Virginia Woolf Solid Objects Analysis

Obsession has been used as a controversial tool in literature for many years. It provokes strong feelings in people because of the different ways obsession can take form, whether it be soft and affectionate, or aggressive and violent. Often, the targets of obsession are females. In The Great Gatsby, The Virgin Suicides, Lolita and Fear, there are men who obsess over a female character. These female characters are all shown to be powerless, whether it be at the hands of their obsessor or because of other factors in their lives.

An aphorist, Mason Cooley, once said, “Cure for an obsession: get another one”. This quote can be qualified by humans and the changes in their passions. Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome weaves a tale with human-like characters and their obsessions in the short story. As a result, the novella can be used to qualify the quote because the characters would act in a similar way as humans. Both the quote and story have the theme of obsession. In both, an individual cures their obsessions by getting another one. However, an individual in “Ethan Frome” could only cure their obsession by having one with larger value rather than another one. Therefore, the cure for an obsession, often shown in humans, is to have a more significant one, using Ethan Frome as

Obsession is in everything. Obsession occurs in every living human to ever walk this earth. Everybody has feelings and actions that are triggered by an intense moment and these intense moments can cause people’s feelings to go in a flux. This flux could then affect both the people they care about around them and themselves. And sometimes holding this obsession leads to a bigger problem. Obsession is difficult to contain yet we see it every day, fiction or not.

Anthony Patch at sixteen “had lived almost entirely within himself, an inarticulate boy, thoroughly un-American, and politely bewildered by his contemporaries” (BD: 6). He is preoccupied with literature, abstractions and aesthetics. Patch arranges his apartment as a sort of aesthetic haven for himself where he spends most of his time. He is growing lonely and his susceptibility to beauty inevitably leads to finding his mate in the most beautiful girl of his milieu. Although Anthony has some insight into his own motivations and the workings of his longings, he is not able to resist the temptation. Likewise, Anson Hunter in “The Rich Boy” yearns for the love of Paula Legendre, a “dark, serious beauty”, as a way of regaining something that was important for his self-perception. He was brought up and treated by his milieu as a superior individual. When Anson reaches adulthood he spends more time with his social equals and this feeling of superiority evaporates. To be able to function he needs a sense that he is loved by an exceptional, desirable woman. Another example of an individual who has an aggrandised image of himself is George O’Kelle in “The Sensible Thing”. George, an engineer, fantasizes about shaping the landscape and changing the world with his will power. He dreams about malleable, undefined

More than once in every man’s life he has yearned for something that is out of his reach. Whether it be fashionable clothes, an elaborate home, a newer car, or a more desirable career, some things are unattainable. George Milton, one of the main characters

Although Hugh’s work environment is not in an office setting as in Bartleby’s case, it is likewise oppressive and detached from the beauty of life. Both Melville and Davis suggest that such a desolate or lifeless environment not only drains one’s physical appearance, but more importantly one’s soul as well.

Jane lets her obsession with the wallpaper drive her over the edge of sanity. Like Jane the narrator from Stephen King’s “Strawberry Spring” let’s his obsession with the fog cloud his memory. He repeatedly mentions the fog and even takes time to indepthly describe the fog. “But I am here, and no person touches this paper but me, -- not alive!” (Gilman 8) The obsession with the paper drives jane to what some could say murderous ends. “I don’t sleep much at night, for it’s so interesting to watch developments; ” (Gilman 7) Jane watches the paper so much that she begins to see changes and movements in the pattern. She even speaks of a woman trapped in the pattern. She then becomes obsessed with helping this so called woman escape from the yellow wallpaper. Obsession causes Jane to trick her husband and his sister Jennie through lies and deceit “ Jennie wanted to sleep with me -- the sly thing! But I told her I should undoubtedly rest better for a night all alone. That was clever, for really I wasn’t alone” (Gilman 8). Her obsession evolved through the story beginning with a small curiousness towards the horrendous wallpaper and ending with Jane losing her sanity or what was left of

Like John Freyer, I am the type who holds onto objects, whether it is useful or not, as I tend to think that I may have some use for them in the future, and would regret getting rid of it. I am very conservative of my money, so I end up keeping what others would call trash most of the time. However, I did not really think much about the items that I stashed in my drawers and shelves, as they were just insignificant objects that came to play a part in my life. But in Freyer’s “All My Life For Sale,” he had written that through voluntary dispossession, he had begun to see how his possessions had portrayed him and what it symbolized for him, allowing him to see what the problem he had was. Reading this article made me remember the time when I realized that possessions can a different meaning to them if you look at them in a different way.

Waugh and Eliot use opposition in imagery to prove that finding one’s own identity in a world of facade’s is impossible. In The Loved One, Dennis Barlow is an expatriate from england, a poet, and a personification of the irony in authenticity. When a close acquaintance of Barlow’s, Sir Francis, died, so did the british traits that Dennis identified with. Thus, Barlow allowed himself to succumb to the exploiting control of a new object of obsession: Aimee Thanatogenos.

In conclusion, John in Solid Objects by Virginia Woolf seeks to escape from the realities of life by seeking purpose in the collection of esoteric objects. Woolf’s condemnation of John’s deeds is reflected in his mental illness and the destruction both of his social life and political

Before continuing this analysis, obsession will be clearly defined. For the purpose of this essay, obsession will be characterized by three concepts: the character is shown constantly contemplating the desired object or person, most of a character’s actions or goals are oriented towards the object or person, and

Her lack of response to the clerks advances along with her depiction as “hardly aware of her departed lover” (250) reveal how sex is not associated with love in her mind. Perhaps most importantly, the action shown in the phrase “smoothes her hair with automatic hand” (255) epitomizes this detached and passionless sexual encounter. With this automatic hand we know that this encounter is not anomalous, but routine--as everything in the typist’s life has become mechanized. The degrading effect of this mechanization is the loss of meaning in life which has extended from her job as a typist to her relationship with a lover. No thought is put into these actions, just as no thought is put into a meaningful connection between the two.

An obsessive habit is deemed as a harmless act, however, this behavior is a motive to achieve an underlying desire to regain a lost feeling. Henry Dobbins, a soldier enlisted in the Vietnam War, is emotionally attached to his girlfriend’s pantyhose. Tim O’Brien’s connotative diction affirms how meer, harmless obsessions have underlying motives as he states,

The orderly, on the other hand, is the epitome of a purely existential conduct, projecting a simplistic, grounded attitude towards life, doing as he is told without question and enjoying his nights off spent with his “sweetheart.” The two characters serve to contrast each other, and to ultimately lead each other to their mutual demise. Lawrence’s writing is an evident commentary on both Freudian and existentialist thought, and the Officer serves as the symbol of sexual repression, and more specifically, homosexual repression. The orderly is the image of the Officer’s homoerotic desires, perhaps because he is the more practical and simple-minded of the two, he took his responsibilities and the commands of the Officer, “as he took the sun and the rain… it did not implicate him personally.” The Officer, being as complex as he was, resented the relaxed disposition of his orderly, yet he was simultaneously attracted- fatally attracted- to his movements, his physical structure, and his submissive

Without obsession, life is little to nothing. However, when the obsession begins to take a hold of one’s life and becomes a ritual that has to be done on a regular basis, in addition to undertake the procedure of stripping one´s life of everything unrelated to the obsession. This is where the obsession it starts to get out of hand. Such an obsession plays a major role in the short story Land of the Lost written by Stewart O´Nan, where the reader follows a lonely woman, who has nothing else to preoccupy herself with but to attempt to solve the mystery of where a murderer buried a dead girl.