Auditory Relations: a study of the soundscapes in Virginia Woolf's The Years and Between the Acts

Date

2023-1

Author

Çetinkaya, Ataberk

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In the twentieth century, the city experience that demands attentive ears, along with the technological advancements of the period, brought about a transformation in the paradigms of sensory experiences, shaping how people perceived and interacted with their environment. For this reason, a heightened auditory awareness can be discerned in modernist literature. Virginia Woolf's novels exemplify this awareness. In her novels, sounds are integral to the narrative, commenting on broader societal structures and dynamics. Within this context, this study aims to explore the soundscapes in Virginia Woolf’s novels The Years (1937) and Between the Acts (1941), to discuss how, through auditory principles, Woolf imagines distinct modes of connecting with the world and different formations of subjectivities. In The Years, I discuss the implications of the experiences of silences and noises, as well as the possibility of the concept of an auditory “I.” Meanwhile, in Between The Acts, I discuss the subversive potential of cacophony, and a unique form of an auditory awareness, one that underscores the entanglement of the human and the nonhuman. Ultimately, it is argued that in both novels, auditory perception not only allows for establishing extra-linguistic relations with the world that enriches the consciousness of the characters, but it also makes it possible to form alternative relations that challenge the dominant cultural order.

Subject Keywords

Soundscapes, Sound studies, Auditory perception, The Years, Between the Acts

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/106400

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis