“For it…had become one of those spectres with which one battles in the night; one of those spectres who stand astride us and suck up half our life-blood, dominators and tyrants” (12).
Spectres are ghostly apparitions that frighten any who see them; their existence has not been proven, but many people believe in them. Spectres are believed to drain humans of their life by taking sucking out the person’s soul. Woolf’s use of spectres in the novel brings in the surreal and supernatural, which makes the later use of ghosts and the surreal more believable.
as well as the surreal nature of the narrative, this jumping from mind to mind -- another connection to Shelley one might argue
ReplyDelete