Scholars of Virginia Woolf literature document the dichotomy
of the public and private spheres found in her work. “Spatial separation of men
and women is indicative of the separation along gender lines of opportunities
for education, work and self-development. The
Years charts changes in women’s sexual position and identity through their
evolving relationship to the city, particularly through changes in their mobility,
as confinement to and exclusion from certain places informs their knowledge
about the world and their places in it,” Evans states. (Evans) .
P 113
To ground this discussion, I first point to Gaston
Bachelard, the author of The Poetics of
Space. For Bachelard, the home is a “large cradle” allowing young women to
remain in the bosom of a protected cocoon to prevent them from harm. “Life begins
well, it begins enclosed, protected, all warm in the bosom of the house.” (Bachelard) . Bachelard further
addresses the dialectics of outside and inside in “…from the point of view of
geometrical expressions, the dialectics of outside and inside is supported by a
reinforced geometrism, in which limits are barriers.” (Bachelard) .
The women in the book know the barriers between the private
sphere and the public sphere quite well. In an attempt to gaze into the public
world, they gravitate to windows. Delia spends a lot of time looking out the
window of the house, peering into the outside world, watching men navigate. “‘Don’t
be caught looking,’ said Eleanor warningly. The young man ran up the steps into
the house.; the door shut upon him and the cab drove away. But for the moment the two girls stood at the
window looking into the street.” (Woolf) , p 18. This quotation underscores the women simply looking
at the young man, who has the freedom to navigate.
Woolf casts a spotlight onto the dichotomy of public and
private in her discussion of the Pargiter girls. While citing a draft copy of
Woolf’s the Years, scholar Elizabeth Evans cites “Eleanor and Milly and Delia
could not possibly go for a walk alone ….
To be seen alone in Picadilly was equivalent to walking up Abercorn Terrace in
a dressing gown carrying a bath sponge.” (Evans) , p 115
The demarcation between public and private has long been
studies by feminist theorists and the connection to “danger” and the power
balance is evidence by women “cordoned off” from social, economic and political
happenings. “Woolf’s narrator comments upon this scene, describing not
only the danger to girls and women in the streets, but also the consequent need
for their protection within the private sphere. The danger, outside, in other
words, enables their cloistering at home,” according to Evans. (Evans) , p 116
Further, through this removal and subsequent “imprisoning”
in the home, a power dynamic emerges that denies the role of women in the
public sphere. “Thus, women’s construction as dependent on men, both
economically and morally, or as lesser beings – as fragile or in need of
protection reduces their rights to freedom,” (McDowell) , p 150.
Even a lightbeam had more freedom to pass between the
cordoned off private world and the public realm. “Woolf symbolically illustrates the permeability
between public and private realms through the infiltration of noise and light
from the outside world into the domestic space,” Evans writes, p 117. We find this in the scene depicting the children eating
dinner. “They ate in silence. The sun, judging from the changing lights on the
glass of the Dutch cabinet, seemed to be going in and out. Sometimes a bowl
shown deep blue; then became vivid. Lights rested furtively upon the furniture
in the other room. Here was a pattern here was a bald patch. Somewhere there’s
beauty, Delia thought, somewhere there’s freedom…” (Woolf) , p 13. This is reminiscent of Woolf’s description of
the Ramsey house in To the Lighthouse.
“Now, day after day, light turned, like a flower reflected in water, its sharp
image on the wall opposite. Only the shadows of the trees, flourishing in the
wind, made obeisance on the wall and for a moment darkened the pool in which
the light reflected itself; or the birds, flying made a soft spot flutter slowly
across the bedroom floor.” (Woolf, To The Lighthouse) , p. 129.
For Woolf’s character Delia, the escape from the domestic realm
came in the form of a trip to a funeral. “She glanced out the window again.
Another man raised his hat – a tall man, a man in a frock coat, but she would
not allow herself to think of Mr. Parnell until the funeral was over. At last
they reached the cemetery. As she took
her place in the little group behind the coffin and walked up to the church,
she was relieved to find that she was overcome by some generalized and solemn
emotion ….. Delia, standing behind her father, noticed how he braced himself
and squared his shoulders. ‘I am the resurrection and the life.’ Pent up as she
had been all these days in the half-lit house which smelt of flowers, the
outspoken words filled her with glory,” Woolf writes.
The second half of Woolf’s years reveals the women taking a
more aggressive approach to the public sphere. For Kitty’s ride in the rail
car, I am reminded of Michel DeCerteau’s view on rails. Woolf writes, “There
was a perpetual faint vibration. She seemed to be passing from one world to
another; this was the moment of transition. She sat still for a moment; then
undressed and paused with her hand on the blind,” (Woolf) ,
p 256. DeCerteau places this in a perspective, “The windowpane is what allows
us to see, and the rail allows us to move through. These are two
complementary modes of separation.” (DeCerteau)
The characters in Woolf novels, continually try to step out
of the domestic sphere. For example, in The
Years, Eleanor later finds her way
onto the street: “The uproar, the confusion, the space of the Strand came upon
her with a shock of relief. She felt herself expand. It was still daylight
here; a rush, a stir, a turmoil of variegated life came racing towards her. It
was as if something had broken loose – in her, in the world.” (Woolf) , p 105 “She walked slowly along towards Trafalgar Square, holding
the paper in her hand. Suddenly the whole scene froze into immobility. A man
was joined to a pillar; a lion was joined to a many; they seemed stilled,
connected, as if they would never move again. ” (Woolf) , p107.
This is the power of the public sphere. The ability to
engage in this realm, observe happenings and participate in the social, economic
and political happenings of the day. While Woolf’s readers may not have exercised
this freedom, with their minds they were able to traverse London streets,
voyeuristically travel on trains and experience a freedom through Woolf’s
fictional characters.
Bibliography
Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. The
Orion Press, Inc. , 1964.
DeCerteau. The Practice of Everyday Life.
2011, n.d.
Evans, Elizabeth. "Woolf's Analysis of
"The Outer and the Inner: A Spatial Analysis of The Years." Woolf
and the Art of Exploration: Selected Papers from the Fifteenth International
Conference on Virginia Woolf. Ed. Helen Southworth and Elisa Kay Sparks.
Portland, OR: Clemson University Digital Press, 2005.
McDowell. Gender, Identity and Place.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999.
Woolf, Virginia. The Years. Orlando: Houghton
Mifflin, 2008.
—. To The Lighthouse. Orlando: Harcourt,
Inc., 1981.
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