Symbolism of Laura's Cake

One thing that stood out to me in reading the novel so far was the cake that Laura made for her husband. Through this cake, Laura is trying to do two things at the same time. Firstly, she wants to please her husband simply because that is what she is expected to do. She is supposed to take care of the houshold, she is supposed to make her husband happy, even if it means subtracting herself from the equation. This signifies two themes that we've come across this semester - the importance of marriage but also the loss of identity (being known as Mrs....)

On the other hand, Laura wants to please herself in that she views the cake as a work of art where she can get the chance to be creative. The cake can be seen as her chance to speak after being silenced by the norms of her society. She has become a slave to her husband [the overseer] while the era that she lives in is the slave master that dictates what she can or cannot do, who she can or cannot be, her ultimate destiny! It's almost as if she wants to prove herself through the cake. That's why she seeks perfection in it.

Therefore, when the cake does not turn out exactly how she wants it, she decided to throw it out and make another one. Unforntunately even after Laura made the second cake, it was still ruined when Dan spitted on the cake while blowing out the candles. Laura therefore feels like nothing she does is enough. She is then reminded of the box she has been forced to live in. Not jack in the box but Laura in a box!



She has tried to fullfil these norms but now she just wants to pop up, pop out! She is not satisfied with the life that she has been handed. She wants more! She needs more! But...would she ever be able to get more? Probably not! Because just like the cake...it ultimately gets ruined!

William and Judith Shakespeare: So much alike, yet treated so differently!

“She was very young, oddly like Shakespeare, the poet in her face, with the same grey eyes and rounded brows.”

From the above description that was given of Judith, I came to the conclusion that she must’ve been William’s twin. I researched it and some sources confirmed that this is the image which Virginia Woolf wanted to portray. By portraying them as twins, she was able to show how gender inequality caused people who were so much alike to be treated so differently.

Allow your imagination to run wild with me for a second. Let’s picture Judith Shakespeare. She had “a gift like her brother’s, for the tune of words. Like him, she had a taste for the theatre. The birds that sang in the edge were not more musical than she was”. Yet she was silenced! She was refused the chance to utilize that gift and was forced to be subjected to the norms of a standard Victorian woman. She was expected to marry! She was expected to take care of the household! When she cried out that “marriage was hateful to her”, she was severely beaten by her father.

Judith's unwillingness to get married reminds me of Strachey's Florence Nightingale whom we studied earlier this semester. The same rebellious nature is seen through Judith Shakespeare. Not rebellious in a negative way ofcourse, but simply through her refusal to comply with the standards that her society had imposed on her. It’s quite evident that Marriage was of great importance. “Almost before they [women] were out of the nursery, they were forced to it by their parents and held to it by all power of the law and custom”. But sadly, this was not all that was expected of a woman. She was also expected to kill her dreams and live in the nightmare that had been created by the society in which she lived.

This brings me to Woolf’s point that “Any woman born with a gift in the sixteenth century would certainly had gone crazed, shot herself or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the village, half witch, half wizard, feared and mocked at.” I definitely agree with this claim. As evidently depicted through Judith, the fictional twin sister of William, a woman would be forced to commit suicide. However, Woolf infers that she does not commit such an act on her own. The typical Victorian society along with all of its gender inequalities can be seen as accomplices because once a person’s dream has died or in fact when it has never been given the chance to live, the person no longer has anything to live for.

All in all, a woman as talented as Shakespeare would have never been able to achieve such great success. Through the character Judith Shakespeare, we are able to distinctly see the extent to which society discriminated against women of that time. Truth be told, even if a woman was as talented as Shakespeare, she would’ve never been given the chance to even step on “stage”. Why? Because she lacked a room of her own...

Marriage in Mrs. Dalloway – Marriage or Misery?

In Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf explores the whole notion of marriage. She leaves the reader with the question of what it really is - marriage or misery? Marriage is explored through the unions of Clarissa and Richard as well as Lacrezia and Septimus. Both marriages are held together “for better or for worst” whether it was to uphold social status or simply out of sincerity and loyalty. This is symbolic as marriage in a typical Victorian society was very much encouraged and important. This significance was also depicted in the story of Florence Nightingale which we studied earlier in class. A woman was expected to get married and take care of her husband and household.

