Abstract
Despite the substantial emphasis upon space, the visual, and feminism within Woolf Studies, scholars have not explored Woolf's novels of the 1920s through the prism of feminist art historian Griselda Pollock's "spaces of femininity" in a sustained manner. This thesis argues that Pollock's theory, with its emphasis upon textual manifestations of women's positionality within patriarchal society, can illuminate how Woolf's female characters engage with the varied physical and psychic spaces in Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Orlando: A Biography (1928). In contrast to previous scholarship on Woolf's feminism, which has focused on her changing engagement with the suffrage movement, or on her non-fictional writings, Pollock's theory enables us to foreground Woolf's approach towards women and space in her novels, as shaped by her gendered and class identities. By employing the multilayered matrix of "spaces of femininity" – as it pertains to physical spaces, spatial devices, and the implied painter/viewer – this thesis traces how Woolf increasingly liberates her female characters from patriarchal constraints across the three novels. I contend that collectively these novels reveal the evolution of Woolf's conciliatory feminism during the 1920s, presaging her fully-fledged feminism of the 1930s.
Chapter One, "'Spaces of Femininity' and Woolf's Feminine Form", establishes the relevance of Pollock's theory to an analysis of Woolf's feminine form, as featured in her selected novels of the 1920s. Chapter Two, "The Visual and Spatial in Woolf's Shaping of a Feminine Form", forges a connection between Woolf and Pollock, by discussing how Woolf develops her feminine form under the influence of the visual arts. It further addresses the relation between the visual and spatial within Modernism, to explain how we can explore Woolf's feminist stance, by attending to the feminine form that she develops for rendering female characters in relation to space. Chapters Three to Five each analyze one of Woolf's selected novels through the lens of Pollock's theory. Chapter Three, "Forth and Back: Spatial Trespass and Relapse in Mrs. Dalloway", illustrates Woolf's "forth and back" strategy by examining the female characters' spatial practices in Mrs. Dalloway. Chapter Four, "Rescuing the Angel and Redeeming the Artist in To the Lighthouse", explores Woolf's use of domestic spaces to depict a traditional housewife and a rebellious woman artist in To the Lighthouse. Chapter Five, "Reclaiming Orlando: Women's Space in Social and Literary Histories", investigates the protagonist's diverse spatial experiences following her change of gender from male to female.
By exploring Woolf's feminist stance as reflected in her novels, this thesis extends existing scholarship by showing the development of Woolf's feminism of the 1920s. It thus enables us to better comprehend Woolf's feminist path of this period, and in relation to other periods. It also offers a new approach to "space", deriving from Pollock's matrix, which can be applied more widely to Woolf's other works.