Essay on Virginia Woolf’s Between the Acts

In relation to the rest of the novel, this passage is the “happy” beginning that hooks the reader, who only later realizes that this is a facade covering the horrors of the war. It creates a sense of hope in the reader

    I chose to compare and contrast two women authors from different literary time periods.  Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) as a representative of the Victorian age (1832-1901) and Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) as the spokeswoman for the Modernist (1914-1939) mindset.  Being women in historical time periods that did not embrace the talents and gifts of women; they share many of the same issues and themes throughout their works - however, it is the age in which they wrote that shaped their expressions of these themes.  Although they lived only decades apart their worlds were remarkably different - their voices were muted or amplified according to the beat of society's drum.

The author’s main idea and purposes are revealed by a series of anecdotes and allusions. The author gets very personal about the subject, as if she was going through the realization herself. You can see her opinion by the way she refers to certain things. For example, the author brings up an old memory from her childhood in paragraph nine. When she is describing the boxcar children, the words she uses are almost as if they were too

With the power of words, that causes the destruction of Germany and the world, Liesel’s uses that same power to deal with the terror of death that looms over them, allowing her to give power and hope, to those that need it, especially in the midst of the chaos of World War II. Where the German forces were deteriorating, and the Allies only grew stronger with each bomb that they drop, Liesel and her neighbors hide within one of the basements, in attempt to survive the onslaught of attacks, fearfully and anxious. The only things that were with them was each other, and their most precious items, and for Liesel, it was her books. All they could do was wait for sirens, and because of this uncertainty, Liesel took it upon herself to ease her distress.

Hemingway has made use of the book as a symbol of war to stress the soldier’s inability to lead a normal life (McKenna and Raabe 210). The symbol is used in the context of many other elements that convey Krebs’ distance from his own life. The book about war is a literary symbol that Hemingway employs in a specific context.

Beneath the gore and smoke and loam, this book is about the evanescence of life, and why some men choose to fill their brief allotment of time engaging the impossible, others in the manufacture of sorrow. In the end it is a story of the ineluctable conflict between good and evil, daylight and darkness, the White City and the Black. (Larson

Automatically, the reader knows that serious issues are about to be discussed and that the outcome may not be positive. This novel challenges the material ideology discussed above. It does this by bringing the issues to the forefront and reporting on them in a fictitious yet realistic manner. The reader is not led to believe that the ending will be happy, he is supposed to expect the consider the harsh realities of the world throughout the piece.

The “sunlight” that rises above the river symbolizes new beginnings and freedom. But if Tim O’brien he would have to fight the never ending battle of his “love” for Martha, the [memories] of his friends and the “sorrow” and lust to return home. The author also uses so contradictions where he talks about the dawn spreading across the river and the mountains which sets up a hopefulness for Tim O’brien who longs to be home. Though he wants to go home he is afraid to; so he stays in the war and bares all the burden of war for the sake of his

This novel measures the influence of an individual against human desires and the forces of nature. For example, Alexandra's relationship with the land summarizes the struggle between human desires and the larger forces than manipulate individuals. This difficult relationship between individuals and society is one of the most dominant themes and is depicted throughout the novel by using setting to reflect the characters.

or other, and we can never expect her to do it with so little expense

The structure of the novel is intensely isolated, which could allude to the control the bourgeoisie has over the proletariat, and the little choices they have over their own lives. There are typically just one or two paragraphs to a page, for example, the first and second

More than half the sentences in the essay contain some sort of negation. With relentless obsession she repeats “never,” “no longer,” “useless,” “we cannot,” and every time it means: do not delude yourself – the wounds of the war are incurable. Adjectives and nouns: “incurable,” “darkest,” “insecurity,” underscore even more deeply the fatalistic atmosphere she creates. Most sentences are very short as if cutting off any opportunity for a reader to have another opinion. She aims to reach our hearts, not our heads. “We shall not get over this war. It is useless to try.” She repeats this thought over and over driving it relentlessly into the reader’s mind and leaving no hope for a happy ending.

Novels published after a major war are often the most deeply emotional, profound ruminations on human nature. The authors of these novels were once soldiers, living in fear and enduring sleepless nights. These authors channel their experiences and emotions into their work, often creating masterpieces of literature. A Farewell to Arms is one such novel. Its author, Ernest Hemingway, was in the Italian ambulance corps in World War I, much like the protagonist of A Farewell to Arms, Frederic Henry. The themes in A Farewell to Arms reflect his mentality and the typical soldier’s disillusionment in the institutions and values he had always held close. A Farewell to Arms explores the far-reaching disillusionment that seems to plague Frederic. The theme of Frederic Henry’s disillusionment of all that he believes in appears through his desertion of the war, the deterioration of his relationship with Catherine, and his thoughts on life.

The woman and man caught in their passionate embrace are set above the wartime images. It seems that symbolically the man and woman are above the war, that their love transcends the tragedy and the tumult that surrounds them, if only because they are fighting their own romantic war. Below them is a burning city. The couple on the carriage fleeing the city looks to be the same couple that is staring into each other’s eyes. This further suggests that they were apart of the events in the war, but were still caught in the throws of their own love life. The girl that rushes from her

Edward Albee was an American playwright producer and director. He was born on March 12, 1928 probably in Virginia. He was adopted at an early age, which influenced him to write about characters that are different. His writings were characterized by realism; fidelity to life as perceived and experienced, and were considered to be absurd dramas. Albee, in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, portrays a primitive sex struggle between a middle aged couple; the relationship between George and Martha is acted out in a series of games in which one sex dominates the other through unapparent love, weapons that each have mastered, and the most hurtful insult, the revealing of the hidden truth.