Virginia Woolf : The Unsolved Mystery of Her Death

This is not A Hat and A Stick

It was as usual a dull afternoon of April 1941. Under a bridge in Southease children were playing Hide and Seek discovered a washed up dead body of a woman. It could not be identified immediately due to putrefaction. There was no missing complaint in the record of Police. Rodmell is a small village and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex in England. Virginia Woolf and her husband Leonard Woolf bought a weather boarded cottage in 1919. Her sister Vanessa also lived in a nearby farmhouse.

The Monk House, which was once lively with spirited intellectuals like T. S. Eliot and E. M. Forster was now wrapped up in dead silence. Bloomsbury Group deeply mourned the sudden demise of their beloved member.

Associated Press made an official announcement “Mrs. Woolf’s body found” on 19 April confirming that she was drowned in the river Ouse three weeks earlier. The body was decomposed and flesh was eaten by fishes. A hat and cane were discovered at some distance above, upstream on the bank of the river. They were identified to belong to Virginia Woolf. Her house was also in proximity to the place where hat and stick were discovered. It was not an accident, she had committed suicide.

“April is the cruellest month” said T.S.Eliot in the opening line of his much admired poem "The Wasteland". No doubt it took away one of the most admired scholars of the twentieth century.

Virginia Woolf: An Evening walk with Hat and Stick

A letter addressed to her husband was recovered which proved her intention to commit suicide, but no investigation was held. Her husband was a powerful politician in the Village Rodmell and played an important role in the society of the village.

What happens in the four walls of “a room of one’s own” is nobodies guess.

"A woman makes her house a work of art in which the very walls are permeated by her creative force."

The backyard of her house had two Elm trees. They were intertwined like a romantic couple in embrace. One tree was strong and dominating than other. Virginia called them "Leonard and Virginia" in satire perhaps. Her remains were buried under the tree and the epitaph reads

Against you I fling myself

unvanquished and unyielding

O Death ! the waves broke on the shore

These lines are taken from her novel "The Waves".

Who can read her suicide note without a turmoil and pang in the heart.

One cannot believe it is written by the same woman who advocated equality of men and women working together for a common cause. Men and women must make willing emotional acknowledgement of each other as individuals. Mrs. Dalloway and Mrs. Ramsay of Three Guineas created on the bank of Ouse in the wooden cottage were reflections of ‘those terrible times’ she mentioned in her suicide note.

“Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times. And I shan’t recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can’t concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don’t think two people could have been happier ’til this terrible disease came. I can’t fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can’t even write this properly. I can’t read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that — everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can’t go on spoiling your life any longer. I don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been. V.”

There is excessive gratitude in the suicide note. Does a wife need to be so much grateful to her husband for spending happy time together. Is it only she who has a happy time or it is a happy time together.

Every happiness has a subtle streak of melancholy, but here it is so obvious. Many members of the Bloomsbury Group discard the theory that Virginia suffered from nervous breakdown. They found her ‘enormous fun’.

Her lesbian friend Vita said “I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia.” In a letter Virginia once wrote to Vita “I am in bed making up stories about you.” Such loveable creatures do not pass away or just melt into thin air, the truth and reality pop on surface as chaotic impressions in triviality and ordinary day event of life, as she was discovered by playing children.

Some of her relatives believed and even confessed that it was better if her body was never recovered.

We look before and after,

And pine for what is not:

Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught:

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

(To a Skylark ~P. B. Shelley)

A ‘luminous halo’ was extinguished. No ashes, No embers, No wailing.

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3. Is US ready for Woman President

4. The Gender of God

5. Why Indian English Authors are not Feminist

5. Hollow Modern Women

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Advocate, Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur, India 

Sins of Individualism

Why Suicide is the final solution for Modern Man

Superman at bridge

There were three Homo sapiens The Apeman, The Modern Man and The Superman. They looked very different from each other. Only a biologist could say that they belonged to the same species of the animal kingdom.

They all lived on the same island. They were constantly in conflict about values. The conflict grew in magnitude with each passing day. The thought of suicide occurred to them simultaneously. They reached to the bridge. They did not know what was at the other end of the bridge. So far they could see, it was spread like Anaconda on the sea.

The Superman  decided to walk into unknown and discover the other end of the bridge. He had accomplished impossible by sheer 'will to power'. He was an explorer and instead of reason he had more faith in the power of his sub-conscious mind.

The Man had a doubt if he can use the bridge which was made by 'the strength of collective man' to attain his personal objective of suicide. He stood on the bank in contemplative mood. He desired to be 'loved alone' due to his 'self love'. He loved the seclusion caused by his self love. He had no desire to cross the impassable sea of universal love.

The Apeman was interested in suicide out of curiosity. He wanted to survive even after committing suicide. He had survived so far only because he trusted his instincts. The Apeman reached to the conclusion that he would not ‘exist’ if he commits suicide. Recently he had herded cattle and his likes on a mesa. Now he was most powerful amongst all hilltop habitations. He was Seer in the eyes of his people. He knew about some others of his kind who lived on the same island, but thought and acted differently. But he kept his own kind away from those contaminated species. So The Apeman decided to return without committing suicide.

