Perceptions

Clearly __Jacob's Room__ focuses not only on what is going on in Jacob's life, but also how other characters perceive him in the novel. I found this to be an interesting yet refreshing twist; Woolf's style of highlighting what people feel about Jacob reveals Jacob from different standpoints. Chapter Five especially deals with the notion of "perceptions" about Jacob. It seems as though everyone is judging him, or at least expressing their opinions in one way or another about him.

In this chapter, we get a stream of opinions: Mrs. Durrant calls Jacob "distinguished-looking... Extremely awkward but so distinguished-looking" (page 68 in my edition). In the following paragraph, we have Clara Durrant writing in her diary: "I like Jacob Flanders. He is so worldly." Julia Eliot, on the other hand, comments that Jacob is a "silent young man." Timothy Durrant never made any comment at all, and "Mr. Sopwith's opinion was as sentimental as Clara's" (69). Reading these two pages, I was a bit taken aback at the sudden judgements about Jacob! It was one opinion after another. Despite the reader (or maybe just me) feeling bombarded, these descriptions of Jacob help piece together the puzzle of who he is.

Woolf adds her two cents in another subsequent paragraph: "Either we are men, or we are women. Either we are cold, or we are sentimental. Either we are young, or growing old. In any case life is but a procession of shadows... why are we surprised in the window corner by a sudden vision that the young man in the chair is of all things in the world the most real, the most solid, the best known to us-- why indeed? For the moment after we know nothing about him" (69). I particularly like the insight provided by this paragraph. Woolf is saying that people often view others two-dimensionally... hence the "either ors." She describes Jacob as "real" and "solid"... yet what do we really know about him? These are important questions to consider.

Does anyone have any other particular perceptions of Jacob from other characters in the novel? What do these perceptions reveal about the characters and Jacob? 1201904551

I liked this particular passage a lot. It captures the way we often see people, which is not only with our experiences of the person, but also be putting together bits and pieces of what other people think of them. It may seem odd in a novel to get large amounts of character developement through other people, but it is something that happens every day. We don't learn everything about the people we meet in a paragraph right when we meet them. We get a little bit at a time, and usually we find out what other people think of the person to put find out more about them quickly. We don't get a summary of Jacob as a person in this book, but we are forced to see him, and get an opinion of him the same way we would with someone in our lives, through our own limited experience of him, and with the things that other people tell us about him which are not even completely reliable because they are biased, much like opinions we would get from friends might be. It fits in perfectly with the style of the rest of the book where Woolfs writing is very true to the way we see things in life. 1201919143

I personally dislike the way the Woolf uses other characters to give the reader information on Jacob. We as readers are dependent on character biases, perceptions, prejudices, and even misperceptions when trying to find out more about Jacob. That’s one thing that really annoyed me in the book. I like to judge people and characters on what they do and what they think. Relying on basically second hand information can be very misleading. But I do think that Woolf did a great job of portraying the humans get to know others. They hear second hand information and form judgments on limited experience. If the book’s main purpose was a critique of human interactions, I think it would be a good book. However, I don’t see that as the main purpose of the book and seeing that Jacob’s development was a central theme to the book, I don’t think that learning about it through other characters besides Jacob was the best approach even though it was original. 1201924818