Orts Scraps and Fragments

This work explores a central question of the human condition: how do we find meaning in human experience? Virginia Woolf's novels give us insight into the Modernist's response one that reacts to the devastation of war advances in the sciences and a deeper understanding of human consciousness. Orts Scraps and Fragments contends that the social constructs of religion marriage and communication fail to provide the meaning and interpersonal connection that society invests in them. Instead Woolf's characters struggle within these constructs and ultimately find themselves disillusioned unfulfilled and isolated. Through a close reading Dr. McGarry analyzes the ways in which characters such as Clarissa Dalloway Mrs. Ramsay Giles and Isa Oliver and Jacob Flanders attempt to work through the realization that meaning is elusive. However Woolf's few artistic characters have the ability to transcend this darkness. Through their struggle for creative expression they glimpse if only briefly a larger unifying meaning. For Lily Briscoe Miss LaTrobe and Bernard this momentary hint of universal meaning provides sufficient motivation to continue the artistic process and life itself. For Woolf art not imposed social constructs sustains life.