NEW NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES

New Narrative Techniques

New Narrative Techniques

Feminist critics see Rachel's death as Woolf's commentary on the less-than-appealing life options for young women (marriage or dependence on a male relative); it might also be a reference to Stella Duckworth's death. Clearly, those cultural norms and expectations that could be directly responsible for the actual deaths of women fed Woolf's literary treatments of death. Responses of the deceased's survivors are also varied and can range from excessive grief to, in the case of an amoral killer, complete emotional detachment. The examination of such elements in the following literary treatments of deaths should help reveal various ideological underpinnings. Literary treatments of death reveal much about one-by-one writers and the culture inside which those authors write. Some work against the grain, questioning, criticizing, urging a change in the cultural assumptions and practices that cause premature deaths or allow an unreflective acceptance of such deaths. Others magnify popular attitudes in the service of patriotism or what is generally perceived as a good cause, such as a widely desired social reform.

Certain writers seem to return obsessively to a particular kind of death, such as the death of a spouse or child, a subject that frequently turns out to be autobiographical in nature. This chapter discusses British and American literary treatments of death within the past two centuries, focusing on the five areas of death of children, death of the beloved, heroic deaths in wartime, suicide, and murder as they are represented in the genre of murder mysteries.

Within each of these subtopics, deaths occur by various means: disease, neglect, accident, intentional general action (as in war), and intentional specific action (as in murder and suicide). Virginia Woolf wrote experimental novels, essays, and political tracts that reflect on British traditions, Victorian behaviors, and the myriad changes that occurred in the modern era prior to World War I. She also wrote about her reflections on the root causes of a series of mental breakdowns that she experienced throughout her life, and linked her experience of collapse to creative output. Her first recorded episodes of mental anguish occurred around the deaths of each of her parents, although throughout her life she sought extended rest cures in nursing homes.

During the same time period that the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, was expatiating on a “talking cure,” Woolf herself wrote about the creative potential to be found after periods of bleakness. Much of her writing depicts characters experiencing their environment in oppressive ways. Characters find it necessary to creatively resolve social and artistic undertakings, from paintings, to relationships, to dinner parties, and these efforts are salves that also supply readers with reasons to live. Many of her contemporaries and acquaintances, including her husband, believed that Woolf experienced bouts of manic depression, which might today be labeled as “bipolar disorder.” Woolf herself would seemingly indicate the material causes of mental anguish. A Room of One's Own (1929) focuses on the material necessities that would enable women to make more significant contributions ...