The Simple Mark of Womanhood

Yesterday morning I discussed the tragic suicide of the great English writer Virginia Woolf. The act of committing suicide was not easy for this woman. In fact, I find this woman to be resourceful in her final attempt. Previous attempts did not lead Woolf to her final goal. She was too self-reliant. Apparently Woolf knew how to swim well. The final attempt landed Woolf looking outside of her comfort zone. What object could she use that would imbalance her body weight? What would cause Woolf to sink to the bottom of her river?

I attempted suicide at the age of twenty. I was still in my senior year of high school. I had an argument with a friend who turned to have more issues than I could deal with. I decided to cut my arm with scissors. This attempt was one of an amateur. When I went to counseling – an older woman from my church and also mentioned in John Grisham’s book about on one of my hometowns – this woman physically showed me how to cut myself the right way. Thirteen years later, I am still shocked by this woman’s honesty. Wow. Had I attempted doing this the way my former counselor explained, I would not be writing this morning.

Over the years, I have attempted counseling with my husband. After the last experience, I decided writing would be the best outlet for seeking help for my problems. The last counselor we had was a female who seemed to be a disability rights advocate. The first process consisted of an intake. I listed the problems I was having. I also included sexual difficulty. This became a mistake. At the time, I was comfortable opening up about the problem with physical intimacy.

This subject was the only topic during the first session my husband and I had with this female counselor. Throughout the session, the counselor seemed to be enjoying our discomfort while discussing and showing us new ideas and approaches. The counselor offered to take me to Christie’s Toy Box one day to look at intimate lotions. This made me feel even more uncomfortable. She said we were all adults and we should be able to handle discussing the subject in an adult manner.

Maybe this is one important reason why I reject areas of modernism in our media. I had to walk away from a book club that centered around sexual content. I have had to change the channel on television because I do not wish to see sexual content. I read a couple required pieces in women’s literature that made me want to take one hundred showers back to back. I refuse to buy clothes that reveal too much of my body.

When I am inside the comfort of my home, I am able to dress freely. I am able to have a private collection of chemises that I wear to work out in. I wear night gowns that do not reveal too much of my body. This is something my husband loves about me. Even when we are alone, I still prefer to be covered up. My husband does pick out clothes he likes to see me in in the privacy of our home. He knows what I will and will not wear. My husband knows that I value my body as a tunnel of God. He would not want me to wear any clothes that will feel uncomfortable to me.

Last night, I read Virginia Woolf’s 1921 writing “The Mark on the Wall.” To the ordinary reader, I am sure there would be boredom. This story is written in the first person narration from a male’s perspective. What I have discovered from Woolf’s life are her scarred perceptions on womanhood. As a teenager, Woolf’s white wholesome purity was marked by one of her half-brother. The mark on the wall seems to be faint and unimportant to the average house guest the way Robert Browning’s portrait in the poem “My Last Duchess.” The reader may begin to feel uncomfortable as this narration centers on an insignificant mark in the wall and a portrait of a deceased Duchess hanging on the wall.

Woolf examines the mark and provides her knowledge of the history on London to use as examples. The unexplainable mark of mankind in Woolf’s period is my perception of this story. As much as society may try to romanticize issues and the ways of the work, the mark of reality will always be on the wall. Nobody can ever try to hide this mark. There seems to be an obsession with this mark the the female narrative uses yellow patterns of wallpaper in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. At the end of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the woman inside the wallpaper is able to escape from a controlling husband. Or so we as readers believe.

What happened to women who went mad in society during both female writer’s time period? The answer to this question can be reflected on the life of Zelda Fitzgerald and Tennessee Williams and Virginia Woolf’s sisters. All three women spent their womanhood inside of insane asylums. In Zelda’s situations, this provided sanity away from F. Scott. Woolf’s older sister, Laura, and Williams sister were institutionalized early on in their lives. W\omen who suffered from nervous breakdowns were institutionalized as well. During this time, the wife belonged to her husband. The husband could institutionalize his wife if he chose.

When I read “The Yellow Wallpaper” in both American literature and Women’s literature, I believed the husband was very abusive and controlling to keep his wife locked inside of a room. The narrator is able to be realistic. John, the husband, really does love his wife. By keeping his wife locked inside the comfort of his house, there is no threat society would seek to institutionalize her. This is also a personal reflection of the writer, Gilman, in her essay “Why I Wrote the Yellow Wallpaper.” The husband in “The Yellow Wallpaper” was modeled after her doctor who believed the isolated woman would feel better in no time. This piece of senseless advice created public awareness that a woman knows herself well enough to seek her own happiness in the work. This piece support Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s advocacy for women’s rights in “The Solitude of the Self.”

I relate “The Mark on the Wall” to a suicide note. Woolf’s mark ran beyond the teenage years. This is evident at the conclusion of the first paragraph. When a child makes a mark on a wall, the mark is simple. There is nothing elaborate. Nothing special. A mark is a mark. Woolf’s parents death when she was young made the mark of the circle real. There was nothing larger than life about the grieving process. Woolf had to face the music. She was going to be alone in this world.  Granted, Woolf did have siblings and two half-brothers. These could never replace the guidance of parents.

This instability led the siblings to travel abroad. I am able to relate this to the life of the great Maya Angelou. When I read one of Maya Angelou’s autobiographies, I read the instability she had in her own life. At the time I read this book, I was almost a week shy of entering the hospital for the first round of blood clots. Maya Angelou and I moved around so much in our early adulthood. I imagine friends asking Ms. Angelou, “Where are you living now?

Why did Virginia Woolf really commit suicide? To seek an answer to this question, we must reflect on the world event that took place during her time. The outbreak of World War II took place. The Nazi soldiers were arresting people left and right. Plus, Woolf’s mental decline left her feeling like a burden. To save everybody from watching this continue, she left her world. What does this lack of communication say about society of her time?

The means of protection in this world are books, according to Woolf. Woolf’s biographer used this knowledge when compiling her biography. When he asked one of Duckworthy’s sons to read letters from his father to decide whether or not the sexual abuse was real, he believed the letters would prove otherwise. The truth lays in the last sentence of the first paragraph of “The Mark on the Wall” along with the opening scene of Woolf’s biography. Woolf wants to go back to her childhood to know what freedom (or liberation) from the mark feels like. She wants to know what purism from realism feels like. This woman’s mark is not fancy but childlike. This woman stopped being a romantic when she buried her parents. Perhaps the purity of Woolf is buried in her parents caskets. The truth is in a simple mark on a white wall.

I close with an idea. I wonder if this mark on the wall would have stood out from the child Virginia Woolf. Would there even be a mark on the wall? This story is powerful to me because I am entering a world I do not understand either. So much in my world has changed. Television shows are not the good ol’ clean 1960s to 1980s. Modern literature revolves around sex and subjects I am not too interested in. When we attend movies, we are providing income to people in Hollywood who are not deserving of this or our time. We are taken advantage of by corporate America. We are victimized by student loans, credit cards, and debt period. We suffer from inequality and discrimination. We bow down to the wrong people. We are selfish, needy, and desperate for answers to change our country. We rely too much on the views of Dave Ramsey for financial help instead of relying on the Word. We send too much of our tithing money to countries overseas when we are too dependent on government agencies to help our children in our communities. We need to step up to the place and make our world a better place. No one else is going to do this for us.