Seeing Things Within and Beyond the Mirror: An Analysis of Virginia Woolf’s “The Lady in The Looking Glass: A Reflection”

Virginia Woolf a highly appreciated writer both for her literary-critical insight and innovative writing techniques explores the role and character of women in society to reveal the truth and reality of their nature. Woolf in her works surfaces forth the inner discomfort of apparently integrated an...

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Main Author: Kainat Zeb
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Department of English, University of Chitral 2020-12-01
Series:University of Chitral Journal of Linguistics and Literature
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Online Access:https://jll.uoch.edu.pk/index.php/jll/article/view/139
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author Kainat Zeb
author_facet Kainat Zeb
author_sort Kainat Zeb
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description Virginia Woolf a highly appreciated writer both for her literary-critical insight and innovative writing techniques explores the role and character of women in society to reveal the truth and reality of their nature. Woolf in her works surfaces forth the inner discomfort of apparently integrated and a whole individual. In “The Lady in The Looking Glass: A Reflection” (1929), Woolf employs the stream of consciousness technique to communicate the thoughts of a narrator who ponders an image of Isabella Tyson to unveil the nature of truth and reality of her person by opening the intricate layers of her appearance. This paper explores the concept of the split self with reference to the character of Isabella to see the impact of the other on/in the construction of self. Lacan’s concept of mirror stage is used as a theoretical framework to see how Isabella’s character is put in the external symbolic order and is alienated from its own history to examine how the self can be conceptualized and effected by the interplay of various forces and the inside form in and through other. This study demonstrates that Isabella’s self-image is the distorted product of the ideal ego and ego ideal and is made and changed by acting towards others to make them believe what they see in her as true of her.
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spelling doaj-art-b5a8f82a7bae42e7996e46337f0f05882025-08-20T02:11:54ZengDepartment of English, University of ChitralUniversity of Chitral Journal of Linguistics and Literature2617-36112663-15122020-12-014II10.33195/4taphx52Seeing Things Within and Beyond the Mirror: An Analysis of Virginia Woolf’s “The Lady in The Looking Glass: A Reflection”Kainat Zeb0Lecturer in English, National University of Modern Languages (NUML) Peshawar Campus Pakistan Virginia Woolf a highly appreciated writer both for her literary-critical insight and innovative writing techniques explores the role and character of women in society to reveal the truth and reality of their nature. Woolf in her works surfaces forth the inner discomfort of apparently integrated and a whole individual. In “The Lady in The Looking Glass: A Reflection” (1929), Woolf employs the stream of consciousness technique to communicate the thoughts of a narrator who ponders an image of Isabella Tyson to unveil the nature of truth and reality of her person by opening the intricate layers of her appearance. This paper explores the concept of the split self with reference to the character of Isabella to see the impact of the other on/in the construction of self. Lacan’s concept of mirror stage is used as a theoretical framework to see how Isabella’s character is put in the external symbolic order and is alienated from its own history to examine how the self can be conceptualized and effected by the interplay of various forces and the inside form in and through other. This study demonstrates that Isabella’s self-image is the distorted product of the ideal ego and ego ideal and is made and changed by acting towards others to make them believe what they see in her as true of her. https://jll.uoch.edu.pk/index.php/jll/article/view/139Lacan, Mirror, Ego Ideal, Ideal Ego, Identity, Self, Other
spellingShingle Kainat Zeb
Seeing Things Within and Beyond the Mirror: An Analysis of Virginia Woolf’s “The Lady in The Looking Glass: A Reflection”
University of Chitral Journal of Linguistics and Literature
Lacan, Mirror, Ego Ideal, Ideal Ego, Identity, Self, Other
title Seeing Things Within and Beyond the Mirror: An Analysis of Virginia Woolf’s “The Lady in The Looking Glass: A Reflection”
title_full Seeing Things Within and Beyond the Mirror: An Analysis of Virginia Woolf’s “The Lady in The Looking Glass: A Reflection”
title_fullStr Seeing Things Within and Beyond the Mirror: An Analysis of Virginia Woolf’s “The Lady in The Looking Glass: A Reflection”
title_full_unstemmed Seeing Things Within and Beyond the Mirror: An Analysis of Virginia Woolf’s “The Lady in The Looking Glass: A Reflection”
title_short Seeing Things Within and Beyond the Mirror: An Analysis of Virginia Woolf’s “The Lady in The Looking Glass: A Reflection”
title_sort seeing things within and beyond the mirror an analysis of virginia woolf s the lady in the looking glass a reflection
topic Lacan, Mirror, Ego Ideal, Ideal Ego, Identity, Self, Other
url https://jll.uoch.edu.pk/index.php/jll/article/view/139
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