Virginia Woolf-The Lady in the Looking-Glass

The Lady in the Looking-Glass is an essay about perception. Virginia Woolf presents a few themes in this piece that can be examined. Two important issues in this piece are perspective and the representation of the modern woman. Her presentation of the female character, Isabella, portrays a modern woman. Isabella is a popular, rich and intelligent female with many friends; "...it was fact that she was a spinster; that she was rich;" (p.1225). Entering the age of modern writings, her character is probably represents an educated woman who lives the non-traditional life, a single woman. "...she had bought this house and collected with her own hands-often in the most obscure corners of the world and at the great risk of poisonous stings and Oriental diseases-" (p.1125). Isabella is a versed and traveled woman, clearly very independent. She has her own house and has procured her furnishing from many parts of the world.  The looking glass (or Woolf's perception of Isabella) sees Isabella as a woman who has never been married, but has known love and passion; "...she had never married, and yet, judging from the mask-like indifference of her face, she had gone through twenty times more of passion.." (p.1226). What is most interesting about this piece is that Isabella is being viewed through a looking-glass and not directly. The narrator (Woolf), is beckoning to the reader to understand that what the narrator sees is a perception. It also renders the feeling that a woman is not one dimensional. To view a person through a looking glass is dangerous, nothing and everything can appear to be what it is not; "People should not leave looking-glasses hanging in their rooms any more than they should leave open cheque books or letters confessing some hideous crime" (p.1224). Woolf, warns the reader in this firs sentence that everything is not how it may appear. To know someone from one perspective is really not to know them at all. In the fifth paragraph of this piece, Isabella comes to life. The looking glass changes perspective; "Suddenly these reflections were ended violently and yet without a sound" (p.1226). Things can turn in an instant. What appears in the looking-glass is no longer a picture of loveliness, but some sort of impending doom. "Isabella did not wish to be known-but she should no longer escape" (p.1226). This line signifies some real perspective that my lay ahead for the reader to examine. "One must put oneself in her shoes" (p.1226). This line indicates that looking at Isabella through the looking glass is no longer sufficient. There is more to her than a looking glass can reflect. "...she became larger and larger in the looking-glass, more and more completely the person into whose mind one has been trying to penetrate" (p.1227). As Isabella comes closer into view, she is no longer just a body moving around. She is actually depicted as a real person; "fitted the qualities on had discovered into this visible body"(p.1227). Isabella goes from subject or specimen to human figure/shell. She almost becomes real in this sense. In the end, it is revealed that "Isabella was perfectly empty"(p.1228). The last sentence provokes the reader and acts as a reminder, things are not always as they appear; "People should leave looking-glasses hanging in their rooms"(p.1228).

Woolf does a candid job of taking the reader from one perception to another through the lens of the "looking-glass". the style of writing was intriguing. I can see why she is a notable modernist writer. She evokes thought through her work. The representation of the modern woman emerging was refreshing to read. After examining the women of the Victorian era, The Lady in the Looking Glass was a good transition into what would come next for generations. In this piece, I felt involved. I felt involved because we exist sometimes only in perception.