The Spiritual Victory of “The Angel in the House”: A Stylistic Analysis of Deviation Phenomena in Virginia Woolf’s Short Story “The Legacy”

“The Legacy” is one of the short stories created by Virginia Woolf. This novel is written with the stream-of-consciousness technique. To convey the psychological states and feelings of the characters, Woolf employed a large number of deviations and stream-of-consciousness techniques in the novel “The Legacy”. This thesis will analyze the novel from the deviations in the surface structure of the novel’s language, including grammatical deviations and writing deviations, as well as the stream-of-consciousness techniques such as indirect interior monologue, free association and time montage. By following the flow of the characters’ consciousness, we can see the essence of the characters clearly and understand the awakening of female consciousness and the idea of achieving spiritual victory conveyed by Woolf.