The Mark on the Wall (Virgina Woolf) — Flashcards

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The Mark on the Wall is an essay in stream-of-consciousness form. It presents the changing thoughts of an unnamed narrator as she notices a small mark on a wall and lets her mind move freely from one …

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The narrator is an unnamed first-person speaker who sees the mark on the wall in the middle of January, after tea, while smoking a cigarette. Her thoughts form the main content of the essay.

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A small round mark, black upon the white wall, about six or seven inches above the mantelpiece, catches her eye. This ordinary object becomes the starting point for a long chain of thought.

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It is called stream-of-consciousness writing because the narrator's mind moves in a natural, unbroken flow. One thought leads to another without a strict pattern, just as real thinking often happens.

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The narrator says, "How readily our thoughts swarm upon a new object, lifting it a little way, as ants carry a blade of straw so feverishly, and then leave it..." This shows how quickly the mind grabs…

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At first, the narrator thinks it may have been made by a nail, perhaps for a miniature rather than a picture. Later, that idea is rejected because the mark seems too big and too round for a nail.

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The narrator suggests that the mark may be caused by a small rose leaf left over from summer. This shows how the mind keeps revising its own ideas.

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The list of lost possessions such as book-binding tools, bird cages, iron hoops, steel skates, a Queen Anne coal-scuttle, a bagatelle board, a hand organ, and jewels shows the narrator's sense that li…