Alyssa Wallingford
October 2, 2022
English 206
Professor Catherine Frank
Analysis of Perspectives and Life in Inanimate Objects
In the Journal of Modern Literature Volume 43 Number 2, there is a section entitled “Solid Objects/Ghosts of Chairs: Virginia Woolf and the Afterlife of Things” written by Graham Fraser. Fraser’s main argument is that in analyzing Woolf, he wants to show the life which she gives to even inanimate objects, which highlights not only their lifespans, but also the short human presence with these objects. The idea that everything has life lends itself to the idea of things everchanging, and as Woolf put it, “nothing stayed the same for two seconds together. (Woolf 221). It is part of Fraser’s claim that Woolf herself is “domesticating” these individual objects by bringing them together and creating a home in which people live. Fraser goes about proving this by connecting three of Woolf’s works to show a thread of commonality between these texts. His goal is to show how Woolf describes these objects in a way which makes them seem almost lifelike, marginalizing human presence in the process.
Specifically in the text “The Lady in the Looking Glass”, she is quite literally constructing a person by what she can see through a framed perspective, in this case the mirror. This mirror only allows her to see a certain portion of the subject’s surroundings and actions, and other than that, she must assume certain actions to be the most likely based on her own experiences and perspective. However, there is also focus on the solid objects around her, from the nearby table to the couch she is sitting in, using specific descriptors. Woolf’s writing invites the reader to give animation and life to solid, inanimate objects, in thinking about what they look like when we are not there. As Fraser puts it, “we imagine not only the remaining table, but also our own absence, our own not-there-ness; we imagine our own death, our passage marked and mocked by the persistence—by the afterlife—of things.”(Fraser 95).
These ideas are relevant to the wider perspective as a whole because it recognizes that even metaphorically, we have frames of reference which color our perspective, whether that is due to what we wish to, fear to, or think we will see. We inherently frame things that we see as how they fit into or relate to our own personal experiences, which is how each person can experience that same thing differently. We can do this because it completely depends on the experiences, values, and relationships that you have had in leading up to that current experience. It is incredibly important to recognize this clashing of ideals especially when it comes to connecting with each other, whether that be for the sake of connection or argument. We need to be open to discussion with others, precisely because they will not view anything the exact same way that we ourselves do, simply because they do not have the same life that I do, and that is good. I find it really interesting how Fraser places focus on how Woolf gives life to objects, because I have never personally thought of objects as having life, apart from fantasy movies. However, even though I don’t see objects as animate, it does make me think more about the life of objects in the sense of what happens to them after they are used up, discarded, or forgotten. I think in looking at these objects, it is important to recognize that people will also not view objects in the same ways that I do, because of how I interacted with the world before I came into contact with that object. This gives a sort of life to the object because by itself, it is its own thing, regardless of how we view it, but much like people looking at others, how we view or interact with objects is heavily reliant on our past experiences with not only those specific objects, but also other, maybe similar things.
Works Cited
Fraser, Graham. “Solid Objects/Ghosts of Chairs: Virginia Woolf and the Afterlife of Things.” Journal of Modern Literature, vol. 43, no. 2, 2020, pp. 80–84, 94–95, eng206-f22.uneportfolio.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4242/2022/09/Fraser-Solid-Objects.pdf, 10.2979/jmodelite.43.2.05. Accessed 2 October 2022.
Woolf, Virginia, and Susan Dick. The Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia Woolf. San Diego, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989, pp. 215–219, eng206-f22.uneportfolio.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4242/2022/09/Woolf_Lady.pdf. Accessed 2 October 2022.
