Virginia Woolf is recognized as one of the great innovater of modern fiction. Her experiments with point of view have influenced many writers that follow there. But one particullary interesting tecnique, that doesn't seem to receive much attention is her use of moment of being. To wondewhy some moments are so powerful and memorable - even if the events themselves are unimportant - that they can be vividly so, why other events are easily forgotten. She concludes that there are two kinds of experiences;moments of being, moments of non being.

Woolf never defines what she means by moments of being. Instead she provides example of these moments and contrast them with moments of what she calls "non being".

 Moments of non being appera to be moments that the individual is not consciously aware of even as she experiences them.

She notes that people perform routines such as walking and shopping without thinking about them. This part of the life is "Not lived counsciously" but instead is embeded in "A kind of non descript cotton wool".It is not the nature of the actions that separaes moments of being frim moments of non being.

One activity is not intrinsically more modane or more extraordinary tha the other. Instead, it is the intensity of feelig, one's counsciousness of exeperience, that separates the two moments.

A walk in the country can easily be hidden behind the cotton wool for one person, but for Woolf the experience is very vivid.

Virginia Woolf assert that this moment of being, this flashes of awarness, reveal a pattern hiddenbehind the cotton wool of daily life, and we. "I mean all human beings are connected with tihs; that the world is a work of art, that we are parts of the world of art". But the idividual artist is not important in this work. Instead she says of all people"We are the world; we are thw music; we are the thing itself". Thus for Woolf a moment of being is a moment when an individual is fully counscious of his exeprience, a moment when he is not only aware of himself but catches a glimpse of his conncetion to a larger part hidden behind the opaque surface of daily life. Unlike moments of non being, when the individual lives and acts without awarness, performing acts as he as sleep, the moment of being opens up a hidden reality. Moments of being can be found trought out Woolf's fiction:Mrs Dallaway, To The Lghthouse, Between The Acts. Unlike Joyce's epiphany, these moments do not lead to decisives revelations for her characters, but they provide moments of enercgy and awarness.

That allowed the character who experiences them to see life more clearly and more fully, if only briefly. And some characters try to share the vision that they glimps, making the work of art that is life visible to others.

Mrs Dalloway presents the two characters who are most receptive to moments of being in all of Woolf's ficiton:Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Warren Smith. Clarissa experiences her moments of being while in the middle of what apper to be trivial acts, indicating that it is ot the action, but awarness that sets  a moment of being a part from other exeperiences. Throught out the day Clarissa is particullary  aware of these freds of connections between herself and her surrandes. All of Woolf's moments of being are marked by particullary and powerfull language. Because these are moments of exact feelings. The language used to convey them must naturally be precise and evocative;the form and content must be in perfect simmetry. It is true that in a novel long stratches of narrative can be cloaked in mundane language. Not every scene is equal values or musr carry an equal weight. But in her moments of bing Woolf's uses a language that process poetry.

Epiphany is refeare to a narrative technique infiction mainly used by James Joyce, according to whichevery one has sudden flashes of perception and inside.

Epiphany is twelfthnight that is the sixth of January, when Christ was visited by the three wiseman, andhis divinity was revealed to the world.

Epiphany derives from a greek word "epifàneia", it means to manifest. In Pre-Christian tima it was used to record appearence of Gods and goddesses. Traditionally the word has capt thus specific religion association, but in our century it has been secularized to refear to other non divine forms of revelation.Joyce was interested in sudden drammatic and startlling moments which seem to have heightened significant and to be sourrended with a kind of magical aura.