Between The Acts: Transcending Binary Oppositions

Between the Acts is the last work of Virginia Woolf, finished in February and published in July,1941. This book is not revised during her lifetime and does not receive sufficient attention from the critical filed, though it is an informative and inspiring novel that is strongly promoted for both enjoying and research. Between the Acts portrays a vivid picture of British country life, telling a story that takes place in an old English village one day in June, 1939. In the novel, there are multiple intersections of dualities, such as past and present, savage and civilized, human and animal, nature and society, love and hate as well as art and reality. Woolf never puts the two polarities of duality in an absolute opposition; for her, they are complementary elements existing interdependently. This thesis is intended to reveal how Woolf formally and thematically transcends the hierarchal binary opposition in Between the Acts and makes her final endeavor in art in creating a kind of unity and wholeness when human civilization is severely threatened.First, Woolf transcends binary opposition in her innovation of an all-inclusive artistic form. Woolf integrates Miss La Trobe’s village pageant with the living drama of the people watching the pageant, thus she successfully creates a "novel-play" and blurs the boundaries between the two genres. Besides, Woolf finds a new and more inclusive literary mode, tragicomedy in the book, which is mainly demonstrated in two aspects:the seemingly quiet and peaceful country life is shadowed by the approaching war, and the cheerful atmosphere of the pageant is often interrupted by the caged unhappy life of the characters in the novel.Second, this thesis probes into three pairs of dualities, namely man/nature, unity/dispersity, and history/reality, so as to show how Woolf transcends binary opposition and achieves a kind of dynamic balance and unity in discord. Woolf believes that only if human beings are in harmony with nature can they live forever. In Between the Acts, she emphasizes that the Great Nature plays an active part in pageant performance, human life and artistic creation, which should not be regarded passive and marginalized. Meanwhile, Woolf explores the natural essence of human being and confirms the equal relationship between man and nature. The second duality, unity and dispersity, covers the contrast between family ties and resentments, and the relationship between artist and audience. On one hand, Giles and Isa, Bart and Lucy are often involved into gender or religion conflicts with each other. On the other hand harmony and unity exist among the family members. Between the Acts reflects Woolf’s cognition of the important role reader plays in the interpretation of the text. Despite the fact that at times Miss La Trobe is the slave to the audience, she is also successful in uniting and stimulating the audience. As a result, Woolf transcends the absolute opposition between male and female, artist and audience, and achieves a kind of equilibrium and harmony between the unity—dispersal relations. The last duality is between history and reality. The patriarchal writing of history would not only be a burden to people in reality, but make war history repeat itself. Woolf subverts the patriarchal writing of history, constructs a new one through Miss La Trobe’s pageant, and integrates the past and present into an organic whole. It is in the continuity of history that reality and future make sense and eventually become history.While writing Between the Acts, Woolf was suffering from great torture brought about by wars. She believes the fundamental reason of war is us/them duality in the large realm and man/woman opposition at home. Her transcending of the western dualistic thinking pattern presents her proposition for world peace, and her final endeavor in art to disclose a way out of human catastrophe.