Individualism
Woolf belongs to the group of "high modernists" who wrote in the mid twentieth century. Faced with the rapidly changing world as a result of industrialization, urban life, and communication, they appealed to an intellectual crowd, trying to make sense of their new world. For her part specifically, Woolf leans into individualism in response to her young adult life. When childhood innocence fades, she takes refuge in her own identity. This theme is explored in essays "A Sketch of the Past" and then in depth in "Am I a Snob?" Woolf's writing becomes an outlet of expression in which she often pits her personal experience against more global issues like WWII. In this essay collection Woolf, more than any other place, explores her own identity in depth. "Am I a Snob?" is her solution. She asserts and reclaims a lost term to describe how keenly she yearns to be completely free to express artistically the nuances which she finds within her personality.
Grief
Much of Woolf's young adult life is defined by her relationship to her mother, who died when she was a teenager. She attributes the joy and love of her home to her mother's care, but in "A Sketch of the Past" she gains enough emotional maturity to recognize her mother's faults as well. After losing her mom, Woolf responds to grief by adopting her mom as a hypothetical critic in her head. In "Reminiscences" she admits that when she writes it is still always for her mom to read. Grief takes its toll on the entire family, but Woolf remembers being more frustrated by not being able to grieve at the time. Her emotions shut down, only to resurface in her young adult life.
Experience of Change
As a collection of essays dedicated to largely personal themes, Woolf focuses much on the age when she first starting stepping into her adult identity. The changes of her young adult life are brought into focus in "Old Bloomsbury" in which Woolf discusses her first time living on her own. That season was full of changes, often frightening ones, but she learned so much through those experiences. Eventually Woolf revisits childhood in essays like "22 Hyde Park Gate" in order to examine how her understanding of her past has changed in light of her adult experiences.
