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Virginia WoolfA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Virginia Woolf does not offer any physical description of any character in the short story. The narrator states that the woman and the man who form the ghostly couple died at different times after having lived in the house for a long time. Their main characteristics are given by actions performed, mainly searching through the house. The ghostly couple is therefore only a shadow of a story that has vanished through time, and that is precisely what they set about to find. The couple comes back to the house in which they once lived to find traces of a long lost love they shared. Beyond being characters in a story, the ghost are symbols of unrest, of something that has not met a closure during a lifetime. Woolf’s ghosts are not meant to be scary, as in conventional ghost stories; they are effectively two people seeking closure about a situation that death caused; that is, the eternal separation of lovers.
Woolf refuses to give shape and form to the main characters since they are also part of a narrative structure that is ambiguous in its entirety. The male ghost even doubts the identity of the narrator. In his last words in the story, after finding the sleeping couple, the male ghost says, “Long years—” (5), melancholically pointing to a period in time when the ghostly couple lived together undisturbed by the overwhelming presence of death in the house.
By Virginia Woolf
A Haunted House and Other Short Stories
A Haunted House and Other Short Stories
Virginia Woolf
A Room of One's Own
A Room of One's Own
Virginia Woolf
Between The Acts
Between The Acts
Virginia Woolf
Flush: A Biography
Flush: A Biography
Virginia Woolf
How Should One Read a Book?
How Should One Read a Book?
Virginia Woolf
Jacob's Room
Jacob's Room
Virginia Woolf
Kew Gardens
Kew Gardens
Virginia Woolf
Modern Fiction
Modern Fiction
Virginia Woolf
Moments of Being
Moments of Being
Virginia Woolf
Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown
Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown
Virginia Woolf
Mrs. Dalloway
Mrs. Dalloway
Virginia Woolf
Orlando
Orlando
Virginia Woolf
The Death of the Moth
The Death of the Moth
Virginia Woolf
The Duchess and the Jeweller
The Duchess and the Jeweller
Virginia Woolf
The Lady in the Looking Glass
The Lady in the Looking Glass
Virginia Woolf
The Mark on the Wall
The Mark on the Wall
Virginia Woolf
The New Dress
The New Dress
Virginia Woolf
The Voyage Out
The Voyage Out
Virginia Woolf
The Waves
The Waves
Virginia Woolf
Three Guineas
Three Guineas
Virginia Woolf