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Virginia WoolfA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Throughout her essay, Woolf makes use of imagery to help the reader grasp concepts that are fundamentally abstract. In the first paragraph, she conjures up quotidian scenes of a common life including “women gossiping,” “trees rustling,” and “donkey braying” (1). She goes on to compare these ordinary moments to the amalgamation of books on a shelf in a library, acquired from all different places for all different reasons. Woolf draws in her reader with these images, giving examples of commonalities they may have experienced, points of entry to her essay that they can grasp onto.
The kind of library that she portrays offers a vast choice of genre. In differentiating the many genres and how one should understand them, she states that expecting the same results from poems, novels, and biographies is like expecting the same from a tiger, a tortoise, and an elephant. This simile not only paints a picture but also emphasizes the flexibility that reading requires, as Woolf argues. These images are essential to her theme of The Critical Freedom of the Individual, since she argues that the personal approach to reading is tantamount.
By Virginia Woolf
A Haunted House
A Haunted House
Virginia Woolf
A Haunted House and Other Short Stories
A Haunted House and Other Short Stories
Virginia Woolf
A Room of One's Own
A Room of One's Own
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Between The Acts
Between The Acts
Virginia Woolf
Flush: A Biography
Flush: A Biography
Virginia Woolf
Jacob's Room
Jacob's Room
Virginia Woolf
Kew Gardens
Kew Gardens
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Modern Fiction
Modern Fiction
Virginia Woolf
Moments of Being
Moments of Being
Virginia Woolf
Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown
Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown
Virginia Woolf
Mrs. Dalloway
Mrs. Dalloway
Virginia Woolf
Orlando
Orlando
Virginia Woolf
The Death of the Moth
The Death of the Moth
Virginia Woolf
The Duchess and the Jeweller
The Duchess and the Jeweller
Virginia Woolf
The Lady in the Looking Glass
The Lady in the Looking Glass
Virginia Woolf
The Mark on the Wall
The Mark on the Wall
Virginia Woolf
The New Dress
The New Dress
Virginia Woolf
The Voyage Out
The Voyage Out
Virginia Woolf
The Waves
The Waves
Virginia Woolf
Three Guineas
Three Guineas
Virginia Woolf