Representations of otherness in war: critical notes to the First World War in Virginia Woolf and Thomas Mann

Abstract

In The magic mountain, Thomas Mann points to the political, social and cultural transformations related to the Great War’s deflagration, as a temporal divisor imposed  to the narrative. In Doctor Faustus, Thomas Mann exposes the same perspective, with a more accurate critic in relation to the conflict which began in 1914, mentioning  the opposition between the time before the war and the one observed after. Virginia Woolf deals with the theme of the Great War in To the Lighthouse and Mrs. Dalloway, from the context of the battle experience. In Mrs. Dalloway, it can be noticed the description of trauma — the bombers of London, for instance. In To the Lighthouse, on the other hand, the armed conflict is transposed to the idea of the passage of time, specially, exposed on the second chapter of the novel, Time Passes. The present analysis aims to reveal the critical aspect of both authors in relation to World War I — an event that would transform the ways of life, means of production and, most certainly, the literary writing — as well as the possible approximations between their standings in relation to the theme.