Conclusion

Abstract

There is a tendency in recent thinking and writing about the gift to dismiss it as merely ‘disguised self-interest’ or ‘as a remnant of a golden age of pure generosity’ (Osteen 1), and to ‘conjure the gift away, refusing its magic or madness in the name of reason, of reducing everything to economic exchange’ (Still, 1997, 172). Writing in a period of dramatic social, political and, importantly, economic upheaval, Woolf’s privileging of the gift confirms its importance in sustaining social bonds in an increasingly (and dangerously) impersonal world. That gifts are complex, ambiguous and indeterminate, and that the risk in giving them is great, are factors central to Woolf’s own sense of her creative gift, to her negotiation of the literary market, and to her own acts of generosity. Concepts of the gift facilitate the exploration of the subversive politics of Woolf’s writing, offering a different perspective on the challenges to hegemonic authority and norms and resonating with the generosity of its suggestive forms.