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Intimacy, Unity, And Shared Consciousness In The Novels Of Virginia Woolf, Meghan Rose Condas

Scripps Senior Theses

In the novels of Virginia Woolf, the difficulties of deep intimacy are troubled by the limitations of language and the fear of shame and vulnerability. What can characters express, and do words have the ability to appropriately describe their feelings of love and desire? Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and The Waves grapple with the penetrability of the mind and the potential for shared thought between characters. In Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf utilizes Clarissa and her relationship with men to highlight how eroticism and affection are inhibited by shame. To evade the anxieties of articulating romantic feelings and …