Conflict In Mrs. Dalloway

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Recommended: Changes in Victorian literature

Fidel Reyes ENGL 350-500 Dr. David McWhirter February 28, 2014 Mrs. Dalloway, the Shadow of a Husband In the novel Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf tells the story of a particular day of June 1923 that, initially, revolves around the point of view a 52 year old woman named Clarissa Dalloway, who is going to throw a party later that day; the story goes on to use the point of view of other characters in the novel but for stay’s with Clarissa’s point of view for the most part since she is the heroine of the story. While the book is filled with social commentary and post-World War I themes Woolf also uses her strategic storytelling skills to bring light upon the issues that women faced. For example, as Clarissa is making plans for her party she begins to analyze her life and concludes that her identity is merely frivolous, and starts to realize that she is not a person that society sees as an individual but rather being a part of someone else. Woolf introduces Clarissa’s inner conflict by making Clarissa analyze herself; while being in a state of reflection Clarissa starts to fear that she is invisible, and that because of her age and marital status she has nothing more to give society, since she has already been married and had children. “She had the oddest sense of being herself invisible, unseen; unknown; there being no more marrying, no more having children now, but only this astonishing and rather solemn progress with the rest of them, up Bond Street, this being Mrs. Dalloway; not even Clarissa anymore; this being Mrs. Richard Dalloway.” (11) In this passage Woolf is implying that having an identity was an issue for women; since society only viewed them as objects of consumption, objects that would only be used, specifically to make... ... middle of paper ... ... she could die in total happiness, but the hears the words “Fear no more the heat of the sun.”(186) and that “She must go back to them” (186), back to reality, back to her party, back to her life. Clarissa found joy in Septimus’s death as she took it as a sign that throwing it all away can be beautiful and that it can bring joy, “he made her feel the beauty; made her feel the fun.” Woolf effectively uses Clarissa’s reaction to Septimus’s suicide to show that women from her time where under so many constraints, that they could never win that they could not be themselves, that maybe throwing it all away was the answer to find true happiness. Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway is a portrayal of women and social classes that works in an effective way to show how women of her time were treated, and to demonstrate a deep analysis of how society viewed, used, and treated women.

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