Inspirações mitológicas em Virginia Woolf

Leituras de As ondas e Mrs Dalloway

Abstract

The aim of this article is to discuss some passages inspired by classical texts, especially Greek mythology, present in two of Virginia Woolf's main novels: Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and The Waves (1931). The Greek theme of Eros versus Thanatos, Life and Death, runs through Woolf's novels and puts into perspective approaches to gender, class, power and resistance. Thus, the character Rhoda hides her face in The Waves, while Mrs. Dalloway's Septimus hears birds singing in Greek and Clarissa Dalloway wanders around post-World War I London in search of flowers for her party. Jane Marcus' text “Thinking back through our mothers” (1981) is taken as a starting point to reflect on how Virginia Woolf walked through the London of her time, invading the patriarchy, the male territory, to see herself as untying the Mother Tongue, freeing language from bondage to the fathers and returning it to the outsiders and women.