“A Living Mosaic of Human Beings”: The Life Writing of Virginia Woolf and Zitkala-Ša
This essay examines life writing by English author Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) and Yankton Dakota writer Zitkala-Ša (1876-1938), specifically Woolf’s memoir, “A Sketch of the Past,” written in 1939-40 and first published in Moments of Being in 1976, and Zitkala-Ša’s autobiographical essays, published...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina
2021-06-01
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| Series: | Ilha do Desterro |
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| Online Access: | https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/desterro/article/view/78361 |
| Summary: | This essay examines life writing by English author Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) and Yankton Dakota writer Zitkala-Ša (1876-1938), specifically Woolf’s memoir, “A Sketch of the Past,” written in 1939-40 and first published in Moments of Being in 1976, and Zitkala-Ša’s autobiographical essays, published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1900. This comparative study explores how both women establish selfhood amid competing pressures vying for their minds and bodies; how mothers and maternal loss shape their autobiographies; how physical and psychological place and displacement influence their life writing; and how matters of audience affect their literary self-portraits. Reading Woolf and Zitkala-Ša together yields fresh insights into the intersections of race, class, gender, and feminism in women’s writing. |
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| ISSN: | 0101-4846 2175-8026 |