Virginia Woolf
Author
British · 20th century
Modernist novelist and essayist. Known for stream-of-consciousness technique and exploration of interior emotional states. Author of Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse.
Notable Works
- Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, A Room of One's Own
Appears in the Archive
Context within the Archive
Virginia Woolf (biographical)
“Don't you worry, folks, we took out all her teeth”
Community readers connect the line to the real early-twentieth-century practice of pulling women's teeth to "cure" hysteria and mental illness: torture presented as medicine. Virginia Woolf underwent it herself and kept writing throughout; the extraction did not tame her. Read against Taylor, the pen is the weapon the silencing fails to remove.
Community comment