The Mark on the Wall is Virginia Woolf's first published short story – although of course it is not exactly a short story: sitting in front of the fireplace, the narrator is willingly absorbed by a small black mark on the wall, whose enigmatic nature becomes the trigger for a deep inner monologue to unfold without any definite direction or apparent purpose.
Childhood origins, independence of thought, nature and society become here the levers that fuel the famous "stream of consciousness", that is, the means that Virginia Woolf perfected in order to first free herself and at the same time offer ample reading pleasure.
THE CREATOR
A prominent representative of modernism in literature, Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) wrote novels, short stories, groundbreaking essays, and criticism on the history of literature, art theory, women's writing, perception and essence, politics, and gender power.
Her fragile mental health – following the successive deaths of her mother, father and one brother at a young age – plagued her throughout her life, however, and at the age of 59, doubting her work and feeling unable to write any more, she committed suicide by drowning in the river behind her house.