The Modern Man was looked down upon with contempt from The Apeman and The Superman. He was left alone at the bridge. He thought that not only the other ‘classes’ but his own kind also hated him for what he was and what he had accomplished, by inheriting sustained variation due to his constant 'struggle for existence'.

The variations were infinite and inheritance was never absolute. Moreover, he could never know if the variation would be beneficial or harmful to his species in the future, even though they helped him in survival. The struggle that was once need of the hour became his inherited trait.

The ‘fear’ was now an inherent part of his ‘psyche’. He had created new ‘phantoms’ to be afraid of. All phantoms, since the beginning were byproducts of ‘death’. The modern man was determined to conquer this fear. He wanted ‘Nirvana’ not only for himself, but for the entire race of modern mankind. He acknowledged himself as ‘absurd comedy of reproduction, and had no interest in perpetuating a comedy that turns into tragedy. Death was the only rational solution.

So he jumped from the bridge.

Surprisingly, he did not fell in the river. His location was restored by a electromagnetic device. The bridge was a modern bridge made by modern technology. Nothing could fall in the river which could pollute it. The sensors observed that the Modern Man had contaminated mind. The sensor also suggested the Modern Man to read the "The Waste Land" By T.S.Eliot.

Keep reading for the interpretation of "The Waste Land" by the Modern Man.

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Other related post

Right to Die Denied

Selfie and Good Manners ~ Learn from Kate Nash

Good Manners are important or not?

The views of song writer Kate Nash about Selfie has ensued a fresh debate about good manners versus modern manners.

 There are already well defined set of manners for all occasions. We are taught Table manners, bathroom manners and Bed Room manners. There are well defined manners for host and guest, children and elders, for male and females for every activity under the sky.

When net became popular netiquette were formed, when Social media became popular more rules and Do's and Don’ts were imposed upon users not only by society but by websites also. Many accounts were deleted on account of violation of terms and condition, by many social media websites. All those manners were later enacted by society so that violators can be prosecuted. It is called the Information Technology Act 2006, in India.

Other manners were codified but not enacted, since they were not dangerous to society. If you do not say Good Morning to your teachers or parents, they could mind it and may rebuke you, but they can’t compel you to do so by law. If a soldier or constable does not salute to his superior officer, disciplinary action would be taken against him.

When any activity becomes popular and it has some dangerous side effects than people show their concern and a caution is issued. This is what happened when Kate Nash condemned the selfie taken at memorial service of Nelson Mandela.

Selfie is now an obsession. There is nothing wrong with it. A fine way to show self dependence. But something wrong has also happened. Some people have died while taking a selfie. They were drowned in a lake or sea, crushed by passing vehicle or fell down from the roof. Some young teenage girls were blackmailed by ex boyfriends for private clicks. Society needs security. They want to find out a way to stop the misuse of selfie. Many countries have imposed the ban on use of selfie stick. It is a metal rod which can take selfie from forty inch distance. Mumbai Police does not find it appropriate that unmarried men and women should take selfie. They think that their closeness to "fit in" the picture is immoral.Belfie or bottom selfie has been banned by many social media websites. Instagram has banned women buttock selfie or belfie causing some uproar in feminist. What would be next, is anybody's guess.

The celebs have played a great role in promoting the craze of selfie. Prince Charles did it with 12 years old school girl and seasoned politician like Barak and Modi also do it frequently.

Selfie is Narcissistic phenomenon. It shows extreme selfishness and self centeredness of society. There is no doubt in last few years we have become that.

W.B.Yeats in his poem “The Second Coming” says

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

T.S.Eliot in his long poem The wasteland has depicted a vast panorama of futility and anarchy, for which Yeats says “Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold”. The present age of emotional sterility, void due to lack of purpose and fear due to advancement in technology is shaping our future. The Third Wave or The Second Coming is expected.

Dangerous Selfies are killing people every day. In the picture below all of them died because one lost his balance while getting up and pulled others. Sa

In another similar incident at Murud Beach 14 students drowned when a big wave carried them away while taking Selfie.

 Why Good Manners? Does manners makes a man ? Or man makes manners?. We created God who created us. How simple? Egg or Hen?

OK, take selfie, but be little less selfish. Think of less privileged from you and don’t take selfie with them, if really you don't have any compassion for them.

© Vipin Behari Goyal
Advocate, Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur, India

RIGHT TO DIE DENIED

Jain Religious Rites Banned :Death, Law and Literature

“The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets through many a dark night.’” Friedrich Nietzsche    

The right to Life is Fundamental Right in Indian Constitution. A literary interpretation is that the Right to Life automatically includes "Right to Die". Otherwise how we would justify that so many millions of people have Right to Life but are not provided with the means to sustain that Life.

Jainism is one of the oldest religions. The last prophet Mahavir is more than 2500 years old. Nonviolence is their main preaching. How such religion can permit voluntary death, if it is at all violent.

