Who+is+I?

In Chapter Five there were a couple of instances where it was written in first person. It sounded like it was Woolf speaking, but I couldn't tell. On page 52, (the paragraph starts, "In short, the observer is choked with observations.") is Woolf providing examples from her own life or did I miss a transfer into someone's mind? And what is this 'choice' that is being referenced? Is it the choice of who we are and what we become? Or are we supposed to decide what to observe? There is so much that we can take in around us, that a decision needs to be made on what we process and remember.

On page 54 ("It seemed then that men and women are equally at fault") is it Woolf talking with the references of "we" and "our," or did I once again miss traveling into someone's mind? It sounds like Woolf is trying to tell us something about human nature in this paragraph-but I can't tell what. It sounds like she is saying that we try and fit people into black and white, but really people are grey. As soon as something goes into that grey area that isn't defined by our previous thoughts, we are lost. I don't know if that is what she was trying to say, or even makes sense. Help! 1200178328

The I could be Woolf; the I could be the narrator; the I could be an unnamed, undescribed character. I don't believe it explains the who the I is, but the I has something to say. The way I interpreted the message was that a person has to choose between "nature and society." But when the person is talking about the two sides, the person goes to two ends of the extreme: being the queen and being someone who lives out in the boondocks, it seems. It is the person's opinion that it is the harshest necessity of all, and the person concludes that either way the end will be the same: a lonely death. This may tie into what is said on page 54. If we go to two opposite ends of the extreme (young or growing old, cold or sentimental), which we do, we will be "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..." (54). Life is not black and white, and if we would recognize that from the very beginning, our lives might be richer, fuller. We would not die a lonely death. Of course, this could be one of Woolf's messages, or it could be the narrator telling this story of Jacob to an outside source, and what we get on pages 52 and 54 are just the narrator's thoughts and conclusions based on what is happening in the book. That's just the way I took it. 1200236550

I think that all the anaphora of "I" in these two posts is a tad irritating. Anyways, I think that the narrator is woolf. This is because for years I have held the stance that the narrator is the persona of the author in the novel. It is through the narrator that we can see what he or she is trying to say or what point they are trying to make. Two things got me convinced. The first is that quote on pg. 52: "In short, the observer is choked with observations." This echoes the observation of the busy street in //AROOO// last year. Wow, it's sad that I remembered that.

Secondly, the quote of pg. 54: "It seemed then that men and women are equally at fault." This tipped me off simply because this sounds like something woolf would say. She was, after all, a feminist, and believed in the equality of men and women. Therefore, I think it is logical to conclude that the narrator is woolf.user:JHe-c

I also took the "I" to be Woolf speaking, because it seems that she is revealing herself as the narrator of the story and expressing her opinions on the situation thus far. Until this point, the narrator was always present, divulging details about characters, places, and other aspects of the book and now the narrator is coming out to say what he or she thinks. I took the choice to be between high society and common life; she seems to be saying that one can create an illusion for oneself and try to believe that they are part of the high society by going to operas, reading intellectually, and associating with upstanding figures in society, or one can choose to be oneself and accept his or her roots as a commoner and not experience anything of culture. I felt this passage was saying, I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't [pardon my french]. It seemed that Woolf was saying you could go one way and pretend you're someone you're not, or you could go the other way, be who you are, and never gain any culture or experience life outside of what you've grown up with. 1200449710

On page 54, I took the paragraph about men and women to be Woolf's thoughts, but I think that it means that no matter how hard we try, we will always be biased in some way or another. Because we are either men or women and not both, we can never look at anything in a completely unbiased way. We all come up short in someway and the harder we try to succeed in one way the more we fail in another. She says that we are chasing after shadows; I think that this means that we are chasing after what we think will give us success, and then when succcess comes up to us in a manner we did not expect we cannot even recognize it. I think she also says that there is no remedy to this problem because this is just the way humans are. This is the only way that we can even go about searching for success; we can either try and succeed in some ways and fail in others, or we can just not try at all.1200931659

I'm not sure if it is important to determine who "I" is. First of all, it is safe to say that the whole book contains Woolf's thoughts, indeed, otherwise it never would have come into being if it wasn't the product of Woolf's mind. However, what does it matter who is telling us these things? Sure, it could be Woolf's direct opinion, laid out for all to see in her novel, but it could be a persona that she has taken on, and those opinions could be a part of that character. But, no matter who it is who believes these things, I will still take them the same way. These thoughts are someone else's opinion, and no matter who they belong to, we should give them some consideration as a new or different way of looking at the world. On the same topic, I think some people are getting too caught up with A Room of One's Own, and with Woolf being a feminist. Some people are taking these ideas and using them to cut down Woolf's credibility, and to put closed-minded spins on certain things. For example, when we were discussing the paper flowers in class, some people said that since Woolf was a feminist, she must be saying that those girly things are stupid and pointless. Which is a pretty big stretch. I think it is very important to appraoch this book with an open mind, and not bother with making assumptions about the author. Even though this novel is written differently and may be difficult to read, the ideas and opinions are still valid, and we should take the time to think about them. 1201048513