Learning Paths » 5B Interacting
notes 3-6 february
by - (2012-03-24)
Up to 5B - Modernist Fiction. V. Woolf and J. Joyce
NOTES OF 3RD AND 5TH FEBRUARY, 2012
Virginia Woolf is recognized as one of the great innovators of modern fiction, her experiments with point of view have influenced many writers that followed her. But one particularly interesting technique is her use of “MOMENTS OF BEING”
… to wonder why some moments are so powerful and memorable even if the events themselves are unimportant that they can back vividly recalled while other events are easily forgotten. She concludes that there are two kinds of experiences, moments of being and moments of nonbeing. The writer explains, even if not explicitly, what she means by moment of being. She provides examples of these moments and contrasts them with moments of what she calls “non-being”.
Moments of nonbeing appear that the individual is consciously aware of even as she experiences that. She knows that people performs routines and tasks such as walking and shopping without thinking about that. This part of life is “not lice consciously”, but instead is embedded in “a kind of nondescript cotton wool”. It is not the nature of the actions that separates moments of being from moments of nonbeing.
One activity is not intrinsically more mundane or more extraordinary than other. Instead, it is the intensity of feelings, one’s consciousness experience that separates the two moments. A walk in the country can easily be hidden behind the cotton wool from one person, but for Virginia Woolf the experience is very vivid.
Virginia Woolf asserts that these moments of being, “these flashes of awareness” reveal a pattern hidden behind the cotton wool of daily life, and that we, “I mean all human being, are connected with this; that the whole world is a work of art; that we are parts of the work of art”. Virginia Woolf says “we are the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself”. Thus for Virginia Woolf A MOMENT OF BEING IS A MOMENT WHEN AN INDIVIDUAL IS FULLY CONSCIOUS OF HIS EXPERIENCE, A MOMENT WHEN HE IS NOT ONLY AWARE OF HIMSELF BUT CATCHES GLIMPSE OF HIS CONNECTION TO A LARGE PATTERN HIDDEN BEHIND THE OPAQUE SURFACE OF DAILY LIFE. UNLIKE MOMENTS OF NONBEING, WHEN THE INDIVIDUAL LIVES AND ACTS WITHOUT AWARENESS, PERFORMING ACTS AS IF ASPLEEP, THE MOMENT OF BEING OPENS UP A HIDDEN REALITY.
Moments of being can be found in all Virginia Woolf’s fictions.
Examples from her novel Mrs Dalloway are to be found especially in the two main characters that are most receptive to moments of being: Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Warren Smith. Clarissa experiences a moment of being while she is in the middle of what appear to be trivial acts, indicating that it is not the actions, but her awareness that sets a moment of being apart from her other experiences.
For example, as Clarissa watches taxicab pass by, she finds them “absolutely absorbing”. Her thoughts reveal that “what she loved was this, here, in front of her, the fat lady in the cab…”
Throughout the day Clarissa is particularly aware of these threads of connection between herself and her surroundings.
Moments of being are immediate, they often do not allow a character to reflect or assign meaning to them.
The moments of being are marked by particularly vivid and powerful language.
Because these are moments of exact feeling, the language used to convey them must naturally be precise and evocative; the form and content must be in perfect symmetry. In her moments of being Virginia Woolf uses a language that approaches poetry
Virginia Woolf is recognized as one of the great innovators of modern fiction, her experiments with point of view have influenced many writers that followed her. But one particularly interesting technique is her use of “MOMENTS OF BEING”
… to wonder why some moments are so powerful and memorable even if the events themselves are unimportant that they can back vividly recalled while other events are easily forgotten. She concludes that there are two kinds of experiences, moments of being and moments of nonbeing. The writer explains, even if not explicitly, what she means by moment of being. She provides examples of these moments and contrasts them with moments of what she calls “non-being”.
Moments of nonbeing appear that the individual is consciously aware of even as she experiences that. She knows that people performs routines and tasks such as walking and shopping without thinking about that. This part of life is “not lice consciously”, but instead is embedded in “a kind of nondescript cotton wool”. It is not the nature of the actions that separates moments of being from moments of nonbeing.
One activity is not intrinsically more mundane or more extraordinary than other. Instead, it is the intensity of feelings, one’s consciousness experience that separates the two moments. A walk in the country can easily be hidden behind the cotton wool from one person, but for Virginia Woolf the experience is very vivid.
Virginia Woolf asserts that these moments of being, “these flashes of awareness” reveal a pattern hidden behind the cotton wool of daily life, and that we, “I mean all human being, are connected with this; that the whole world is a work of art; that we are parts of the work of art”. Virginia Woolf says “we are the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself”. Thus for Virginia Woolf A MOMENT OF BEING IS A MOMENT WHEN AN INDIVIDUAL IS FULLY CONSCIOUS OF HIS EXPERIENCE, A MOMENT WHEN HE IS NOT ONLY AWARE OF HIMSELF BUT CATCHES GLIMPSE OF HIS CONNECTION TO A LARGE PATTERN HIDDEN BEHIND THE OPAQUE SURFACE OF DAILY LIFE. UNLIKE MOMENTS OF NONBEING, WHEN THE INDIVIDUAL LIVES AND ACTS WITHOUT AWARENESS, PERFORMING ACTS AS IF ASPLEEP, THE MOMENT OF BEING OPENS UP A HIDDEN REALITY.
Moments of being can be found in all Virginia Woolf’s fictions.
Examples from her novel Mrs Dalloway are to be found especially in the two main characters that are most receptive to moments of being: Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Warren Smith. Clarissa experiences a moment of being while she is in the middle of what appear to be trivial acts, indicating that it is not the actions, but her awareness that sets a moment of being apart from her other experiences.
For example, as Clarissa watches taxicab pass by, she finds them “absolutely absorbing”. Her thoughts reveal that “what she loved was this, here, in front of her, the fat lady in the cab…”
Throughout the day Clarissa is particularly aware of these threads of connection between herself and her surroundings.
Moments of being are immediate, they often do not allow a character to reflect or assign meaning to them.
The moments of being are marked by particularly vivid and powerful language.
Because these are moments of exact feeling, the language used to convey them must naturally be precise and evocative; the form and content must be in perfect symmetry. In her moments of being Virginia Woolf uses a language that approaches poetry