Many hundreds of Jain old people opt for Santhra or voluntary death in India.

Emily Dickinson welcomes to death in her poem “Because I Could Not Stop For Death”

         

Because I could not stop for Death,

He kindly stopped for me;

The carriage held but just ourselves

And Immortality....

Walt Whitman says Death is a prize won.

                         

O Captain! My Captain!

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,

The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won,

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's perception of death is

                         

The Cross of Snow

In the long, sleepless watches of the night,

A gentle face--the face of one long dead--

Looks at me from the wall, where round its head

The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light....

William Blake in his poem On Another's Sorrow see Death as kind relief

         

Can I see another's woe,

And not be in sorrow too?

Can I see another's grief,

And not seek for kind relief?..

William Butler Yeats in his poem A Dream Of Death has wondered about solitude death provides.

I dreamed that one had died in a strange place

Near no accustomed hand,

And they had nailed the boards above her face,

The peasants of that land,

Wondering to lay her in that solitude,

 Robert Browning  in his poem A Death in the Desert has given a beautiful description of death.

Almost all writers have praised the mystery and awe of death and old age.

In Harakari Seppuku  is defined as "Japanese ritual of the samurai used either voluntarily by samurai to die with honor rather than fall into the hands of their enemies (and likely suffer torture) or as a form of capital punishment for samurai who had committed serious offenses, or performed because they had brought shame to themselves".

Likewise, in Rajput warrior's ritual of Johar was performed. The act is defined  as the practice of mass suicide carried out in medieval times by Rajput women to save their honor from invaders.[Photo:Kalyan:Johar(self-immolation) by Rajput widows after war]

Another popular ritual was of Sati. Sati refers to the obsolete(?) Indian funeral custom where a widow, was expected to immolate herself on her husband's pyre, or committed suicide in another fashion shortly after her husband's death at war or from other causes.

Voluntary death is not a transgression. It is a highly acclaimed transmission of one form into another for a better purpose. Especially so in Santhara. Jainism otherwise also has a strong belief in penance.

 According to Jainism the Pudgal or Matter has two forms 1. Gross 2. Subtle. Gross matter is perceptible, everything that we see around us, while subtle matter is manifested as Karma. The Karma gets attached to a soul as dirt gets attached to the sticky surface. The object of austerities and penance is to annihilate old karma and stop the influx of new karma.

Dainik Bhaskar-Jain Community protest march against the decision of High Court prohibiting Santhara

How any legal system can stop anyone from achieving the highest objective of salvation. One of the major objections raised is priests of Jain could not produce any religious text in support of the rituals. The Jain scriptures are some of the oldest scriptures known to human civilization. Rig Veda finds a mention of the first prophet of Jain religion. At that time the information was passed from one generation to another by word of mouth. Since the Santhara is being performed for centuries and is part of religion, it cannot be denied on such a paltry ground.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra: “Many die too late and a few die too early. The doctrine still sounds strange: “Die at the right time.”- Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Friedrich Nietzsche)

We have a history of privilege to end life. ~Tall Man Small Shadow. ( A youth is convicted for attempt to suicide and faces humiliation, while an old Jain Lady is revered for Santhara i.e.fast unto death)

31 August 2015

Supreme Court Stays High Court Judgement

Justice seems to be prevailing. Supreme Court stayed the High Court decision that Santhara is also suicide and thus illegal. Various religious bodies of Jain Community had filed petition against decision of High Court of declaring Santhara as illegal. The same tenets were considered while granting stay that have been raised in the article. The Santhara is part of Jain Philosophy, and courts should abstain from interfering in the core rituals of any religion.

According to Durkheim the abnormally high or level of social integration results in suicide. He made an observation that the rate of suicide is low in Catholics since they have normal level of social integration.Low level of social integration results in disorganised society and suicide is seen as last remedy while in high level of social integration the person think himself to be a burden on society and thus commit suicide.

Santhara is also governed by this "Control Theory" of Durkheim.(You may Tweet this).

Social scientists have expressed concern over increase in suicidal rate in soldiers and students. Both of them live a mission oriented life. They work not only for duty but to prove themselves. The high expectation of society, insecurity,apprehension of failure,lack of self confidence,peer pressure are some of the other reasons of suicide. State should provide them stress free environment and society should take care of emotional need of these segments of society.Meditation camp can be arranged to reduce the anxiety by acceptance of inevitable.

Kota in Rajasthan(India), is hub of tuition centres for students aspiring to be IITian or a Doctor. Every month few students commit suicide in this city. Parents have put lot of expectations from their children. Invariably the students have left a suicide note addressed to their parents. In the note, they have apologised for their inability to fulfil the dreams of their parents.

Kamala Das famous English poet could not reconcile her inner world to her external world, her body to her soul, she addresses her monologue to the sea who(personification) can act as medium of her salvation (suicide).

O sea I am fed up
I want to be simple
I want to be loved 
And
If love is not to be had
I want to be dead,just dead.

© Vipin Behari Goyal
Advocate, Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur, India