Virginia Woolf's suicide

Although it was my first time to read Virginia Woolf's works, I have read about her death a lot from the books I read when I was younger than now.

I only knew that she committed suicide by putting heavy rocks in her pockets and then entering into the river near her house, so I did some research about her suicide to gain more information.

Here is her suicide note:

Dearest,

I feel certain I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times. And I shan’t recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can’t concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don’t think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can’t fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can’t even write this properly. I can’t read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that – everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can’t go on spoiling your life any longer.

I don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been.

(source from openculture.com)

This note is really heartbreaking since it shows how painful Virginia was. I knew that she had depression and mental illnesses during her life although I didn't know why, but I found the reasons this time.

Although Virginia was a successful poet and novelist, her old days were terrible. Each of her
parents had been married previously and widowed, so they brought their kids when they got married. So Virginia's dad brought three kids, and her mom brought one child. They had four more kids between them, and Virginia was one of them.

The shocking point is that two of the kids that Virginia's dad brought periodically committed sexual abuse toward Virginia and her sister. Moreover, when she was thirteen years old, her mom passed away, and her older sister whom her mom brought passed away, too. This was a huge reason of her mental breakdown.

When Virginia became a grown-up later, Leonard Woolf had a crush on her and proposed her several times although Virginia refused. Well, but in the end, she accepts the marriage, but it is said that she told him that she is not going to consummate with him. I don't know if it is true or not, but it definitely makes sense since she had a trauma from the sexual abuse that she suffered.

I believe Clarissa and Septimus in her Mrs. Dalloway show some parts of Virginia herself because both of the characters suffer from their past, especially Septimus who commits suicide in the end. Maybe Virginia intended to use Septimus as her representative in this story.

Snow of "The Dead"

I decided to write about snow, which seems like a symbol, of "The Dead" this week. In this story, Gabriel keeps mentioning the snow, although we do not know why. I did a research for this symbolic word, and I found that snow "The dead and the living aren't so far apart" (shmoop.com). 

After I read "The Dead," I thought the snow just makes Gabriel ashamed of him because snow itself is so clean while he is not. I think that makes sense, but the research helped me to interpret the snow in other way. 

So let me analyze the sentence, "The dead and the living aren't so far apart." When the snow is falling from the sky, it is alive. It keeps moving and has a certain type of form that we can touch and feel. But as soon as it falls on the ground, it melts and is gone, which means it is not alive anymore. It is dead. So the snow is alive and dead at the same time, which tells Gabriel that life and death is not that different.

Although Gabriel is alive, his life is not meaningful. He just cares his reputation, not being interested in people around him, including his wife, Gretta. So he has not lived his life to the full. On the contrary, we can say that Gretta's dead lover, Michael, lived his life to the full since he really  pursued what he really wanted in his life when he was dying.

Even though he is dead, he is still alive in Gretta's memory. So the snow is telling Gabriel that although he is alive now, people can say he is not, since he wasted his life for meaningless things. So this might be why snow is often mentioned in this story, telling Gabriel the most important lesson of life.

This is what I newly interpreted the snow, although I like my first interpretation, as well.

Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market

I really enjoyed reading the "Goblin Market" of Christina Rossetti. Well, at first, the poem seemed too long to read, but the message and the words were quite easy to understand. I thought this poem was just to criticize men and support women's empowerment, but after searching some information, I think this poem can be interpreted as a letter to her brothers.

Christina Rossetti had two brothers, Dante Gabriel and William Michael Rossetti. It is said that their affection for each other was really strong, and they did get along really well. However, although they were good brothers and a sister, people at that time has a conservative attitude toward women's rights and the gender equality.

As a result, Christina's brothers did not allow her to be an official member of the artistic movement, Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood although they supported her writing. 

So I think the "Goblin Market" can be a letter of Christina to her brothers, who discriminates her because of her gender. In this poem, the goblins temp two sisters although Lizzie overcomes the temptation. The goblins can be her two brothers, who keeps suppressing her to be "a woman" with traditional women roles. Lizzie is Christina herself, so that she is telling her brothers that she would fight against the situation where only men were allowed to have a social life.

About The Last Duchess

This week, I decided to write about the background of a poem The Last Duchess of Robert Browning. Since the poem was really interesting because of its topic and the possibility of the Duke to murder his wife, the duchess, I searched some information about this poem.

So, the poem is said to be based on a factual person. The Duke in this poem is actually Alfonso II d'Este, who ruled a place in northern Italy called Ferrara. The House of Este was one of the high noble dynasties in Europe. Alfonso II d'Este was a Duke of Ferrara, which was a younger branch of the House of Este. By the way, his mother was a daughter of Louis XII of France.

He married three times in his life, including his first wife Lucrezia di Cosimo de' Medici, who is believed to be the Duchess of the poem, The Last Duchess. Their marriage lasted only for two years because she died. It is said that she died because of tuberculosis, but like in the poem, some people insist that she was poisoned under the Duke's command.

Since the Duke's lineage, the House of Este was higher social rank than the Duchess's lineage, the House of Medici, there is a possibility that he disregarded her, as we can see in the poem, "My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name" which implies that he is proud of his noble family.

No one knows if he actually had his wife murdered, but the rumor is still around us.