Virginia Woolfs eigene Worte
Hallo Marie,
deSalvo hat in der Tat mit " Virginia Woolf: The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Her Life and Work" einen durchaus reißerischen Titel über VW veröffentlicht. Sie geht in ihren Schlußfolgerungen sehr weit - nichtsdestotrotz benennt sie verbürgte Quellen.
So hat sich VW selbst dazu geäußert: Sie beschreibt in ihrer autobigraphischen Skizze "A Sketch of the Past" von 1939 folgenden Vorfall (Gerald Duckworth ist ihr zwölf Jahre älterer Halbbruder):
I detect another element in the shame which I had in being caught looking at myself in the glass in the hall. I must have been ashamed or afraid of my own body. Another memory, also of the hall, may help to explain this. There was a slab outside the dining room door for standing dishes upon. Once when I was very small Gerald Duckworth lifted me onto this, and as I sat there he began to explore my body. I can remember the feel of his hand going under my clothes: going firmly and steadily lower and lower. I remember how I hoped that he would stop; how I stiffened and wriggled as his hand approached my private parts. But it did not stop. His hand explored my private parts too. I remember resenting, disliking it - what was the word for so dumb and mixed a feeling? It must have been strong, since I still recall it. This seems to show that a feeling about certain parts of the body; how they must not be touched; how it is wrong to allow them to be touched; must be instinctive.
In einem Brief an ihre Freundin Ethel Smyth vom 12.01.41 schreibt sie in Bezug auf diese Erinnerung:
But as so much of life is sexual - or so they say - it rather limits autobiography if this is blacked out. It must be, I suspect, for many generations, for women; for its like breaking the hymen - if thats the membrane's name - a painful operation, and I suppose connected with all sorts of subterranean instincts. I still shiver with shame at the memory of my half brother, standing me on a ledge, aged about 6, and so exploring my private parts. Why should I have felt shame then?
In "22 Hyde Park Gate" (zu Lebzeiten unveröffentlicht) schreibt VW folgendes über ihren 14 Jahre älteren Halbbruder George:
Sleep had almost come to me. The room was dark. The house silent. Then, creaking stealthily, the door opened; treading gingerly, someone entered. "Who?" I cried. “Don't be frightened”, George whispered. “And don't turn on the light, oh beloved. Beloved –“ and he flung himself on my bed, and took me in his arms.
Yes, the old ladies of Kensington and Belgravia never knew that George Duckworth was not only father and mother, brother and sister to those poor Stephen girls; he was their lover also.
Erstaunlich ist, daß eine Frau ihrer Zeit diese Erlebnisse so explizit zu benennen wagt - in einer Zeit, in der Freud ähnliche Schilderungen noch als hysterische Phantasien abtat.
Fraglich bleibt, ob man soweit gehen kann, ihren Selbstmord zielgenau auf diese Ereignisse zurückzuführen, wie deSalvo es tut.
Viele Grüße
Diana
