There’s no need to be afraid of Virginia Woolf because she died three-quarters of a century ago, but her writings still live on and she continues to be a feminist icon of the Left; hence why the leftist tech empire Google celebrated her with their doodle this Thursday.
The late-author fits snugly in the arms of the Left, for not only did she endorse a feminism that would later drive a deeper wedge between the sexes, she had little regard for both Jews and Christians.
Though Woolf married a Jewish man, Leonard Woolf, by all accounts, it was a loveless marriage. Evidence even indicates that Virginia Woolf lived as a closet lesbian. As she struggled with mental illness for years, Leonard Woolf remained steadfastly committed to her, providing whatever he could for her wellness. In 1941, she committed suicide by filling her overcoat pocket with stones and drowning herself in the bottom of the River Ouse.
Although it would be a stretch to call Virginia an anti-Semite, given her marriage and the fact that she would later denounce the rise of such fascism, the author certainly never prevented herself from indulging anti-Semitic whimsies in her writings and journals. From Wikipedia:
Woolf often wrote of Jewish characters in stereotypical archetypes and generalizations, including describing some of her Jewish characters as physically repulsive and dirty.
For example, while travelling on a cruise to Portugal she protests at finding “a great many Portuguese Jews on board, and other repulsive objects, but we keep clear of them.”
Furthermore, she wrote in her diary: ‘I do not like the Jewish voice; I do not like the Jewish laugh.’
In a 1930 letter to the composer Ethel Smyth, quoted in Nigel Nicolson’s biography Virginia Woolf, she recollects her boasts of Leonard’s Jewishness confirming her snobbish tendencies, ‘How I hated marrying a Jew—What a snob I was, for they have immense vitality.’
For Christians, Woolf had far less charitable views, referring to the religion as an excuse for self-righteousness. In another letter to Ethel Smyth, Woolf said of Christians: “my Jew has more religion in one toenail—more human love, in one hair.”
When the famous poet T.S. Elliot converted to Christianity, Woolf wrote that he may as well be “dead to us all.”
“I have had a most shameful and distressing interview with poor dear Tom Eliot, who may be called dead to us all from this day forward,” wrote Woolf of his religious conversion. “He has become an Anglo-Catholic, believes in God and immortality, and goes to church. I was really shocked. A corpse would seem to me more credible than he is. I mean, there’s something obscene in a living person sitting by the fire and believing in God.”
In his book “The Rage Against God,” British author Peter Hitchens, brother of Christopher, noted that Woolf’s “bilious, ill-tempered words” reflected the God-hatred that prevailed among early twentieth-century bohemians.
Following her suicide, Virginia Woolf would later become an icon in feminist circles. Her most famous works are Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and Orlando (1928). 2002’s “The Hours” loosely focused on her life and earned Nicole Kidman the Oscar for Best Actress.