Virginia Woolf's Body Narrative Study

Virginia Woolf was one of the leading-bearers of 20th century's modernism literature concerning the content and form she innovated in literature.She puts the corporeal sensation of protagonists in the first place by making full use of stream of consciousness.Her works are full of the images of disease,trauma both physical and spiritual,insanity and death.Taking Virginia Woolf's novels as the research object,this dissertation employs theory study and literary interpretation to construct corporeal narratology of her novels and interpret its effect by taking disease,trauma,insanity and death into account.Efforts are made to shed light on Woolf's corporeal ideal and her reflections on destiny by depicting the tension between body and social discourse.On the one hand,this dissertation deconstructs feminist body writing to show Woolf's concern on universal human being's body,on the other hand,this dissertation dwells upon the reality of corporeal existence of 20th century,which withstood the discipline of medical and mainstream discourse,moral standards,and bio-politics in society.In theory study,based on the development of body theory in 20th century of the West,this dissertation clarifies its backdrop of the turn from disembodied cognition to embodied cognition in philosophy and the body problems arisen in the Edwardian age.As a result,Woolf's corporeal ideal,the wholeness of individual body and the world,is perfectly in line with intercoporeality of Maurice Merleau-Ponty who issued the concept several decades later in 1940s.The two of them both pursue the integration of body and mind.By taking both intercorporeality of Merleau-Ponty and corporeal narratology of Daniel Punday as the basis,this dissertation constructs three major driving forces of narrative of Woolf's novel,namely,protagonists'body,language outside the plots and fragmented narrative.These three major forces of narrative being constructed with the the same premise of body,reflect the protagonists' intercorporeality and Woolf's delicate insight on universal human being's body and her own life experience.The feminist narratology in the past missed the significance of generalized body to Woolf's novels.The truth is the true body picture only exists in the connections of narrative instead of concrete and non-fragmented plots.It lies in the body feeling and inner heart where transitions and connections happen,and readers will feel familiar even when they put the novels down.In literary interpretation,based on corporeal narratology,this dissertation concludes three tensions between protagonists' body and social discourses.From the perspective of the tension between moral standards and individual body,it is found that costumes and mirrors are closely related to the sense of shame,which symbolize the constructing power of morality on both male and female body.It also shows how Woolf reacted to trauma in literature.From the perspective of tension between body with disease and insanity and medical discourse,it can be seen that the marginalized bodies disciplined by bio-politics are aphasic.The last is the tension between individual death and bio-politics.The depiction of the intertwined state of life and death shows not only trauma of war and death,but also the matter of right of disposing one's own life(suicide).The aim of theory construction and literary interpretation is to shed light on the challenges of body at present.Thus this dissertation discusses the significance of Woolf's corporeal narratology in the last part.The body disciplined by demography and bio-politics in modern time lacks diversity at the end of the day.Woolf's depiction on disease,insanity;trauma and death is conducive to therapeutic contribution,such as regulating emotion and catharsis.It is not only a way for her to face the traumatic experience,but also a way for readers to get physical and spiritual balance through literary aesthetics.Those body descriptions that do not conform to the social mainstream discourse stimulate the readers' neglected and repressed body feelings in daily life and create the opportunity to fully understand the "normal”and "abnormal"bodies,so as to get rid of the prejudice against body and use the aesthetic consciousness to obtain the spiritual strength.Unitary social discourse creates a narrow living space for human being and obliterates the living space for diversified body.The present challenges individual body faces in essence is a new form of discipline.What enlightenment dose the corporeal narrative of Woolf's novels bring to the body concept of today's society?The conclusion of this dissertations initiates that Woolf's true presentation of the marginalized body adds an indispensable part to the comprehensive picture of body in society,makes people reflect on the unitary body concept and provides an opportunity to examine our own living challenges.In addition,it enriches the vision of women body writing in the future by deconstructing the issues of gender,reproduction,and misery in order to care for the human body beyond genders.Generally speaking,the investigation of the corporeal narrative in Woolfs novels provides a new perspective for Woolf's research.It not only discusses the body of disease,trauma,disease and insanity against the mainstream discourse of society,but also reveals the significance of literature and treatment.The seemingly marginal and non-universal corporeal narrative actually reflects the very similar human life by depicting the problems of life,getting old and death that everyone has to face.The very common human life makes us respect Woolfs life experience and understand that the value of corporeal narrative is to disclose the crisis that human body generally experiences.