Džejkobova soba kao eksperiment: glas onoga koga nema
Jacob’s Room as an Experiment: The Voice of the Departed

Summary/Abstract: After two predominantly conventional novels, Virginia Woolf wrote Jacob's Room feeling a strong need to put myriads of invisible impressions of reality into words. It was an experiment in structure, style and characterisation. This paper will show that the power of absence (being Woolf 's foundation of the story about a young man) is equal to the power of existence, if not greater. The authoress employs nature, objects, gestures, facial expressions as witnesses to the absence. They are all part of a larger picture with an ominous void in the middle caused by the death of the title character. Drawing upon Rachel Hollander's conclusions on the true motif of Jacob's Room, this paper focuses on the (im)possibility of comprehension and communication between people as a pattern around which Virginia Woolf weaves her story, at the same time using it as a literary means to masterly evoke 'the pulse of life' through the stream of consciousness method.

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