A Restless Creative Soul

Though to different extent, every one may have anxiety which may influence one's life. Similarly, the anxiety in a writer may have effects on her/is writing.This dissertation is an attempt to probe into evidence of Virginia Woolf's early anxiety with specific references to the texts of her early letters(the first two volumes of the six-volume collection, The Letters of Virginia Woolf) to explore what possible impacts anxiety might have exerted on her early writing - Mrs. Dalloway. Based on the evidence found in the letters, Freud's psychoanalytic anxiety theories will be mainly introduced and will serve as references in the analysis of Virginia Woolf's early anxiety and its relation with her early writing. Among the three types of anxieties, objective anxiety and moral anxiety have provided Woolf with the materials for her writing of Mrs. Dalloway, and neurotic anxiety may have not only provided materials but also have generated her creativity in writing MD. Thus, I may conclude that anxiety is likely to be positive for Woolf's early writing, for on the one hand, it is a decisive factor for her choosing of the materials, including the themes, the structure and language style for her early novel writing; on the other hand, it helps her to create the unique characters which are molded in her own image.This dissertation consists of four chapters. Chapter one introduces Sigmund Freud's anxiety theory and discusses the relation between anxiety and creativity. Chapter two focuses on the close textual analysis of Woolf's various anxieties in her early letters. Chapter three explores the reflections of her anxieties in one of her early novels - Mrs. Dalloway. Chapter four is the conclusion.