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She experienced many traumas, including the death of her mother at age 13 and sexual abuse by her stepbrother at the age of 12. However Woolf was able to find temporary escape from her illness by using the characters in her novels to express her unusual and often disturbing thoughts and feelings about herself and the world around her. She was known for using several characters in each of her novels to express the different aspects of herself. In her novel To the Lighthouse she used the character Lily to express the anxiety she faced in trying to impress her father, however in her novel Mrs. Dalloway she used the character Clarissa to express her views on suicide where as in the same novel she used Septimus to express the pain she has had to endure from being mentally ill. To the Lighthouse was Virginia Woolf’s second novel in which she was noted for having expressed herself through the use of characters. Having had a very talented and renowned father Virginia was under much stress to well and make a name for herself. Even when she was just a young girl the Woolf family had already made their name, known for their artistic and intellectual talents. Mr. Woolf was a literary critic that was known for being exceptionally well educated. This kind of recognition lead to extreme pressure being placed upon the young Virginia, pressures she would feel throughout the rest of her life. And it was these pressure that lead to her feelings of inadequacy. In order to express these repressed feelings, when Virginia Woolf wrote the novel To the Lighthouse she used the character Lily. Early on in this novel, shortly after the reader is introduced to Lily, it is discovered that Lily is embarrassed for not having read a certain novel, “Lily was ashamed to admit that she had not read Carlyle since she was not at school.”(Ref, TTL p 52) This parallels the feelings of inadequacy that Virginia felt for not being as intelligent as her father was. In this novel Lily is also used to demonstrate Virginia’s childhood fear of not being respected by her father. Virginia was always eager to please him, for this way he could not look down on her. Similarly, Lily is nervous around her father, always questioning her own actions, and hoping not to disappoint him, in the novel Lily even goes as far as to express her fears to her mother and siblings, “Then the change must be so upsetting, Lily said. He comes home from his books and finds us all playing games and talking nonsense.” (Ref, TTL p51) However Lily was not only a tool for Woolf to express her doubts and fears, Lily was also a way for her to express the hardships that she had to endure as a feminist in a man’s world. Virginia Woolf was a pioneer for women authors and feminists, but there was never any glory for her, there was only hardship. Woolf had always had feelings of low self worth, and as when she grew to be a woman author the constant reminder from male authors that women could never meet the standards that male authors had set had played a significant role in Virginia’s new feelings of low self worth. In the novel To the Lighthouse Lily is a young female artist struggling through a time where women simply could not compete with men’s talents without constantly being put down. Even in the world of art there was little place for women artists. Lily is reminded by the character Mr. Townsley that women cannot do anything that they please, that women are not equal to men, and that her painting will never be respected, simply because she is a woman, “And it would never be seen; never be hung either and there was Mr. Tansley whispering in her ear –Women can’t paint, women can’t write…” (Ref TTL p 54) However To the Lighthouse was not the only book in which Woolf used charters to express herself, this style was also present in her novel Mrs. Dalloway “Mrs. Dalloway represents Woolf’s fullest self portrait as an artist.” (WOL 126) In this novel she used Clarissa, the central character, mainly to convey her feelings and thought about death and suicide. Having had a very troubled childhood, not to mention having a family history of severe mental depression Woolf floated in and out of states of suicidal depression. In order to express some of these thoughts she used Clarissa Dalloway, a woman about to through a party. Virginia viewed death as a way of expressing that that cannot be expressed by merely using words and actions. To her it was a method to escape the feelings of low self worth and self-hatred. In the novel Mrs. Dalloway Clarissa expresses her views on Septimus' death, thus reflecting Woolf’s own views on the subject, Death was defiance. Death was an attempt to communicate, people feeling the impossibility of reaching the center which mystically evaded them; closeness drew apart; rapture faded; one was alone. There was an embrace in death. But this young man who had killed himself – had he plunged holding his treasure? “If it where now to