This thesis will address the position of female walker in London during the 1930s. The aim is to focus on significance of the figure of the flaneur in relation to the differences of mobility...Show moreThis thesis will address the position of female walker in London during the 1930s. The aim is to focus on significance of the figure of the flaneur in relation to the differences of mobility between men and women. In addition, the specific role of and differences between public spaces as opposed to private spaces are discussed. In order to do so, the short story Street Haunting, written by Virginia Woolf in 1930, will be used to incorporate all these aspects. It is important to question these matters as these issues are still at bay in today’s society. The gap this thesis will fill is that it discusses the issue of having no explicitly gendered narrator, yet, almost all literature on the short story interpret the narrator to be female. This is due to certain social cues within the short story. The main question that will be answered is: How is the walker represented in Street Haunting and how does this relate to public and private spaces? The method used in order to arrive at an answer for this main question is close reading. This entails that every sentence of the short story will be examined closely and will be deconstructed and be read in its context in order to interpret the meaning of it. The aim of this thesis is to make readers aware that the power-related gender-mobility issues that are addressed in the short story, are still relevant today.Show less
