More Than Just a London Walk: Woolf's Moments of Perception Jamie Valdez College

In the memoir Moments of Being, Virginia Woolf reminisces on a sailing trip she experienced when she was younger. She is walking in the boring streets of London when she thinks of something that was more exciting. Afternoon sailing is revealed to be better than the walks she takes, and she begins talking about specific memories of her experience at the sea. The language she uses in this instance allows for the importance of the moment to stand out by utilizing long sentences, describing everything in great detail and imagery, and reflecting on how the experience affects her as she walks through the streets of London. In such language, Woolf writes to remember and capture the feelings she had in her past memories, and to conclusively justify her existence, based on the title of the memoir, Moments of Being.

At many times, Woolf uses long sentences to make the small moments of the memory feel longer than it actually was. The long sentences cause the excerpt to be longer and overall create a feeling of a lasting memory. An example can be found in lines 13-19, “Sometimes lines would be handed us; baited by gobbets cut from fish; and the line thrilled in one’s fingers as the boat tossed and shot through water; and then–how can I...