First off, let's just clarify that Virginia Woolf's "The Mark on the Wall" made me feel like a snail crossing the freeway. It was hard to wrap my head around it in a way that made any sense. And to have it all conclude with the mark on the wall, which inspired this stream of consciousness, in reality turning out to be a snail…well, it wasn't exactly a satisfying conclusion. However, I suppose there is something to be drawn from the reading. For a mark on a wall to inspire such a philosophical meandering of thought is truly an enigma to me. I think Woolf was trying to show that even the smallest of things, such as a mark on a wall, can lead to a greater understanding of the surrounding situation and perhaps even of humanity. The narration jumps to comparing life to "being blown through the Tube at fifty miles an hour" (page 1098). This may be referencing the thought that life goes by before you know it, often when you forget to notice the little things around you. The narration then continues on to discuss the after life, which is likened to being born on earth, "helpless, speechless, unable to focus one's eyesight…" (page 1098). This is an interesting concept, that the after life would have little to differentiate it from the current life, which, if we look at page 1099, is made up of "real things, Sunday luncheons, Sunday walks, country houses, and tablecloths [that] were not entirely real, were indeed half phantom." Basically this narration is the rambling of a mind with nothing better to do than to think. This stream of consciousness is portrayed by the many sections of the narration that are left of with an ellipse. To top it all off, the mark on the wall is a snail, maybe portraying that all the thinking that was done is not really a conclusion, as life itself is not what it appears to be.
Did I miss some deeper meaning to this reading? Is there another purpose to the stream of consciousness other than to alert the reader to a thoughts of the narrator?
I am actually relieved to read this entry, because I had no idea what to get out of this reading. But it makes sense to think that the lack of conclusion can be related to life and our own lack of conclusions. Her streams of consciousness never seemed to end themselves, which further supports this claim. The snail, such a small mark and small part of the story, was capable of producing multiple trains of thought that refer to life as a bigger picture. Honestly, if there is a deeper meaning to this reading I won't know it until we discuss in class. Otherwise, I think we are on the same page with the idea of a lack of conclusion in the work and in life.
ReplyDeleteI agree, the conclusion was horrible, because after all that talk about life, and meanings of life and nature, etc. the amazing mark on the wall was a snail, and that was that.
DeleteTo say that stream-of-consciousness "only alerts the reader to the thoughts of the narrator" is to seriously underestimate the skill it takes to write stream-of-consciousness, in my opinion. Any story can take you into the mind of a character (as most of them do) but stream-of-consciousness shows you every little thought that pops into their head, whether they purposely do so or not, which is a realistic portrayal of how the human thought process actually works.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to the snail, I think it's an incredibly fitting ending because it shows just how pointless all of our contemplation on life really is, because we will never really know the answer until our life is almost over, and the answer will end up being much more insignificant than we truly thought. In my opinion that ending is much more enjoyable than any idealistic (and unrealistic) ending.