Essay Questions

Deconstruct Woolf’s sentiment of ‘non-being.’-“A Sketch of the Past”

Woolf recounts, “ As a child them, my days, just as they do now, contained a large proportion of this cotton wool, this non-being. Week after week passed at St Ives and nothing made any dint upon me. Then, for no reason that I know about, there was a sudden violent shock; something happened so violently that I have remembered it all my life…The first: I was fighting with Thoby on the lawn. We were pommelling each other with our fists. Just as I raised my fist to hit him, I felt: why hurt another person? I dropped my hand instantly, and stood there, and let him beat me. I remember the feeling. It was a feeling of hopeless sadness. It was as if I became aware of something terrible; and of my powerlessness. I slunk off alone, feeling horribly depressed.” Woolf’s remembrance confirms her feelings of insignificance which prompt her to resign to Thoby’s assault. Furthermore, her self-respect is non-existence; it would prompt her to defend herself from Thoby. Psychoanalytically, Woolf’s outlook on being inconsequential elicits melancholy throughout her childhood. She does not regard herself highly; accordingly, she becomes a pessimistic child. Woolf’s childhood is predominantly despondent.

Provide a psychoanalytic elucidation of Woolf’s remark: “ At any rate when he was dead she was determined to consecrate those years as the golden ones” (“Reminiscences”)

Woolf recounts, “At any rate when he was dead she determined to consecrate those years as golden ones; when as she phrased it perhaps, she had not known the sorrow and the crime of the world because she had lived with a man, stainless of his kind, exalted in a world of pure love and beauty. The effect of his death then was doubly tremendous as well as a tragic human loss…And now that she had none to worship she worshipped the memory, and looking on the world with clear eyes, was more scornful than was just of its tragedy and stupidity because she had lived in a dream and still cherished a dream.”

Here Woolf is referring to the demise of her mother’s husband which transpires when the mother is twenty four. Although the demise is painful; Woolf’s mother utilizes Regression to subdue it. Consecrating her memories of her departed husband is absolute Regression which permits her to relish the gratification of their love unconsciously. Consequently, the husband’s departure does not sway the memories which are cemented in Woolf’s mother’s unconscious. Embracing the dreams empowers her to evade the depression which would befall due to the trauma of ruminating about the bereavement.