Jacob’s Room is undoubtedly a brave literary experimentation which turned out to be a great success. This work occupies an important place in the 20th-century English speaking literature, for this novel doesn’t have plot in a traditional understanding of the concept. Virginia Woolf’s work is so packed with imagery and so immersed in the inner world of its characters, that it is absolutely impossible to stay indifferent.
What is worth noticing, it is how masterfully the author uses descriptions of landscapes and nature in general to create that uneasy atmosphere which is so corresponding to emotions of the characters. The night, when Betty Flanders receives a letter from Mr. Lloyd, is so stormy, that it is difficult not to relate her emotions and feelings to it. The strong wind which almost manages to break the door is as strong as a whirlwind of emotions in the soul of the poor widow, who has to care about three children. The novel is highly symbolic too: for instance, the skull Jacob that brings with him from the beach becomes a sinister death knell.
The protagonist of the story, Jacob Flanders, is both typical and atypical representative of the youth. Just like his peers, he is sure that the older generation doesn’t understand the world the way he does. Unlike others, he has a strong desire to learn about the world as much as possible. Jacob’s fascination with the Greeks shows his inclination to philosophize. He doesn’t agree to satisfy with the traditional order, for his main intention to be what he really is.
Due to the fact that this novel is a bildungsroman, readers get a chance to understand Jacob better, to grow up with him. If Virginia Wool would write the novel about grown-up Jacob Flanders, a soldier, who goes to Europe in order to take part in the World War I and fight against enemies of his country, we would never find out what kind of a person he is. Such details as his love for insects, natural curiosity, love for the Greeks and self-education would be left unknown. He is an exceptional man who ends up like many other soldiers.
The large number of the characters allows illustrating how they are all connected. The same is in the real life. We often don’t know how this or that decision or action of one person would influence lives of others. For instance, if Jacob wouldn’t go to his friend’s home town, Timothy’s sister wouldn’t fall for him.
Jacob’s Room is not a novel that one could read merely for pleasure. It requires a lot of time and patience to get used to absence of a traditional plot, the large number of characters and rather worrying and uneasy atmosphere but it is definitely worth the efforts. This work shows how difficult, fascinating and interesting the inner world of people is. This work is not about unusual plot twists, it is about an ability to listen to oneself. There is no evidence that Jacob Flanders used to be a real person but there is no doubt that there were many men like Jacob who wanted to learn more about the world but were killed before they managed to do that.
