"All this little affair with 'being' is over:" Metaphysical Crisis in Virginia Woolf's The Waves

• Thesis title in English: "All this little affair with 'being' is over:" Metaphysical Crisis in Virginia Woolf's The Waves
• Key words: Virginia Woolf, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Jacques Derrida, Vlny, metafyzika, subjektivita, multiplicity, centrum, Percival, znaky, esence, stroje
• English key words: Virginia Woolf, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Jacques Derrida, The Waves, metaphysics, subjectivity, multiplicity, centre, Percival, signs, essence, machines
• Academic year of topic announcement: 2013/2014
• Thesis type: Bachelor's thesis
• Thesis language: angličtina
• Department: Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures (21-UALK)
• Supervisor: prof. PhDr. Martin Procházka, CSc.
• Author: hidden - assigned and confirmed by the Study Dept.
• Date of registration: 22.01.2014
• Date of assignment: 22.01.2014
• Administrator's approval: not processed yet
• Confirmed by Study dept. on: 03.02.2014
• Date and time of defence: 07.09.2015 00:00
• Date of electronic submission: 10.08.2015
• Date of proceeded defence: 07.09.2015
• Submitted/finalized: committed by student and finalized
• Opponents: Mgr. David Vichnar, Ph.D.

Guidelines

The aim of the thesis is to provide a close reading of Virginia Woolf’s novel The Waves (1931) through the prism of two different philosophical views on metaphysics: Jacques Derrida’s on the one hand and Gilles Deleuze’s and Felix Guattari’s on the other. This approach proves to be fruitful for an analysis of the novel due to manifold underlying conceptual similarities between the theorists and the author.
The Waves is arguably the most experimental of Woolf’s works. While not directly adhering to any one particular philosophy, Woolf’s developing project, undertaken as early as in Jacob’s Room (1922), manifests in this novel most transparently, The Waves being one of the latest fictional works the author published. It follows the voices of six personae and a missing seventh - Bernard, Neville, Louis, Rhoda, Jinny, Susan, and Percival. Derrida's thinking about structurality and centrality are mirrored in one of the core arguments of the thesis which suggests that the novel’s structure and narrative are built around an absent-present centre - Percival. It will be argued that Percival’s status enables for Derrida’s “free play” to take place on the structural configuration of the novel as well as the narrative ‘events’ themselves. A discussion of how the characters reflect on their situation (i.e. the anxiety induced by the free play) follows. The protagonists’ subjectivity will be further explored on the background of Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of flows and machines with a particular focus on the notion of “multiplicities”, which corresponds to Woolf’s express intentions of instilling several consciousnesses into one.
Structure of the work :
1. Introduction - methodology, theoretical background, short comparison with other works by Woolf
2. Chapter I - Pre-mortem: multiplicities, machines, characters
3. Chapter II - Death: centre, anxiety, free play
4. Chapter III - Post-mortem: affirmation, responsibility, language
5. Conclusion

References

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Deleuze, Gilles. Proust and Signs: The Complete Text. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2000
Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Robert Hutley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1983.
Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1988.
Derrida, Jacques. The Gift of Death. Trans. David Wills. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1995.
Derrida, Jacques. Writing and Difference. Trans. Alan Bass. London: Routledge, 2001.
Goldman, Jane. Virginia Woolf: To the Lighthouse, The Waves. New York: Columbia Univ., 1998.
Moi, Toril. Sexual/textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory. London: Routledge, 2002.
Randall, Bryony, and Jane Goldman, eds. Virginia Woolf in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2012.
Warner, Eric. Virginia Woolf, The Waves. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1987.
Woolf, Virginia. Selected Diaries. London: Vintage, 2008.
Woolf, Virginia. Selected Letters. London: Vintage Classic, 2008.
Woolf, Virginia. The Waves. Ed. Kate Flint. London: Penguin, 2000.