Summary

Virginia Woolf went through periods of depression in the midst of World War I which led to a suicide attempt. In a diary entry she wrote that when there is danger it is best to be in the dark about outcomes that may be dire. Children are afraid of the dark; adults fear the darkness they call the unknown. Paradoxically, it is usually in darkness that love is made and new lives are conceived. There is another kind of darkness which emanates from closed eyes that refuse to see.

We are optimists who see the world that we think we see. However, it is easy for a person to see only what he wants to see, averting her eyes from the bumps in the road ahead. We speculate on what other people think or feel without any bases. Virginia Woolf’s...