Virginia Woolf

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Virginia Woolf

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The Victorian Era was a time of very rigid and strict lifestyles. In the 1900's there were special rules of conduct to be followed for everything. Victorian society required everyone to follow every protocol and nobody was excluded from these 'duties'. Victorians and Edwardians believed that there should be no awkward silences or pauses during conversations, it was considered impolite. It was also believed that people should dress for dinner every night regardless of the presence of company. It was uncommon to express one's feelings or to hold an opinion or point of view other than the norm. These were among the many rules that made up the foundation of Victorian society. Virginia was born during the Victorian/Edwardian Era and lived under the iron fist of her father Leslie Stephen.

Virginia's mother died when she was young which left her father in charge of the household. He was a man who strongly believed in the customs of Victorian society and he insisted that they were followed to the letter. He enforced the required rules of conduct and behavior but Virginia found it all very "oppressive". Virginia Woolf http://metalab.unc.edu/cheryb/women/Virginia-Woolf.html went through a lot of anguish throughout her life. She suffered numerous nervous breakdowns and never managed to lead a normal life. After her father's death in 1904 she moved with her brothers and sister to Bloomsbury. She thought her father's death was "the end of tyranny". She also thought that the move from Kensington, where she lived before, to Bloomsbury, " was the gulf between respectable, mummified humbug and life crude and impertinent perhaps, but living… The new generation wanted air, simplicity and light and the move was escape from the past and all it's horrors"(108). During the early 1900's Virginia and her siblings were comfortably settled in . One Thursday evening her brother Thoby decided to start a ritual by inviting a few of his Cambridge friends home and thus began a circle of artistic and cultural group of friends. At first Virginia found them unusual but soon she joined in their lengthy conversations about art, poetry and culture. She was intrigued by their conversations which eventually took a different turn and soon they found themselves discussing topics such as religion, sexuality and other subjects that were considered taboo at the time. Thoby's Thursday evening friends originally included Clive Bell, who Virginia thought was, " a sort of mixture between Shelly and a sporting country squire"(112).

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