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“Woolf's novels and Kane's plays are dubbed as being manifestations of mental illness …” I’ve never heard this of Woolf but I’m now reminded of repeated descri

“Woolf's novels and Kane's plays are dubbed as being manifestations of mental illness …” I’ve never heard this of Woolf but I’m now reminded of repeated descriptions of death by drowning. My favorite example is in Jacob’s Room; a scene of some people at a party is interrupted suddenly with a description of men drowning in a World War I naval battle before returning to the scene. To The Lighthouse has similar fragments and stories. These are two of my favorite novels. If I accidentally notice she did go on to drown herself, am I doing a sexism? Reading contemporary English press is so tiresome. “Remember how you noticed a thing while reading Virginia Woolf novels? You may be a misogynist!”

lovemenot 5y ago
Your personal feelings to art are just that. Yours. Especially something as sensitive as poetry or Woolfe's novels. On the other hand, this article is about society's collective understanding of an artist or a class of artists (female). It raises valid questions, which are orthogonal to yours or my reading of their art.
- thatjoeoverthr 5y ago
  The author claims that society collectively feels something, that Woolf is defined by her death - based on what? - her gut feel that unspecified others feel in some way. Who? Maybe she has encountered it. I haven’t. She offers nothing to back up the claim, so I am happy to dismiss it with equal carelessness, because the claim is used to jump to the next claim, sexism, which is effectively an accusation of malice. It’s not malice if I noticed something noticeable.
elliekelly 5y ago
> am I doing a sexism? Is it necessary to be so dismissive of a serious topic?
- at_a_remove 5y ago
  Good question. Yes, sometimes it is necessary, if that topic is relentlessly pounded into you as the parent commenter suggests. Hearing about something again and again is tiresome. Some people can and will grow irritated with that. And so they push back. Being mildly dismissive is probably the least you could hope for in that circumstance.
  - quesera 5y ago
    I disagree. It sounds more to me like "I haven't thought about this much, but I caught a wind of someone who might be casting judgement upon me or people like me (those of us who haven't thought about it much). I do not like this, and rather than thinking about it, I'm going to mock the idea." ... which is all too common. IMO, legit questions: - Is Sylvia Plath defined by her death? Or just by the tragedy she wrote about, and lived? - Is she thought of differently due to her sex, or to the very dramatic way (and circumstances under which) she took her life? I lean toward this not being sexist as much as circumstantial. There's something about "killed self with gas in sealed room next to sleeping children" that strikes people as more tragic than "killed self with shotgun alone in mansion" -- i.e. the first sounds more like protracted desperation, and the second might be an act of brief despair. Of course the truth (such as we know it) is more complicated than that, but complication doesn't survive contact with general awareness.
    - at_a_remove 5y ago
      Well, rather than "sounds like" you could always ask the parent commenter if they are being dismissive because they are worn out of the topic. Why not do so? I used to hang in some very lefty circles and nothing makes me mentally check out of a conversation now more than those sorts of angles, because everything we talked about just ... went that direction.
      - lovemenot 5y ago
        They actually said "sounds more like to me". Two unmentioned qualifiers.
    - 5y ago
- apercu 5y ago
  I don't know that they meant that flippantly. But at the same time I am glad you said something because if we objectively look at the world there IS rampant sexism and there IS rampant racism and we DO need to call it out.
  - quesera 5y ago
    "Am I doing a sexism?" is dismissive, or at least sounds so. "Am I being sexist?" would be neutral. It's unfortunate that the meta-discussion is necessary, because it's way less interesting than "Is Plath's tragedy viewed differently due to her sex?".
    - apercu 5y ago
      It does sound dismissive (and flippant). lol
jbullock35 5y ago
> [...] repeated descriptions of death by drowning. My favorite example is in Jacob’s Room; a scene of some people at a party is interrupted suddenly with a description of men drowning in a World War I naval battle before returning to the scene. To The Lighthouse has similar fragments and stories. I don't recall anything similar in To the Lighthouse. What have I forgotten?
- thatjoeoverthr 5y ago
  like this struck me. “poor man! who had no wife, and no children and dined alone in lodgings except for tonight; and in pity for him, life being now strong enough to bear her on again, she began all this business, as a sailor not without weariness sees the wind fill his sail and yet hardly wants to be off again and thinks how, had the ship sunk, he would have whirled round and round and found rest on the floor of the sea.” It’s just a little metaphor but it’s drowning again, specifically a feeling in a common situation (they are at dinner) is likened to a sailor feeling as though he’d prefer to have drowned. Or “he relished the thought of the storm and the dark night and the fishermen striving there. He liked that men should labour and sweat on the windy beach at night; pitting muscle and brain against the waves and the wind; he liked men to work like that, and women to keep house, and sit beside sleeping children indoors, while men were drowned, out there in a storm.” I feel like there’s another passage I’m forgetting. Really though the author only needs to use the imagery of drowning a few times before it looks like a tic. It can be that she is English. They’re so very nautical!
  - jbullock35 5y ago
    Thank you —- these are good examples.

