“Feminism and Female Identity in the Novels of Virginia Woolf”

Abstract

As a novelist, essayist and feminist thinker, Virginia Woolf plays a prominent role in modern English literature. Her novels deal with the inner psychological conflicts, the social restrictions, the quest for women to achieve a sense of self-reliance and autonomy in a male dominated society. In the present study, “Feminism and Female Identity in the Novels of Virginia Woolf,” the condition of women is explored in the major novels of Virginia Woolf like Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando and The Waves. Woolf's feminism does not take the form of overt political agitation; instead it is revealed in the faintest of hints, in the expression of women's consciousness, women's silence, women's emotional turmoil, women's creativity, resistance against male dominated structures. Clarissa Dalloway's respectability and her private solitude expose the covert subjugation of a respectable woman. In to the Lighthouse, Mrs Ramsay is more representative of the traditional domestic femininity, while Lily Briscoe is a more representative of the modern female creativity. Orlando defies the notion of gender roles and introduces the idea of identity as socially constructed and malleable. In The Waves, the characters' voices and consciousnesses shift, revealing the complexity of female identity. The interior monologue and stream of consciousness in Woolf's writing bring women into the literary world with their thoughts, memories and emotions. The research reveals that Woolf's fiction depicts the identity of women as multifaceted, fluid and close to freedom, creativity, memory and self realization. Her novel questioning the patriarchy and asserting women's right to voice, space and individuality is still very relevant.