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Dialogues@RU is published
annually
by the
Writing Program at
Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey
Volume Three
Spring 2004
Finding “Being” through “Non-Being" - Page 4
by
Rachelle Wander
Ultimately, Virginia Woolf’s Moment of Being demonstrates a unique method to identity formation. Instead of simply retelling her past and past experiences, she goes beyond the conventional style of autobiography by establishing a position on how to find personal meaning to her own existence, and then following through with her ideas. Because of Woolf’s unique style, her writing, specifically autobiography, became a form of art to grasp her self-perception. Just as a painter uses the brush stroke to form his expression; a sculpture his hands; a photographer his lens, Woolf uses words to establish her own substance. She connects moments of “being” with “non-being” like an architect connects the lines of walls on a building. She searches for patterns in her life like a painter forms color patterns in his painting. Perhaps, Woolf has found the best method for identity interpretation. As literary critic, Jean-Paul Sartre believes,
One does not paint meaning; one does not put them to music; on the other hand, the writer deals with meaning . . . the writer can guide you and, if he describes a hovel, make it seem the symbol of social injustice and provoke your indignation. The painter is mute. He presents you with a hovel, that is all. The only true art form is writing. (27-28)
Words can express the absolute emotion, opinion, appearance, understanding, and knowledge to a specific point. Words are a particularly communicative form of art that can so be styled as to eliminate excess malleability by any observer. And so, the autobiography becomes the key element in elucidating identity. This writing is an art because it possesses forms from which to chose and create. Technique illustrates the soul. The arrangement of words on a page becomes just as important as lines forming figures in a painting. It is important to understand that it is not necessarily what the words mean, but how they are placed in context to its neighboring words and expressions. Because style and content can be critiqued, the elegance of syntax becomes the goal for the writer. Words become the paint and style becomes the picture. Woolf’s sense of syntax and style create her individual and unique self to the world. She writes free of space, time, and approval to describe her identity.
Works Cited
Albright, Daniel. “Virginia Woolf as an Autobiographer.” Kenyon Review. 6.4 (1984). 1-17.
Felski, Rita. “On Confession.” Autobiography and Postmodernism. Eds. Kathleen Ashley, Leigh Gilmore, and Gerald Peters. Amherst: University of Massachussetts Press, 1994.
Friedman, Susan Stanford. “Women’s Autobiographical Selves: Theory and Practice.” The Private Self: Theory and Practice of Women’s Autobiographical Writings.Ed. Shari Benstock. Chapel Hill: Univ.of North Carolina Press. 1998.
Gindin, James. “Lots of Cotton Wool.” Studies in the Novel. 9.3 (1977): 312-325.
Little, Judy. The Experimental Self: Dialogic Subjectivity in Woolf, Pym, and Brooke-Rose . Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. “What is Writing?” What is Literature and Other Essays. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988.
Wexler, Joyce. “The Uncommon Language of Modernist Women Writers.” Women’s Studies 25.6 (Nov. 1996). 571 – 584.
Woolf , Virginia . Moments of Being . Ed. Jeanne Schulkind. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, 1985.
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