The Representation Of English Nationality In Between The Acts

Between the Acts is Virginia Woolf’s swan song. The novel features two narrative lines. One is a panoramic representation of the Olivers, a gentry family in an English village; the other focuses on a festive pageant performed by the villagers. The two lines parallel and intertwine through the whole novel, combining history and reality, art and life, stage and the daily world. The pageant is a core event in Between the Acts. It occupies a centrality in the novel, both structurally and thematically. The content of the pageant is largely drawn from English history and traditions, while its dynamic interaction with the audience strengthens their national identity. Consequently, English nationality is a significant theme of Between the Acts.Theoretically based on David Miller’s interpretation of nationality and other relevant literature, this thesis is intended to study the representation of English nationality in Between the Acts. In David Miller’s opinion, nationality features the community’s acceptance of their national identity, which contains two important constituents, namely common beliefs and historical continuity. In this sense, this thesis plans to analyze the representation of English nationality in Between the Acts in three aspects-common beliefs, historical continuity and the community’s view of themselves.Through a series of central images on the stage, the pageant celebrates a historically constructed nationality, which features the monarch, the Empire and a common religion; the sequence of the pageant acts is in accordance with the English history, which indicates a historical continuity of English nationality; the audience’s reflection on the pageant also deepens their English national identity.However, the constructedness of English nationality is simultaneously exposed in the proceeding of the pageant. The common beliefs of the nation is in essence subjectively imagined, while an insuperable discrepancy lies between the abstract definition and the reality of the nation; simultaneously the historical continuity is constantly dissolved by the concealed historic and prehistoric images, which emerges beyond the stage, or between the acts; the audience’s reflection on the pageant also leads to doubt on the fixed nature of their nationality.The response from the audience after the performance elevates the pageant exhibition of English national past to a profound and dialectic understanding. The villagers’ symbolic return to religion indicates their collective request for a common national identity; their reflection on the concealed past embeds the national history into the grand process of life, exhibiting an inherent vitality of English nationality; their response itself forms an active participation in the construction of nationality, which simultaneously conveys Woolf s defensive attitude towards English nationality.