The Mark On The Wall

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While most works of fiction follow a prescribed plot, exploring each idea on a chronological path, Virginia Woolf's "The Mark on the Wall" articulates, instead of action, an internal monologue. Human thought is not linear; in moments of introspection we jump from topic to topic, follow connections ignited by memory, logic or external input. Some critics call this essay a work of fancy, while others consider it a demonstration of control. The question of whether it is a work of subjectivism or skepticism is also a prominent debate. I prefer to view "The Mark on the Wall" as an analysis of the patterns of human thought - including both subjectivist thought and skepticist thought - distinguishing the chaos of introspection from organized writing. The thought process Woolf explores with "The Mark on the Wall" can be likened to the act of asking a person question after question in immediate succession, not allowing time for the person to contemplate how to phrase his or her response. The narrative begins with a statement so uncertain it may as well have been phrased as a question: "Perhaps it was the middle of January in the present that I first looked up and saw the mark on the wall." If this sentence is the question, the following is the answer: "In order to fix a date it is necessary to remember what one saw."(2424) This sentence then becomes a question, and the process goes on throughout the story. She remembers that she saw fire, was reading a book, that it was winter, after tea, that she had been smoking a cigarette, and she remembers thinking of a castle flag and red knights. The mark on the wall plays the role of an interruption to this train of thought: "Rather to my relief the sight of the mark interrupted the fancy, for it is an old fancy, an automatic fancy, made as a child perhaps."(2424) This relief is an effect of changing to a new tangent during an

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