Killing Me Softly with her FangsThe Role of Female Victimage and Cannibalism in "The Voyage Out"

Résumé

A woman of a special sensitivity, Virginia Woolf was particularly concerned with the unequal opportunities for women in post-Victorian society. Profoundly aware of the heavy burden women had to bear under patriarchal law, Woolf was no less combative with men as with those females who even contributed to perpetuate the status quo by confining themselves and other women within the narrow premises of patriarchal dictates. In this essay, I will discuss how the presence of images connected with acts of female devouring and cannibalization in Woolf's The Voyage Out respond to the narrator's intention of presenting a bizarre panorama of anachronism and incongruous norms in which the inadequacy of a patriarchal system stands out more than ever. Under the optics of these grotesque images, a claim for subversion and active involvement of the whole society of her time is voiced.