged into a new perceptive like one might experience with fiction, but it was real! 
               Suddenly, reality didn’t seem all that constricting anymore.

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