Abstract
In the last chapter we established that two opposed principles struggle continuously in the world of Virginia Woolf’s novels: a principle of chaos, a destructive force; and that of deliberate form or order, a creative force. We discovered that both of these principles are driven by a primitive form of energy. The destructive force is based on ‘insensibility’ and ‘indifference’: it is not conscious. It shows itself in vast elemental powers such as the sea, the sun and the waves. The creative force is also ‘not highly conscious’. It originates in primitive drives for survival and procreation. Virginia Woolf’seems to describe human beings and other creatures — animals, fish and birds — as sharing the ‘creative’ force, as a combative survival instinct.
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