“What Else Can I Do But Write?” Discursive Disruption and the Ethics of Style in Virginia Woolf'sThree Guineas

Abstract

This essay suggests that to understand the pacifist position Woolf takes in her critique of fascism and patriarchy, it is essential to recognizehow, not only why, she explores the relationship between narrative and political authority. Creating an intersection between a feminist conceptualization of Woolf's narrative technique and philosophical notions about ethical forms of representation, it argues that Woolf fragments the locus of narrative authority in Three Guineas to model a stylistic resistance to linguistic practices she thinks support totalitarian ideology.