The extract is taken from Virginia Woolf's critical essay The Common Reader, published in 1925. Here the reader can single out the idea of life and of writing Virginia Woolf is committed to express in her fiction. Furthermore, she criticizes technically the traditional way novels are written as they don't communicate anymore the real sense of life.
The text is made of four sequences. In the first one Virginia Woolf outlines the crisis that the traditional novel is undergoing as now it seems that the old style is no more suitable for writing. Yet, writers still go on with the traditional way . In the second sequence the writer deals with the constraints that novelist have to face while they're writing. Therefore, they are deeply conditioned by the constrictions and they don't own their work anymore. The third sequence is linked to how the sense of life can be exposed and shown in its huge variety. Only by writing in a free way, detached from the limitations of the traditional novel and able to communicate the core of the existence. Finally, in the last sequence Virginia Woolf outlines that only by being original and not influenced by the traditional style writing can be made.
The language used is specific and direct. Also, Virginia Woolf uses similes to convey her message and make the reader interested.