Novels of Great Women

Virginia Woolf strongly believed that Western History was constructed around the lives, particularly the battles, of “great men.” Knowing that women’s lives and activities had a place in that history, she constructed the two novels in this chapter to demonstrate the accomplishments of women in both the public and private arenas. The result is Orlando and Between the Acts, whose interior authors both exemplify the “active verb” described by Shaw and their place in the world over time.