Virginia Woolf On Method

Abstract

                  Virginia Woolf proclaimed “on or about December 1910, human nature changed”. Human nature changed.” Nevertheless, the truth is that human nature is what it is and, therefore, to talk of human nature changing is to say that our understanding of human nature is not the same. The basic truth is that man is a psychical entity rather than a biological existence. This implies that the individual human being could not be understood from outside – that is, from what he says or does; he can essentially be known from what he thinks and feels, which may lead him to perform something even unconsciously. With this understanding of man as a being constituted of several psychological facts and forces, the whole perspective of novel writing changed in the early 20th Century. The fiction writer was faced with the problem as to what could be the substance of a novel and what could be the effective way of dealing with the material. She held the view that the proper method of novel writing would be to get to the bottom of the mind. How does Virginia Woolf deploys, defines and perfects this method is the subject matter of this paper.