Virginia Woolf's Jacob's Room:An Elusive Character of Jacob Flanders

Jacob's Room is Virginia Woolf's first conscious and calculated departure from the established conventions of novel writing. To some degree Virginia Woolf successfully conveyed the chaotic complexity of human nature in this novel. What we know of another person are bits of his/her personality. This is because intentionally or unintentionally a person never communicates wholly his personality to another. In Jacob's Room, Jacob's character is never unfolded in chronological sequences. Rather from time to time glimpses of Jacob are shown in his interactions with different people at different stages of his life. This paper focuses its attention on the kind of life included in Jacob's Room. Life according to Virginia Woolf is evasive. An attempt to grasp life in its totality is impossible. We may grasp parts of a character's personality but never the whole. This is the case with Jacob Flanders. We do not know Jacob Flanders completely but come nearer to the real Jacob Flanders which evades us. This paper throws light on how Virginia Woolf reveals Jacob's personality and to what degree she succeeded in unveiling the figure of Jacob Flanders.