In the case of marriage between Clarissa and Richard, Woolf gave an insight into Clarissa’s thoughts to reveal her views on the matter. “She had the oddest sense of being herself invisible, unseen; un-known; there being no more marrying, no more having of children now...this being Mrs. Dalloway; not even Clarissa any more; this being Mrs. Richard Dalloway”. Through this, we see that Clarissa feels like no one could see her. She had lost her identity as a result of her marriage. It was as if when she looked into the mirror, she no longer saw a reflection of herself or her desires. Instead, she saw her husband and what he desired of her. She understood that the world saw her as her husband’s wife. This was symbolic of her submission to her husband and his authority over her which was typical in a Victorian society.

As Peter put it, “With twice his wits, she had to see things through his eyes-one of the tragedies of marred life." For example, all of the parties Clarissa so eloquently hosted were all for her husband. “Behind it all was that network of visiting, leaving cards, being kind to people; running about with bunches of flowers, little presents...a real drain on her strength; all that interminable traffic that women of her sort keep up; but she did it genuinely, from a natural instinct.” This depicts the normal everyday life of a classic Victorian woman. She is expected to do such things under the morals instilled by the Victorian society. Even if she wanted more from life, she realized that this was all that she would get and therefore focused on survival rather than sorrow.

Woolf also explored marriage through the union of Lacrezia and Septimus. In the following excerpt, Woolf gave Lacrezia’s thoughts on the matter. "She could stand it no longer…Far rather would she that he were dead! She could not sit beside him when he stared so and did not see her and made everything terrible...To love makes one solitary, she thought...Septimus had fought, he was brave; he was not Septimus now. She put on her lace collar. She put on her new hat and he never noticed; and he was happy without her. Nothing could make her happy without him! Nothing! He was selfish…Her wedding ring slipped-she had grown so thin. It was she who suffered-but she had nobody to tell." Through this we see that Lacrezia also felt invisible. Septimus had grown so cold and bitter that he sat beside his wife but did not even notice or acknowledge her presence. This left Lacrezia very miserable to the point where she began to lose weight. The imagery of portrayed through the slipping of her wedding ring is symbolic of the instability of her marriage. However, just like Clarissa, Lacrezia was loyal to her husband. "She had a right to his arm, though it was without feeling”.

All in all, Woolf portrays marriage as seen through the eyes of a typical Victorian: a wife surrendering to her husband under the patriarchal authority imposed by the Victorian society. Clarissa and Lacrezia gave up their identity, whether by force or by choice, and submitted to their husbands. This was done all for the sake of marriage. You decide - marriage or misery? I think it is a bit of both...

The Literary Worlds Presented in Coming to London

In Coming to London, Leonard Woolf spoke about how he entered what might be called “a literary world, a provincial literary world”. He spoke about the glimpse he got of an Old Victorian London Literary World through the eyes of Lytton Strachey and Thoby Stephen. He then spoke of Lesley Stephen who allowed him to get a last glimpse of that “incredibly ancient London literary world of ladies and gentlemen”. This Old Victorian London Literary World had begun to vanish and a new literary world had begun to appear. This new world was known as the London Literary World of Bloomsbury.


Where exactly did this transition take place? Leonard said “it is not the goal, not the destination, not the arrival which is interesting, but the journey”. Therefore, let’s examine a major part of what I believe influenced this journey from the Old Victorian London Literary World to the New London Literary World of Bloomsbury.


Leonard also spoke of how he and Virginia “failed the entrance examination to literary London”. They had been invited to dine with a well-known novelist, and so they went “dirty and disheveled from painting”. However, to their surprise, there were many distinguished writers dressed in full formal attire. One could imagine the embarrassment that they both felt as Leonard confessed “we had both disgraced ourselves in literary London”. In my opinion, this presents Literary London as simple or outdated. It was presented as a conventional “square” because of its do’s and don’ts inflicted by the Victorian era. They were fashionable in appearance, but unfashionable in their constraints.

The “square” above is a symbol of constraint which was presented in the Victorian London Literary World. It portrays a world where limited perspectives and ideologies were allowed. There were many codes that one had to comply with (codes of behavior, codes of dress, codes for everything one could think of) in order to be a part of this world.

