Domestic Sacred Spaces

Abstract

This chapter examines Woolf’s conceptualization of the home as a sacred space. It analyses her critique of Victorian domestic architecture in the light of Evangelical understandings of separate spheres, with the home as a place to which the paterfamilias could retreat to be ministered to by his wife. In doing so, it draws attention to the theological subtexts of Woolf’s essays ‘Professions for Women’ and A Room of One’s Own. The chapter then examines how Woolf sought to challenge these boundaries both in A Room of One’s Own, and in her organization of her own living space at Monk’s House. It demonstrates the influence of Woolf’s aunt Caroline Emelia Stephen on her writings about home as sacred space, as well as revealing the significance of the work of her little-known ancestor Sarah Stephen. The chapter also provides readings of Woolf’s representation of the home as sacred space in Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse.