버지니아 울프와 1920년대 런던의 소비문화

Abstract

Modernism promoted an alienated artist who is creating a mysterious artwork, which refuses to be a commodity sold in the market. However, it is worthwhile to make an inquiry into the relationship between modernist writers and modern consumer culture. There are studies on the work of male modernist writers such as T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, and D. H. Lawrence, showing that their works are closely related to the contemporary consumer culture. Virginia Wolf also expressed a keen interest in consumerism in hers works and journals. Georg Simmel analyzes modern society, pointing out that the monetary economy has made human relations abstract. Human services have been quantified and converted into monetary value. This abstraction is further strengthened in the metropolis, Simmel argues, that people are to crave something that money can't buy, that is, not be easily priced and commodified and not mass-distributed. Simmel's insights provide an important starting point in understanding the relationship between Literary Modernism and consumerism in the early 1920s.This paper will discuss the consumer culture in the 1920’s London with Woolf’s novel, Mrs. Dalloway and her other writings including her diaries and essays based on Simmel's insight, exploring the intricate relationship between her modernist interest in the personal desires and memories and the impersonal outer world of the metropolis, along with her delicate depictions of the fluctuation of humanity.