Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf

The scullery maid....was cooling her cheeks by the lily pond. There had always been lilies there, self-sown from wind-dropped seed, floating red and white on the green plates of their leaves. Water, for hundreds of years, had silted down into the hollow, and lay there four or five feet deep over a black cushion of mud....fish swam—gold, splashed with white....poised in the blue patch made by the sky....It was in that deep centre, in that black heart, that the lady had drowned herself.

Dearest, I feel certain I am going mad again....And I shan’t recover this time.....I am doing what seems the best thing to do....I can’t fight any longer....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.

The writer’s purpose is to give information about the scullary maid’s life and to create sympathy.This shows that her life was very pathetic by seeing the text , the writer uses normative words and concedes that the scullary maid’s life was full of sorrow . It is preposterous to describe “cooling her cheeks by the lily pond”  whereas lily pond is a vegetable, actually it is describing that her daily activity is just living in scullary ,washing dishes and only vegetables that always accompany her everyday.

An indignation picture of scullary maid is created that she has given up of her life ,it is described by “ I shan’t recover this time” it means that it ever happened to her. Nostalgia is created in her mind “ i don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been “ that she ever did something with someone  and to evoke the past of her memory that she convinces  that she and that someone are happier than the others.