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Virginia Woolf s 1 941 novel Between the Acts depicts the restlessness of postVictorian, pre- World War II Britons and suggests, as much of Woolf s work does, that people are both individual fragments and electrically united to one another. In a diary entry from the period of the novel's composition, Woolf encapsulated this idea of frayed unity, writing that we are "all waifs & strays - a rambling capricious but somehow unified whole" (D5 135). Set against the backdrop of encroaching fascism, though, fascism represented by ominous bombers overhead, this novel's treatment of that wholeness takes on a new dimension, as Miss La Trobe - both militaristic and marginal - stages an historical pageant for the gathered village crowd. This pageant forces the audience, especially Isa Oliver and Lucy Swithin, to consider their individuality and their commonality, their relationship to (and split from) English history. In bringing her anxious characters together so that they share an experience of a sometimes-alienating, sometimes-unifying piece of theater, Woolf addresses, in her own strange piece of art, the dangers and opportunities of group identification on the eve of war.
Before the pageant begins, Woolf lets us know that communion between people, and the difficulty of that communion, will be stage-center in her novel. She describes the setting of the pageant as "a church without a roof [. . . ,] an openair cathedral [. . .]" (45), suggesting that the celebration could be a new kind of liturgy, a chance for the audience to become one body without having to endure the dusty trappings of the Church of England. The members of the audience - Isa and her dominating husband Giles; Giles's father, Bart; Bart's sister Lucy Swithin; and friends of the family, Mrs. Manresa and William Dodge, among others - sense that they've become a sort of congregation, too. A hush comes over them. Mrs. Manresa declares humorously, "We must possess our souls in patience" (45), and the characters feel linked, though uneasily so, as Woolf gives us their collective review of the pre-scene beat: "Their minds and bodies were too close, yet not close enough" (45). While the characters want to feel private unity with one another, then, want to be "close enough," the notion of...