Leonard and Virginia could not live with being “boxed” into those norms and ideologies of literature and more generally art. Therefore, in my opinion, it is probably here where the “web” of Bloomsbury, which I depicted in my presentation began to form. It eventually gave way to a more liberal and intricate form of the literary world. This new world was the London Literary World of Bloomsbury where life was simply presented as art!

The “web” above is a symbol of the freedom which was presented in the New London Literary World of Bloomsbury. It was a world where different ideologies and perspectives were woven together to portray life as art.

In Coming to London, I believe that Leonard Woolf subtly portrayed some of the influences which led to the formation of the Literary World of Bloomsbury.

A Different Perspective on the Same Object

The Bloomsbury Group played a major role in the development of modernist painting in Britain. The work of artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant proved to be one of the key influences on twentieth-century British art and design. Vanessa often painted with Grant, and several of their paintings depict a different perspective on the same subject. The two paintings that I will focus on today are “Still Life on Corner of a Mantelpiece” by Vanessa Bell and “The Mantelpiece” by Duncan Grant.

A Different Perspective on the same object:

*Difference in angles
*Difference in aesthetic and color
*Symbolism of pyramid




BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bell, Vanessa. Still Life on Cornor of a Mantelpiece. The Omega Workshop, 33 Fitzroy Square.

Grant, Duncan. The Mantelpiece. The Omega Workshop, 33 Fitzroy Square.

New World Encyclopedia. Duncan Grant. 2 April 2008. 13 September 2009 .

Reed, Christopher and Nancy E. Green. A Room of Their Own: The Bloomsbury Artists in American Collections. 13th September 2009 .

In Florence Nightingale, Florence was the complete opposite to the prominent figure of the typical Victorian woman. She rejected one of the most prestigious expectations of women in the Victorian Era; marriage. Her thoughts of this are depicted in the animated video below.



In the novel, Florence Nightingale said, 'To be nailed to a continuation and exaggeration of my present life...to put it out of my power ever to be able to seize the chance of forming for myself a true and rich life' – "that would be a suicide". In my opinion, Florence viewed marriage as a cross that she would be nailed to. She felt that the Victorian expectations of a woman in marriage, this world that she had always tried to escape from, would inflict wounds to her being while burdening her in many ways. She even refers to it as “suicide” because to her, by committing in marriage, she would kill herself; her desires and her dreams. In fact, “She would think of nothing but how to satisfy that singular craving of hers to be doing something. As if there was not plenty to do in any case, in the ordinary way, at home". Her mother even highlighted this point in the video above when she asked her if she was too good to run a household. Hence, we see the significance of marriage and family presented in the Victorian Era and also the obligation and role of the woman in marriage and family. We also see that “her sister, cousin, all the young ladies of her acquaintance, were either getting ready to do this or had already done it. It was inconceivable that Florence should dream of anything else; yet dream she did.” This emphasizes her independence which may be mistaken for rebelliousness.



In my opinion, Florence fulfilled her own expectations of “her duty in that state of life unto which God had called her”; marriage. Instead of committing herself to a man, she committed herself to providing for the sick and needy. She also carried out her obligations as a Victorian woman in the home as the nursing institutions and hospitals can be seen as her “household” and the patients her “family” whom she took great care of.



Today, the statue of Florence Nightingale seen above can be found in Waterloo Place, London to commemorate her leadership and devotion to the lives of many.

Introduction

Hi everyone! Welcome to my blog!

My name is Sharia de'Castro. I'm from the British Virgin Islands. I am currently a junior here at TCU with a major in English. As the name of my blog says, I LOVE ENGLISH! I enjoy writing poetry, short stories and even songs. Writing has always been a passion for me since I was in highschool. I plan to be an english/literature teacher at one of the highschools back at home and eventually at the community college. I would even like to write my own book of short stories sometime in the future. Besides writing, I enjoy dancing which I've been doing for the past 5 years or so in my church's dance ministry at home. I also enjoy shopping, travelling and spending time with my family and friends.

I'm a twin and my twin sister also goes to TCU. We both have similar interests as she is majoring in Secondary Education - English. I also have two other sisters currently attending TCU; one is in her senior year as an undergrad student and the other is in the graduate program. As you can imagine, this makes it a whole lot easier being far away from home. But I am enjoying my life here at TCU! Infact, I LOVE IT!