Night and Day: a Representation of Identity Through Nocturnal and Diurnal Symbolic Images
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Virginia Woolf’s novel, Night and Day (1919), presents identity as a fusion of symbols that reveal the characters’ struggles and evolution toward self-understanding. The characters shape their identities by navigating a changing social environment, thus seeking answers and developing mechanisms for survival and adaptation. The present paper proposes a symbolic interpretation of the characters’ transformation in Woolf’s novel by applying Gilbert Durand’s anthropological framework of the diurnal and nocturnal regimes of the imaginary. The aim of the research is to illustrate significant symbols and motifs that describe the characters’ responses to social manipulation, with a focus on the evolution of Katharine Hilbery, one of the central characters in the novel, whose struggle between independence and the societal expectation of marriage reveals a sequence of factors that challenge the pursuit of self-consciousness and self-balance.
Source: Incursions into the Imaginary
Author: Bucur Tincu Bianca Maria
Institution: 1 Decembrie 1918 University
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7225752223
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