Ich habe gerade Leonard Woolfs „Mein Leben mit Virigina“ gelesen und auch schon etliches von Virginia selbst. Jetzt bin ich beim Surfen auf ein Buch von Louise DeSalvo gestoßen, dass behauptet, Virginia sei in ihrer Kindheit sexuell mißbraucht worden. Dass wäre auch der Grund für ihre Depressionen und den Selbstmord.
Weiss jemand von euch Näheres dazu? Handelt es sich bloß um eine erfundene „story“, um den Absatz des Buches zu beschleunigen? Oder gibt es tatsächlich Dokumente , die diesen Verdacht bestätigen? Ich jedenfalls kann in ihren Romanen keine Hinweise auf sexuellen Mißbrauch herauslesen, wie DeSalvo behauptet.
Falls ihr mehr wisst, würde ich mich über Antworten freuen!
Marie
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
Sie ist mißbraucht worden.
http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/16/nov97/brooke.htm
Virginia Woolf was a lesbian (or bi?) famous author. She was married to a man who was homosexual. She lived openly with her partner, Vita Sackville-West while her husband lived openly with his lovers.
I will finish with one of the poems I have had published, as you may know Virginia Woolfe probably suffered from manic depression, was a lesbian, a founder of the Bloomsbury set, a woman working in the male dominated world of literature. She drowned herself in the River Ouse just near her house at Rodmell, in Sussex. Among the things she wrote was „Orlando“, which was based on a book by Sir Philip Sydney, „Arcadia“, which in turn was based on a book by Aristo „Orlando Furioso“. In it the hero passes through different historical times and genders and sexualities, until she eventually gives birth to a child. Woolfe’s child was her work. I call this poem:
RODMELL GIRLS
Virginia Woolfe,
the she-wolf bitch?
Was she Madonna,
virgin, hag, or witch?
A gender warrior,
she made some fearful;
Yet was so vulnerable
in her tearfilled fear
of her own madness.
She sought an end of
that pain when she walked
into the river Ouse,
Her large pockets
loaded and filled with
Heavy flint stones
she’d chosen, or found,
Or been given.
We each have such
stones which we carry.
They’re our own madness
our sadness, as we walk
towards these cold
grey drowning rivers
to try for an escape.
Those stones are called
„Ought, should, abnormal,
Not good enough, different,
Depression, love me“.
They stop us from running,
From flying or swimming.
So toothless we sink,
drowning in fearful Despair.
Throw them away.
Watch them bounce
On the waves.
Sink them.
Wave goodbye to
these heavy weights
And choose life.
Additional Reading:
„Client Centred Therapy“. Carl Rogers. - Constable ISBN 0 09 453990 1
Traurig aber wahr…
Siân 
Ist aber schon ewig bekannt.