Modernist Manipulation: Virginia Woolf\u27s Effort to Distort Time in Three Novels

This paper explores three works by Virginia Woolf, studying her evolution as a modernist writer through Woolf’s experimentations with manipulating time in each novel. Woolf’s techniques are analyzed in the context of the modernist movement, including artistic and scientific influences, as well as being analyzed within the three works to note their development over time. Focusing on one aspect of Woolf’s work, the depiction of time, allows for an understanding of both the modernist techniques used to manipulate time and the author’s developing ability to manipulate those techniques. The seeds of modernism found in Woolf’s early works, particularly The Voyage Out, influenced the more radically modern results contained in the later works To the Lighthouse and The Waves. This study of the progression of Woolf’s work allows readers to appreciate Woolf’s early novels as stand-alone works as well as in context with her later works