Jane Marcus, the leading feminist critic in recent prolific Woolf studies provacatively presents Virginia Woolf as a radical political writer, by focusing not upon the formal experiments of proper modernist texts but upon the socio-political contents of the rather conventional realist novels such as Night and Day and The Years. My aim here is to examine her New Historicism-oriented feminist attempt at revaluating Night and Day, in terms of a privileged mother figure; it will also lead to reconsideration of the complex relationship between the representation of motherhood and feminism. Jane Marcus interprets this novel as representative of Woolf's socialist feminism. Its subversion of a male-centered social system on a symbolic level is substantially attributed to the inversion of the thematic structure of Mozart's patriarchal, anti-feminist opera, The Magic Flute with the negative image of maternity. It is by virtue of the positive, privileged figuration of motherhood that a collective reform project is allegedly achieved, overcoming the socially demarcated boundaries of class as well as gender. The comic ending such maternal power brings forth on the narrative, however, is in fact revealed to exclude a radical feminist Mary Datchet from the renewed or transformed society ; the covert presence of Mrs. Hilbery lies at the bottom of this repressive, ideological operation. Moreover, the inverted structure of comedy, which could be rewritten in terms of Northrop Frye' s conception of romantic comedy, I urge, should be further historicized, thereby leading to the socio-political interpretation of class differences, not gender differences. Therefore, Jane Marcus' analysis granting gender a theoretically privileged status is not capable of revaluating Night and Day as an effective discursive practice of socialist feminism. The feminist criticism, which simply identifies a mother figure with femininity, should be also reconsidered.

抄録全体を表示

As in Ulysses, the "one day" in Between the Acts does not supply us with the "order" or the "myth" that can control the unstable and inscrutable reality around us, but rather tantalizingly makes fun of us who are always tormented by lack of such fundamental support in our daliy life. In however a dubious way, we cannot but search for the definite meaning of our life or the origin of our being, and in doing so, are swallowed up against our will in a sort of bottomless swamp, aptly symbolized by the uncanny lily pond of Pointz Hall. Of course, many trials are made to avoid this "swamp". For example, nonsensical word plays, including fragmental quotations from Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes, are abundant in the work, and parodies or pastiches which mock the authority of the "originals" are adroitly incorporated in the words of main characters, but all in vain. The monstrous and mysterious "swamp" always triumphs over our efforts. Thus, ironically enough, the audacious attempt by Miss La Trobe to break through this predicament sometimes even aggravates the situation. However, her attempt somehow succeeds in digging up the "emptiness" buried deep in the "hollow" of Pointz Hall. This "emptiness" unexpectedly vivifies her powerless parodies and even seems to present us with an utterly new view of the "history", the "past", and the "tradition". But if we ask about the nature of this new "history", or if we try to inquire into the essence of this hidden "past", the answer we get turns maliciously "empty".

抄録全体を表示

Virginia Woolf and Impressionism has been a frequent matter of discussion in her early experimental short stories and in her novel, Jacob's Room. On the other hand, Night and Day, the novel which preceded it, has long been regarded as a work in a traditional style. The critical gap between Night and Day and Jacob's Room, should be bridged. Woolf s experiences in Impressionism go back to her younger days at Hyde Park Gate. Two young Whistlerians, Charles Furse and Arthur Studd, were regular visitors at the house. Her sister Vanessa, too, showed a strong interest in Whistler, and was deeply affected by his style when she was an art student of the Royal Academy. She is the model of Katharine Hilbery, the heroine of Night and Day. The book was dedicated to Vanessa, as well. Whistler was the leader of the English Impressionists and promoted the art-for-art's sake movement. He was the most influential painter in London at that time. Mr. Pauncefore in To the Lighthouse is identical to him. Whistler's concept of "pure painting" was an attempt to approach the state of music, which has much in common with Woolf s steady experiments to fuse these sister arts: music, painting and literature. Some of Whistler's important works, namely, his series of "Nocturnes", influenced Woolf's Night and Day. Its melancholy tone, fin-de-siecle atmosphere, and descriptions correspond to Whistler's techniques and aims.

抄録全体を表示

Why did Clarissa Dalloway call Septimus' soul a poet's passion, when she heard of his suicide and solved the meaning of his death? Among the main characters in this work there is an opposition between the members of the governing class and the outsiders to the governing class. The members of the governing class are not in the habit of reading poems, which shows their inclination of excluding persons with strong passions out of their circle or of correcting them. The outsiders write poems or have the habit of reading them, which symbolizes their way of living in accordance with their own feeling. As a poet Septimus is opposed to Sir William Bradshow, a psychoanalyst as well as a representative of the governing class, who has no habit of reading. Clarissa is also divided into two selves like these social classes and corresponds to this pattern of the opposition of the classes as to poems. One is her present self who enjoys her governing class life, which she got by marrying Richard, and the other is the self hidden under her present every day life who demands strong passions and is dissatisfied with the present self. This hidden self was displayed most strongly about thirty years ago at Bourton when she used to express her strong feelings in the language of Shakespeare's poems. Her self as a poet, hidden under the present governing class life, sympathizes with the agony of Septimus who is suffering under the control of the governing class. Virginia Woolf regards a poet as a person who lives in accordance with his own feeling and criticizes the unnatural social system ruled by the governing class.

抄録全体を表示