Quote: “…she never had married, and yet, judging from the mask-like indifference of her face, she had gone through twenty times more of passion and experience than those whose loves are trumpeted forth for all the world to hear. Under the stress of thinking about Isabella, her room became more shadowy and symbolic; the corners seemed darker, the legs of chairs and tables more spindly and hieroglyphic”(Woolf 216-217).
Comment: From an early feminist interpretation of Woolf’s story “The Lady in the Looking-Glass: A Reflection,” we could look to an example like this and point out all the characteristics of Isabella, our primary focal point, and discuss how she is either a good or bad role model. Taking a more comprehensive look at later modes of feminist critique, we could go beyond those limiting factors and address what is being said about gender that is not explicitly coming directly from her actions or being. I would put a great deal of emphasis on recognizing how the writing identifies a cultural feeling toward unmarried women as being somewhat negative or irregular and then changes the narrative to place a new perspective. The elements of this quotation that can relate to Isabella’s objects or possessions also can indicate how specific descriptors or observations can connect to that of the descriptions and analysis of women; by her furniture suddenly seeming “darker,” “shadowy,” or “spindly,” perhaps one could take that as a change in how society views a woman when her path veers from that culturally normalized, well-established path.
Question: I wonder if Woolf’s narrator sympathizes with Isabella and maybe recognizes some of that shared understanding from a woman’s perspective of always being looked at and judged out of context with the humanness of experience …but then I asked how and why I assumed the narrator was a woman? Does that in and of itself hold any weight as we look at this piece of literature from a feminist critique?
