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Woolf was one of 
the great 
innovators in 
literature. 
Relatively late in 
life she found a 
voice of her own 
and went on to 
produce a 
peculiarly English 
- and feminist - 
version of 
modernism, 
tailoring to her 
own personal 
concerns the new 
ways of seeing 
that were 
sweeping Europe
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Woolf's Mrs 
Dalloway (1925) 
is her most 
experimental 
novel. It uses
minutely detailed 
descriptions of 
street life to 
transmute the 
past experience 
of two former 
lovers, and 
various minor 
characters, into 
the web of 
the present
#
To the Lighthouse 
gathers together
the flitting 
perceptions of a 
party of people 
holidaying on the 
Scottish coast. 
Male-female 
relationships are 
central to the 
book, and the 
lighthouse which 
towers over all 
the characters 
has been 
interpreted as a 
phallic symbol, a 
result of Woolf's 
study of Freud
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The Waves used
the "stream of 
consciousness" 
technique 
pioneered by 
James Joyce to
reveal in turn the 
experience of six 
characters. As in 
all Woolf's novels, 
there is almost no 
plot. She is 
concerned with 
'sensibility', the 
shapes and images 
which the world
leaves like 
shadows or like
footprints on
the mind
#
Woolf has become 
a feminist icon, 
and her thoughts 
on the position of 
women in society 
are incisive and 
entertaining. In A 
Room of One's 
Own (1929), she 
examines the 
situation of the 
woman writer, and 
asserts that,
because women 
are absent from 
historical accounts, 
our knowledge of 
the past is 
"lop sided"
#
For most of her 
characters, as for 
Woolf herself, the 
world is formless, 
fluid: they are all 
trying to catch
some meaning.
The modernism of
her work is no
mere literary 
experiment. It is
a reflection
of Woolf's 
perceptions, a 
real attempt to 
say more than 
could be said 
by conventional 
methods
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Woolf's first 
breakdown was
in 1906, and they 
came regularly 
thereafter. In 
1941, depressed 
about the war 
and fearing the 
onset of another 
bout of mental 
illness, Woolf 
forced a large 
stone into her 
pocket and 
drowned herself 
in the River Ouse, 
near her cottage 
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