THE MARK ON THE WALL – SYMBOLS AND REFLECTIONS OF THE SELF
THE MARK ON THE WALL – SYMBOLS AND REFLECTIONS OF THE SELF

Summary/Abstract: The Mark on the Wall is a short story that centres on inner thoughts and inwardness. Universal topics such as gender and the voice of women, the understanding of nature and the nature of humans, and the concern of finding a balanced direction in life find reference within its pages. They complete the thematic framework of the story, the focus being on the topic of consciousness. The exploration of the flow of consciousness might be viewed theoretically as a representative theme featured in writings included within the frame of literary Modernism. Virginia Woolf, the author of this short story, was one of the prominent authors of this artistic movement.The purpose of the present paper is to follow a critical reading of the story through close reading and symbolic interpretation, focusing on the last part of it. Under the spectrum of Carl Gustav Jung’s theories and notion of ‘archetype’, we engage in describing the main symbols that reveal a possible image of the Self archetype. The abstract entity of the Self implies many layers, such as psychological, ontological, existential, and social. Thus, we explore the psychological insights traced through literary devices, namely interior monologue and stream of consciousness.

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