Book review of the Mark on the Wall 墙上的斑点英文赏析.doc

Book Review of the Mark on the Wall by Virginia Woolf As a modernist writer, Virginia Woolf isnt interested on describing the reality as it really is, but she wants to privilege the imagination and the liberty of creation. In her short story “The Mark on the Wall”, a simple element like a mark on the wall is responsible to the narrators deeply reflection about life and stimulates the imagination of the reader.Although, there are many elements in this short story that are capable of being discussed, this analysis only points out some of them. The first point that can be considered very important is the symbolism of the mark on the wall. During all the story, the narrator imagines what that mark could be, but he/she is never sure about it: “But for that mark, Im not sure about it; I dont believe it was made by a nail after all; its too big, too round, for that. I might get up, but if I got up and looked at it, ten to one I shouldnt be able to say for certain; because once a things done, no one ever knows how it happened.”This confusion about the identity of the mark on the wall can be interpreted as the confusion that people have in relation to the meaning of life. As in the short story that only in the final the narrator discovers the true identity of the mark, the human beings will probably know what life is only in its end.Other important element of this short novel is the criticism to those people that dont develop their own ideas, although they follow somebodys thinking: “Everybody follows somebody, such is the philosophy of Whitaker”. However the tougher criticism is taken to the realists that wanted to describe the reality and the human being as they are in fact.This literary pattern was very discussed by the modernists, because they defend that the reality and the man are changing all the time and it would be impossible to prove or know something in its totality. Even for a individual, it is difficult to know himself/herself deeply, for the reason that anyone has the certain about his/her attitude in front of a big problem, for example.This point of view of the modernists can be verified in some parts of this story, such as the moment that the narrator questions the reality and even himself/herself: “No, no nothing is proved, nothing is known”, “ Where was I ? What has it all been about? A tree? A river? The Downs? Whitakers Almanack? The fields of a asphodel? I cant remember a thing. Everything is moving, falling, slipping, vanishing”Finally, the last important aspect of this short story that will be discussed is the criticism to the religion, that always imposes its dogma and people have to follow it, without questioning. This manipulation of ideas is deeply criticized by modernists, because it contradicts the liberty and the power of creation. In fact not only the religion is censured by the modernism, but as it was said before, every person that doesnt have his/her own ideas and accept opinions and discourses pre-constructed by someone else.In The Mark on the Wall, the sensitive female writer Virginia Woolf opened the curtain to a new world in novel writingstream of consciousness, which is an literal trend in the early 20th century and regarded as the beginning of the modernist writing. Some people may take The Mark on the Wall as a boring novel which consists of the writers free thinking touched by a common mark on the wall. Throughout the whole story, the heroine tries to figure out what the mark is six times and her thought starts from the mark on the wall and comes back to it after a series of wild flowing. If the whole novel is just some kind of a womans stream of consciousness, why should we take it seriously? As far as I am concerned, the stream of consciousness novel The Mark on the Wall is significant in so many ways. In it readers could enjoy the journey of her floating minds, listen to a female voicing their long-lasting confusing and smell the fragrance of philosophy thinking.Firstly, being a stream of consciousness novel, it takes us into a journey of observing human beings inner world. Focusing on peoples stream of consciousness, Woolf reveals the flickering of that inner flame which flashes its messages through the brain. Her sensitivity and intelligence provides us a different spiritual world from her contemporaneous male writers. So I should say that one of the significances of The Mark on the Wall is that it allows us to appreciate our floating minds by her sensitive thoughts and words. Secondly, Woolf shows us some of her feminism thoughts in the novel The Mark on the Wall. “If it were not for Whitakers Almanac-if it were not for the Table of Precedency”, “This train of thought, she perceives, is threatening mere waste of energy, even some collision with reality, for who will ever be able to lift a finger against Whitakers Table of Precedency?” We can draw her thinking of equality between human beings from these sentences, and so is the equality between man and woman, which is her repeated theme in her literature works. In one word, this novel not only shows Woolfs concern with humans inner world, but also with females whose voice is always not paid attention to.Last but not the least; the whole passage gives an exhaustive view of Woolfs philosophy thinking. “How readily our thoughts swarm upon a new object, lifting it a little way, as ants carr