Evidence of a Female Narrative? Viriginia Woolf vs James Joyce

Virginia Woolf once insisted that when women became the interpreters of life, not only would the subject matter and point of view of literature change, the very sentence structure of literature would change.

Woolf believed women processed information differently and expressed themselves differently. Woolf insisted that women, given the freedom to write as they think and speak, would give rise to a new narrative form: a female narrative.

At the time that Woolf proposed this idea; Victorian society was clearly defined by two spheres, the masculine sphere which involved politics and commerce, and the feminine sphere of the home and family. Gender roles and experience were strictly segregated, which lends credibility to Woolf’s argument, and we certainly see evidence of this emerging ‘voice’ when we compare the works of Virginia Woolf with another contemporary, James Joyce.

James Joyce, like Woolf, utilized a method known as stream of consciousness, a narrative method that allows the free flow of thoughts, sensations, and associations at multiple levels of awareness. Stream of consciousness focuses on the inner reality of characters rather than external events. By exposing the psychological realm of a character, modernist writers were able to address perception. This was the perfect vehicle for Woolf’s ‘female narrative’.

Comparing a passage from Mrs. Dalloway by Woolf and The Dead by Joyce, we can see how each writer utilizes stream of consciousness in a unique way, despite the very similar circumstances.

In Mrs. Dalloway, Clarissa is unsettled by the visit of her friend Peter Walsh:

What an extraordinary habit that was, Clarissa thought; always playing with a knife. Always making one feel, too, frivolous; empty-minded; a mere silly chatterbox, as he used. But I too, she thought, and, taking up her needle, summoned, like a Queen whose guards have fallen sleep and left her unprotected (she had been quite taken aback by this visit—it had upset her) so that any one can stroll in and have a look at her where she lies with the brambles curving over her, summoned to help her the things she did; the things she liked. (Woolf 44)

In The Dead, Gabriel is unsettled by a comment from his friend Miss Ivors:

He did not know how to meet her charge. He wanted to say literature was above politics. But they were friends of many years’ standing and their careers had been parallel, first at the University and then as teachers: he could not risk a grandiose phrase with her. He continued blinking his eyes and trying to smile and murmured lamely that he saw nothing political in writing reviews of books. (Joyce 31)

How are they different? First let’s look at the use of punctuation. Woolf uses punctuation to create a “spiraling” effect in her stream of consciousness, while Joyce uses punctuation to splice linear thoughts together.

In Mrs. Dalloway, the narration seems to begin with an external trigger (Peter and his knife) and move deeper and deeper into Clarissa’s internal world. Note how the first line is an opinion of Peter’s physical behavior, while the second line is Clarissa’s interpretation of Peter’s implied behavior. The third line metaphorically describes Clarissa’s response to Peter’s implied behavior (broken momentarily by a glimpse of HER physical behavior) followed by an explicate description of her emotional response. It is interesting to note that the core emotion is off set in parenthesis. This is the core of the paragraph. Structurally Woolf uses commas and parenthesis to shift perspectives and spiral down into the well-guarded emotion of Mrs. Dalloway, and then begins the process of backing out and focusing on the external world again.

In The Dead, Joyce uses commas in a much more traditional way: splicing and creating compound sentences. In the passage above, Gabriel is perplexed by a disparaging comment of a close friend, Miss Ivors. It is another situation where the external behavior upsets the protagonist. However, Gabriel’s response is more intellectual than emotional. He does not feel abandoned or “unguarded” as Clarissa does, but sees her comment as a head on challenge to his authority. Gabriel considers how he will “meet her charge.” Joyce does not take us deeper into Gabriel’s emotional core, but deeper into his intellectual core. Gabriel considers his response, considers the value of their relationship, and the impact of his response on that relationship. In the final sentence Gabriel acts, manifesting the response he finds logically appropriate.

Using metaphor to express the internal emotional experience and using grammar in a way that draws the reader further away from the external, into this introspective realm of women, Woolf succeeded in creating a new narrative perspective—one in Victorian England could indeed be termed ‘feminine.’

With the diffusing of these segregated roles, however, is the pursuit of a ‘feminine narrative’ still a valid concern? I’ll let you think about that until my next post.