Virginia Woolf

“People should not leave looking-glasses hanging in their rooms any more than they should leave open cheque books or letters confessing some hideous crime.” (1224). I believe this opening line of The Lady in the Looking-Glass: A Reflection is a very powerful one. This line suggests that if you do not wish for people to know your business that you should not have a mirror in your house. At first I was very confused by what Woolf meant by this but as I continued to read I felt that I got a better understanding.

The lady in this work is Isabella Tyson whom is known to be “a spinster; that was rich; that she had bought this house and collected with her own hands…the rugs, the chairs, the cabinets” (1225). I found it very interesting that Woolf gave each of the objects in Isabella’s house characteristics. For example she explains that these objects “knew more about her than we” (1225). It seems to me that Isabella wanted to hide herself away from the world and I could not help but wonder if Isabella was a part of Woolf herself. Woolf went through several difficult things in her life which eventually led to her suicide. Perhaps when she was writing this she identified with Isabella and was able to write about herself in the form of another person. Woolf wrote “Isabella did not wish to be known—but she should no longer escape.” (1226). Maybe this was Woolf’s way of saying that she did not wish to be known but yet she knew that she would not be able to escape from reality.

The last part of this work is what I believe to be the most powerful and the part that brings the whole work together. I think it explains why “one should not have a looking-glass.” Woolf writes of Isabella appearing in the mirror and finally seeing the truth,

“She stood perfectly still. At once the looking-glass began to pour over her a light that seemed to fix her; that seemed like some acid to bite off the unessential and superficial and to leave only the truth…Everything dropped from her—clouds, dress, basket, diamond—all that one had called the creeper and convolvulus…Here was the woman herself. She stood naked in that pitiless light. And, there was nothing. Isabella was perfectly empty. She had no thoughts. She had no friends. She cared for nobody.” (1227-1228).

The truth is that even with all the riches in her life she could not truly be happy. She had never experienced lover because she was never married. She never experienced friends and had nobody that she cared for. This is all because she had not wanted to be known and kept her self in seclusion. Perhaps Woolf wrote this has more of a reflection of herself but found it hard to accept it personally. Maybe this was her way of coming into a realization that she did not have everything and a way of dealing with the losses she had experienced. I believe the reason she argues that you should not have a looking glass in your house is because of the truth that they bring to you. Perhaps she did not want to see this truth but was forced to see it in the mirror and finally accept it. A mirror does not only expose the truth that you do not want others to know but it also exposes the truth that you do not wish to accept.