die, ‘twere now to be most happy,” she had said to herself once, coming down, in white. (MD 202) This passage may have even foreshadowed to Woolf’s own suicide in 1941, at the age of only 59. However Clarissa is not only used to express Woolf’s views on death, this characters also reveals Woolf’s fears. Woolf feared failure, for with failure comes the loss of respect that one has earned. In Woolf’s eyes she needed the approval of her father, but in Mrs. Dalloway Clarissa needed the approval of all the upper society. The party that Clarissa throws parallels to Woolfs writing. Both tasks require much time and are bound to be criticized and scrutinized. Woolf was a perfectionists if not neurotic, she criticized every novel or essay that she wrote, continually trying to improve her own writing. In the novel Clarissa is known for the parties that she throws. Clarissa is always nervous and she is always trying to improve these parties, to draw in the right crowd and to exclude those who are embarrassments. Up until the last moment Clarissa fears that her party will be a disaster, “ Oh dear, it was going to be a failure, Clarissa felt it in her bones as dear old Lord Lexham stood there apologizing for his wife who had caught cold at the buckingham Palace garden party.” (MD 183-184) At the same time Clarissa parallels Woolf on yet another level, Clarissa is as physically ill as Woolf is mentally. Woolf suffered through illness even in her old age; she was plagued by nightmares and visions, painfully going through life. Clarissa suffers the same pain, only hers is physical “Clarissa, over fifty, weakened by illness, feels painfully the passage of time and, fighting her impulse to withdraw, forces herself to grasp as much as she can of life, of sensation, of intensity.” (WOL 128) Woolf also used Septimus to express herself in the novel Mrs. Dalloway. Septimus is used to express some of Woolf’s deepest most painful thoughts and memories; Septimus represents her mental illness. “Septimus, reflecting as he does a central and traumatic part of the novelist’s own personal history.”(VW 146) Woolf was continually ill but she did experience “good” and “bad” days. When she was writing she was generally feeling better, she was proud of what she had done. Septimus was he same way, he felt pride in all that he had accomplished. Septimus helps his wife create a hat for a friend and then is over come with a sense of pride and thus a feeling of joy. “It was wonderful. Never had he done anything that made him feel so proud. It was so real, it was so substantial, Mrs. Peters’ hat… Yes, it would always make her happy to see that hat. He had become himself then, he had laughed then.” (MD 158) Septimus is also used to demonstrated the way in which Woolf was treated by others. People, even her loved ones treated her as though she was different, as though she could collapse mentally at any moment. Woolf’s husband Leonard was always trying to protect her from her surroundings. In the same way Reiza was always protecting Septimus in Mrs. Dalloway. Reiza is continually giving excuses for why the world treats Septimus as they do, “It is because you talked of killing yourself. -Reiza” (MD 161). There is also a parallelism between Septimus and Woolf on the level of suicide. Woolf continually talked of suicide and in writing Mrs. Dalloway she used Septimus to express her deepest desires. It is possible that Septimus’ suicide may have even been an indication of what was to come in Woolf’s life. Having lived in a time “…systematically incurious about its own social and personal motivation…” (VW 146) Woolf found escape in writing her novels. Her characters gave her a means in which she could describe herself without being categorized or judged for her illness. Not only has she used several novels to express herself but she has also used several characters in each of these novels to express different thoughts, emotions and experiences. In order to create a self-portrait she uses both the novels Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse to creates a setting for this portrait. With the combination of Lily (To the Lighthouse), Clarissa (Mrs. Dalloway), and Septimus (Mrs. Dalloway) Virginia Woolf has given her readers a brief glimpse into her life, yet she has managed to remain ambiguous enough not to have to deal with the criticism that many would throw upon her. Woolf has paved a path for authors who now have a way to express themselves without putting themselves on the line. Bibliography: Bibliography 1. Cuddy_Keane, Melba. “Virginia Woolf Online”. 1998. 3. Freedman, Ralph. Virginia Woolf Revaluation and Continuity. London:University of California Press,1986 4. Rose, Phyllis. Woman of Letters. London: Pandora Press,1978 5. Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. England: Penguin, 1992. 6. Woolf, Virginia. To The Lighthouse. England: Penguin, 1992. 7. “Britannica.com”. 1999-2000. Word Count: 1708
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