"Dispersed Are We": Mirroring and National Identity in Virginia Woolf's Between the Acts

Abstract

The fluctuations of mind, and ever failing effort of individual subjectivity to create a solid sense of self, form a central theme in Virginia Woolf's work. Most of her novels examine this dynamics within consciousness of one subjectivity, or within several separate ones. Woolf's artistic concentration on sphere led to accusations of political quietism made against her already during her lifetime.1 In last decade or two, however, an increasing recognition has emerged among Woolf's critics that social and political dimensions of her fiction are no less farreaching and innovative than her investigation of private subjectivity. Leonard Woolf's famous assertion that his wife was the least political animal that has lived since Aristotle invented definition2 is still often cited, but usually in order to be rebuffed as an absurdity. It has become widely established by now that Woolf's fiction is deeply political, not merely in its preoccupation with feminism (where Woolf is anti-patriarchal in both domestic and social sphere) but also in its anti-fascist concern (where she is anti-patriarchal on national level as well). This critical awareness has led, in recent years, to a growing interest in Between Acts (1941), usually taken to be Woolf's most political fictional work. Its protagonist, if such a term is at all applicable to this novel,