lovemenot 5y ago

Your personal feelings to art are just that. Yours. Especially something as sensitive as poetry or Woolfe's novels. On the other hand, this article is about society's collective understanding of an artist or a class of artists (female). It raises valid questions, which are orthogonal to yours or my reading of their art.

thatjoeoverthr 5y ago
The author claims that society collectively feels something, that Woolf is defined by her death - based on what? - her gut feel that unspecified others feel in some way. Who? Maybe she has encountered it. I haven’t. She offers nothing to back up the claim, so I am happy to dismiss it with equal carelessness, because the claim is used to jump to the next claim, sexism, which is effectively an accusation of malice. It’s not malice if I noticed something noticeable.

elliekelly 5y ago

> am I doing a sexism? Is it necessary to be so dismissive of a serious topic?

at_a_remove 5y ago
Good question. Yes, sometimes it is necessary, if that topic is relentlessly pounded into you as the parent commenter suggests. Hearing about something again and again is tiresome. Some people can and will grow irritated with that. And so they push back. Being mildly dismissive is probably the least you could hope for in that circumstance.
- quesera 5y ago
  I disagree. It sounds more to me like "I haven't thought about this much, but I caught a wind of someone who might be casting judgement upon me or people like me (those of us who haven't thought about it much). I do not like this, and rather than thinking about it, I'm going to mock the idea." ... which is all too common. IMO, legit questions: - Is Sylvia Plath defined by her death? Or just by the tragedy she wrote about, and lived? - Is she thought of differently due to her sex, or to the very dramatic way (and circumstances under which) she took her life? I lean toward this not being sexist as much as circumstantial. There's something about "killed self with gas in sealed room next to sleeping children" that strikes people as more tragic than "killed self with shotgun alone in mansion" -- i.e. the first sounds more like protracted desperation, and the second might be an act of brief despair. Of course the truth (such as we know it) is more complicated than that, but complication doesn't survive contact with general awareness.
  - at_a_remove 5y ago
    Well, rather than "sounds like" you could always ask the parent commenter if they are being dismissive because they are worn out of the topic. Why not do so? I used to hang in some very lefty circles and nothing makes me mentally check out of a conversation now more than those sorts of angles, because everything we talked about just ... went that direction.
    - lovemenot 5y ago
      They actually said "sounds more like to me". Two unmentioned qualifiers.
  - 5y ago
apercu 5y ago
I don't know that they meant that flippantly. But at the same time I am glad you said something because if we objectively look at the world there IS rampant sexism and there IS rampant racism and we DO need to call it out.
- quesera 5y ago
  "Am I doing a sexism?" is dismissive, or at least sounds so. "Am I being sexist?" would be neutral. It's unfortunate that the meta-discussion is necessary, because it's way less interesting than "Is Plath's tragedy viewed differently due to her sex?".
  - apercu 5y ago
    It does sound dismissive (and flippant). lol

jbullock35 5y ago

> [...] repeated descriptions of death by drowning. My favorite example is in Jacob’s Room; a scene of some people at a party is interrupted suddenly with a description of men drowning in a World War I naval battle before returning to the scene. To The Lighthouse has similar fragments and stories. I don't recall anything similar in To the Lighthouse. What have I forgotten?

thatjoeoverthr 5y ago
like this struck me. “poor man! who had no wife, and no children and dined alone in lodgings except for tonight; and in pity for him, life being now strong enough to bear her on again, she began all this business, as a sailor not without weariness sees the wind fill his sail and yet hardly wants to be off again and thinks how, had the ship sunk, he would have whirled round and round and found rest on the floor of the sea.” It’s just a little metaphor but it’s drowning again, specifically a feeling in a common situation (they are at dinner) is likened to a sailor feeling as though he’d prefer to have drowned. Or “he relished the thought of the storm and the dark night and the fishermen striving there. He liked that men should labour and sweat on the windy beach at night; pitting muscle and brain against the waves and the wind; he liked men to work like that, and women to keep house, and sit beside sleeping children indoors, while men were drowned, out there in a storm.” I feel like there’s another passage I’m forgetting. Really though the author only needs to use the imagery of drowning a few times before it looks like a tic. It can be that she is English. They’re so very nautical!
- jbullock35 5y ago
  Thank you —- these are good examples.