Analysis Of The Mark On The Wall

“Perhaps it was the middle of January in the present that I first looked up and saw the mark on the wall” (Woolf 1).

-- Narrator

The narrator opens the story by trying to recall the specific instance of when they saw the reputed “mark on the wall.” They reflect back to the moment, hypothesizing that it was January—late winter, perhaps evening time after tea. They were smoking a cigarette, reading a book in front of the fire and echoing back to childhood fantasy. The narrator recaptures the moment—the way the fire reflected yellow upon her book, the chrysanthemums on her mantle piece, and how in her mind the burning coals remind her of the crimson flag of the red knights “riding up the side of the black rock.” The mark interrupts this thought process, bringing the speaker to halt in her “fancy”

It is a demonstration of the imagination of Virginia Woolf—her brilliantly worded prose providing vivid imagery as she wades through her subconscious thoughts. The narrator ponders whether or not the mark is a hole before discarding the idea in place of an old rose leaf. Eventually she lands on the jutting head of a nail, but even then she cannot be certain. She uses it as a focal point time and time again, launching the story into a new train of thought before anchoring it back to the question of what precisely the mark is. In between, Woolf focuses on reality and nature, emphasizing color on multiple occasions to enhance the vibrancy of her literary style. In the end, as a second figure makes an appearance, the narrator gets her answer. It isn’t a hole or the remnants of a rose, nor the jutting head of a nail. As it so happens, the inspiration behind the narrator’s thought process is all due to a small, inconsequential snail, made important only by the catalytic qualities it has on Woolf’s prose (Woolf