Jacob's Room

“The tombstone, though plain, was a solid piece of work.”

In life, Seabrook was an unimpressive and unfocused figure. His tombstone is solid yet deceptive, commemorating him as a merchant even if he spent very little time in this job. The tombstone is Betty’s attempt to alter her late husband’s reputation, signifying his worth to posterity by manipulating the truth. In future generations, Seabrook’s true character will not be known but his tombstone will remain. This speaks to the novel’s theme of The Ineffability of Individual Identity, in which Seabrook’s true identity is obfuscated by his own tombstone.

“Sending for Archer, Jacob, and John to say good-bye, he told them to choose whatever they liked in his study to remember him by.”

Rather than directly inform the audience of the boys’ individual characters, the narrator constructs identity through choices. The boys each choose an object by which they can remember Mr. Floyd: Archer chooses a paper-knife, Jacob chooses a book, and John chooses a kitten. Jacob’s bookishness is illustrated by his choice, while the way in which John selects something unconventional distinguishes him from his brothers, especially when they mock his choice as “absurd” (16).

“Nevertheless, it is a fact that men are dangerous.”

Mrs. Norman is made anxious by Jacob’s presence in her train carriage. From the audience’s perspective, Jacob is a young man on his way to university. From Mrs. Norman’s perspective, he is a potential threat. Her anxiety rests on the assertion of a supposedly objective “fact” (25): that “men are dangerous.” Mrs. Norman’s response speaks to the novel’s subtle interest in divisions of gender and class: While Jacob is not actually a threat—a point that lends the phrase a tone of ironic comedy—Mrs. Norman’s wariness speaks to how frequently women must weigh up the likelihood of harassment or sexual violence in a given situation when traveling alone.

“One fiber in the wicker armchair creaks, though no one sits there.”

The narrator describes the armchair in greater detail than Jacob’s own character. The armchair is a material item; it is solid and knowable, existing in the realm of objective fact, in contrast to The Ineffability of Individual Identity. However, the meticulous description of the armchair shows how closer examination can alter perspective. The single creaking fiber of the armchair gives it history and character; this detail elevates it from being a mere armchair, hinting at why no one wants to sit in this creaking chair. The chair is still a chair, but now it is more than a chair.

“But whether this is the right interpretation of Jacob’s gloom as he sat naked, in the sun, looking at the Land’s End, it is impossible to say; for he never spoke a word.”

The narrator is frank and honest with the audience, admitting that they are not omniscient or objective. Instead, the narrator must also rely on impressions and projections to discern Jacob’s mood and character. This refusal to provide an omniscient narrator reflects Woolf’s commitment to new narrative techniques.

“Each had his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart; and his friends could only read the title.”

By comparing the characters’ identities to books that are personally known but broadly unread speaks to the struggle to understand others. Effort must be dedicated to the reading of characters, but with so many people—thus, so many books—knowing everything about everyone is impossible. This is not only true for Jacob: Each person is their own book, only partially known to the rest of society.

“In short, the observer is choked with observations.”

According to the narrator, the act of observation is not simple. A deluge of observation can be choking, hinting at why figures like Jacob remain unknowable. There is so much information that the attempt to know everything can seem hazardous. To attempt to engage with this deluge of information is perilous in its own right.

“With one hand he held her; with the other, his pipe.”

Even when he is spending time with women, Jacob remains apart from them. He cannot reveal his true self to them, as there is always something else that separates or marginalizes him. In a literal sense, he cannot dedicate his two hands to any one person. One must, at least, be occupied with a pipe or something similar. Jacob is caught in this tension between allowing others to know him and shielding himself from their observation, speaking to his ongoing unease and hesitation while Navigating Social Norms in a Changing Society.

“Such were the very serious consequences of the invention of paper flowers to swim in bowls.”

The narrative aside about the sudden fad for paper flowers is an attempt to capture a national mood through inanimate objects. These paper flowers, by themselves, do not reveal any emotional or philosophical spirit. The relish with which they are seized upon by the pre-war society speaks to the urge for something—anything—to provide substance or meaning. The flimsy, whimsical flowers are utterly disposable but captivating, reflecting the strange, alienated mood of many of the characters who feel themselves to be flimsy, disposable, and in desperate need of whimsy.

“The unpublished works of women, written by the fireside in pale profusion, dried by the flame, for the blotting-paper’s worn to holes and the nib cleft and clotted.”

The unpublished works of women are referenced several times over the course of the novel. These letters and diary entries are just as emotionally honest as the literature written by men that Jacob reveres, yet they are considered frivolous and disposable. Jacob’s attitude toward such writing reflects a broader social lack of interest in anything written by women, even in circumstances when it might provide better insight and understanding of individual identity. The curtailing of women’s intellectual life and personal expression also speaks to The Complexities of Education and Social Mobility, as even women of higher classes are still denied the same opportunities for education and intellectual activity that Jacob takes for granted.

“Whether we know what was in his mind is another question.”

Repetition is used throughout Jacob’s Room to emphasize the social desire for understanding and The Ineffability of Individual Identity. Often, this occurs explicitly, in terms of characters shouting one another’s name repeatedly to attract their attention. In addition, ideas and themes are repeated and rephrased. The narrator’s frustration at not being able to know “what was in his mind” (93) is an example of repetition emphasizing that no one can truly know Jacob.

“Dean Parker wrote books and Fraser utterly destroyed them by force of logic and left his children unbaptized—his wife did it secretly in the washing basin—but Fraser ignored her, and went on supporting blasphemers, distributing leaflets, getting up his facts in the British Museum, always in the same check suit and fiery tie, but pale, spotted, irritable. Indeed, what a work—to destroy religion!”

Frazer’s quest to take down religion in the name of atheism is undermined by his own wife’s actions. She baptizes their children in the sink, but he ignores her religious act. For him, the campaign is what gives his life meaning. As silly or as absurd as it may be, he maintains his sense of purpose. This quest “to destroy religion” (104) is an example of the ways in which characters are trying to impose meaning on their lives in whatever way they can, while the decline in traditional religious belief reflects Navigating Social Norms in a Changing World.

“Plato’s argument is done. Plato’s argument is stowed away in Jacob’s mind, and for five minutes Jacob’s mind continues alone, onwards, into the darkness.”

After reading Plato, Jacob stores the argument away in his mind. He uses Plato’s work to assemble his sense of inner self, constructing an identity from the ideas of others. He reveres Ancient Greece, so constructs his character based on ancient Greek philosophy. As he tries to move beyond the work of others, however, he finds only darkness, unable to build for himself an entirely original or organic identity.

“At midday young women walk out into the air. All the men are busy in the town.”

The depiction of life in pre-war Britain creates a clear delineation in social expectation between men and women. There are two separate spheres of social existence, in which men and women find themselves physically separated during the majority of the day. This reinforces gender roles and limits the opportunities for women, as the gendered worlds are fundamentally and deliberately kept apart.

“It all came from Tom Jones; and he would go to Greece with a book in his pocket and forget her.”

Jacob looks down on Fanny because he does not consider her to be intelligent. However, in a novel filled with characters who struggle to understand one another, she is one of the most perceptive people. She understands that his romanticism and his love of culture will lead to him falling in love abroad, foreshadowing his romance with Sandra. The tragedy of Fanny’s character is that she is doomed to be right and for her intelligence and insight to never be noticed. She foresees her own misery better than most people can foresee their own actions.

“Well, not a word of this was ever told to Mrs. Flanders.”

When he writes home, Jacob deliberately leaves out many details about his trip. While this is suggestive of a son who does not want his mother to worry about what he is up to, it also speaks to the novel’s broader notion of ineffability. Even Betty, Jacob’s own mother, is deliberately denied access to certain aspects of Jacob’s identity. He hides part of himself from her, as he hides various parts of himself from everyone.

“Jinny and Cruttendon drew together; Jacob stood apart. They had to separate. Something must be said. Nothing was said.”

Frequently, Jacob finds himself physically and philosophically separated. He is physically apart from Jinny and Cruttendon, while his silence speaks to the way in which his social class and his anxiety will always push him to the periphery. The syntax of the sentences reinforces this separation, creating a delineation between opposing forces in which Jacob is always separate somehow, invoking The Complexities of Education and Social Mobility.

“Indeed there has never been any explanation of the ebb and flow in our veins—of happiness and unhappiness.”

While the novel focuses on Jacob’s identity as being ineffable and obfuscated, the narrator broadens this to the rest of humanity. The narrator includes themselves in this, speaking to the happiness and unhappiness that flows “in our veins” (138). The use of the collective pronoun suggests that it is not simply Jacob who is ineffable, but everyone.

“Everything seems to mean so much.”

Sandra is besotted with the meaningfulness of the ancient ruins, yet seemingly unable to describe or delineate what they actually mean. This is reflective of much of the unspoken emotional yearning in the characters, in that they crave some sort of substance—some meaning—in their lives but they have no idea what this substance may actually be. Instead, they can only gesture toward the vague shape of something meaningful without being able to provide any specifics or detail.

“Mrs. Williams said things straight out. He was surprised by his own knowledge of the rules of behavior; how much more can be said than one thought; how open one can be with a woman; and how little he had known himself before.”

Sandra emerges from an upper-class world and Jacob is taken by the ease and comfort with which she discards the expectations of etiquette, which speaks to Navigating Social Norms in a Changing World. She is so at home that she feels comfortable enough to break the rules. Jacob, who has never felt truly at home among those from a higher social class, is thrilled by her cavalier attitude. Jacob feels able to open himself to her because he does not feel the need to constantly guard himself against judgment. The speed with which he falls in love with her reveals just how much he feels bound by etiquette and class expectation. He falls in love with freedom as much as he falls in love with Sandra.

“But to return to Jacob and Sandra. They had vanished.”

The narrator is not omniscient. The characters have their own agency, which allows Jacob and Sandra to escape from the narrator’s attention. They vanish, eluding the narration so that they can spend time together alone at the Acropolis. They are truly alone, able to be free with one another. As well as escaping the judgement of Sandra’s husband, they escape the judgement of the narrator—and, as a result, the audience—meaning that they are able to seize a moment of true privacy in a world that is quick to judge. The narrator’s lack of omniscience allows the characters space to fall in love.

“This statue was erected by the women of England.”

The Wellington Monument in Hyde Park was funded by donations from women. Sculpted from the bronze of enemy cannons and based on a classical statue called Horse Tamers on Monte Cavallo, it casts the Duke of Wellington as the Greek warrior Achilles standing over the slain body of his rival Hector. Ironically, a statue funded by women is used for the glorification of a man. In a patriarchal society, women’s money is used to further their own marginalization and reinforce social norms.

“And she wrote now—poems, letters that were never posted, saw his face in advertisements on hoardings, and would cross the road to let the barrel-organ turn her musings to rhapsody.”

Like Betty, Fanny is the author of a library of unread work, speaking to The Complexities of Education and Social Mobility in a sexist society. She is insightful and intelligent, even if she lacks the formal education and social etiquette that many people mistake as markers of intellect. Her work will not be published; it will, like Jacob’s character, be left unknown to history. This is the tragedy of Fanny’s marginalization, that her intellect and character should be utterly forgotten.