Mrs. Dalloway follows the title character on a typical day, as she plans a party, shops, meets old friends, and makes her grand entrance at the party, all the while rethinking her life, her choices, her problems with identity, her sense of self, and the conflicting demands of love. Like Irish writer James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922), this is a “stream-of-consciousness” novel, but the book really illustrates Virginia Woolf’s notion of the webs of humanity, love, hate, and even apathy that connect all people. The book also clearly focuses on the metaphor of “the bubbles of selfhood” that surround people and that even those who love them have difficulty penetrating.

Like Joyce’s, Woolf’s style is impressionistic in the sense that she uses interior monologue (characters’ thoughts and feelings) and individual glimpses that illuminate the hearts and souls of her characters while the pace of the plot pauses. To Virginia Woolf, time, selfhood, existence, and the soul or psyche are interrelated and thus must be dealt with intrinsically, each a component or crucial facet of the other.

By presenting apparently unrelated bits and pieces of characters, their actions and choices, and their interactions with others, Virginia Woolf forged an unforgettable and wonderful new writing style that has changed the direction and focus of much twentieth century literature.

Thus, Mrs. Dalloway’s character may be symbolic of purity, sensitivity, and reason, all of which lead her to accept her life without question, while her double, Septimus Warren Smith, poignantly represents destruction, apathy, and a passionate rejection of the fraud of civilization, the needs of love, and the despair of life itself. Their juxtaposition is at the heart of Woolf’s attempt to reveal Clarissa Dalloway’s true character as a woman in search of her self, threatened by the demands of love and apathy, passion and reason. Whereas Smith commits suicide by leaping out of his apartment window, Clarissa’s is an emotional suicide that allows her a chance to believe that she is in control of her self, her nature, her identity.

Clarissa and Septimus never meet but are connected by the streets and activities of London and by the much-repeated Shakespearean line “‘Fear no more the heat o’ the sun/ Nor the furious winter’s rages,’” which clarifies Woolf’s focus on love, hate, apathy, and fear. The phrase is from Cymbeline (c. 1610), a play about deceit and marital infidelity which ends in love and reconciliation. Its recurrence in Mrs. Dalloway may suggest the author’s ironic view of love as a threat to one’s sense of self. For Woolf, erotic love is much too demanding of one’s identity, particularly if one is female. In her own life, she helplessly watched as her emotionally demanding father killed first his wife and then Woolf’s older sister with his incessant need for totally unconditional acceptance and support. Her own marriage to Leonard Woolf was often too much for her, since his sexual demands were unwelcome and frightening, despite his otherwise kind behavior. For Mrs. Dalloway, too, erotic love requires too much of one’s heart and soul; it was far better to marry the undemanding Richard, who did not care whether she loved him or not, than to risk her fragile sense of self with the passion of Peter or the purity of Sally.

*London

*London. Capital of Great Britain whose diversity of life is characterized by the city’s commercial life, its social order, and national politics. As characters walk through the streets of London, they encounter famous locations and monuments—Whitehall, Westminster, the parks, Big Ben, and St. Paul’s Cathedral. London’s diversity suggests the potential for harmony in society on at least two levels: a union between public and private, epitomized in the characters of Clarissa and Septimus, and among all the diverse social and political factions found in English society.

*Westminster

*Westminster. This upper-class London neighborhood houses many government officials and politicians. The Dalloways’ life in Westminster symbolizes their upper-class social status. Richard Dalloway is a member of Parliament and Elizabeth considers the possibility of membership in Parliament as a career.

*Whitehall

*Whitehall. Section of London stretching from Trafalgar Square to the Westminster Bridge that gives its name to the area where the Houses of Parliament stand. Downing Street, the official address of the British prime minister, is off Whitehall, as are many government offices. In the 1920’s, Whitehall was associated with war and government. In Whitehall, Peter Walsh is overtaken by a parade of boys marching to lay a wreath at the Cenotaph, a World War I memorial erected in 1920. Septimus Smith, a soldier, encounters the glory of war heroes’ statues and government sites, and questions the patriotism and nationalism that promoted the death and destruction of World War I. Ultimately Walsh’s musings and Smith’s devastating reflections contrast with the privileged existence of Clarissa.

*Bourton-on-the-Water

*Bourton-on-the-Water. Gloucestershire town in the heart of the Cotswolds, west of London, close to the River Windrush, Bourton epitomizes country living; its quaint village atmosphere exudes luxury of the upper middle class. The fact that Clarissa’s family home is located here suggests expectations for her future in the upper class. Throughout the novel Clarissa recalls a summer at Bourton more than thirty years earlier, during which she decided not to marry Peter Walsh and shared confidences with Sally Seton. The freedom of youth at Bourton is contrasted with the social protocols of adult society in London.

*Regent’s Park

*Regent’s Park. Large London park with gently undulating hills with a steep rise in the north from which Westminster and the city can be viewed. Predominantly open parkland with numerous benches, it is a place of rest and relaxation for all Londoners. Regent’s Park reinforces the novel’s theme of creating harmony amid diversity; it provides a place where all the social classes come together: Septimus and Reiza Smith, Maisie Johnson, Mrs. Dempster, an elderly nurse, children, and Peter Walsh. This park is also the location where Septimus Smith hallucinates about his witnessing the death of a friend in battle. The contrast between the idyllic setting and the horrors of war symbolizes the conflicted position of British society at this time.

*Big Ben

*Big Ben. Great bell in a Westminster clock tower that is one of London’s best-known landmarks. Big Ben acts as an organizing device as it chimes throughout Mrs. Dalloway signaling the passing of time. Bloomsbury, the neighborhood where Septimus and Reiza Smith live, where Dr. Holmes’s office is located, and where Peter Walsh stays at Bedford Place, is associated with artists, intellectuals, and a bohemian lifestyle. The British Museum, London University, and the Slade School of Art are located in the Bloomsbury area.

*St. Paul’s Cathedral

*St. Paul’s Cathedral. Late seventeenth century church that is mentioned as a hallowed place in London. Its historical value rests in its being the first English cathedral built after the creation of the Church of England in 1534. It is not merely a religious site but also the site of numerous tombs and memorials that speak of heroism and bravery and the tragedy of war. Elizabeth Dalloway ventures by bus, then on foot, toward the cathedral after tea with Miss Kilman. Though she never makes it to the cathedral, she is drawn to it, feeling that it will provide a sense of direction in her life.

Mrs. Dalloway is the first of Virginia Woolf’s successful, mature, experimental novels, one that uses impressionistic techniques and interior monologues like those of James Joyce or European writer Marcel Proust to reveal the personalities of her characters, Mrs. Dalloway, Peter Walsh, and Septimus Smith. For Woolf, the human psyche, one’s sense of self (existence), and time are interrelated. For her, the past and present exist simultaneously in the human mind, and the self is not a precise point, as Mrs. Dalloway would hope, but rather a series of ongoing processes. At any given moment, one is the total of one’s experiences, thoughts, choices, hopes, fears, and fantasies.

Virginia Woolf has emerged as the grande dame of feminist writers. Her essays, such as A Room of One’s Own (1929) and Three Guineas (1938), have always had a major influence on twentieth century feminist philosophy, but in Mrs. Dalloway she manages to make a great artistic contribution to literature and to reveal the destructive nature of erotic love on the individual, particularly the female. To Woolf, love is dangerous because it threatens to engulf and even submerge the individual self, who must sacrifice its identity to keep the love object happy and fulfilled. For Mrs. Dalloway, then, passion is rejected so that she may remain her own inexorable, psychically virginal self.

Woolf’s success indicates the clarity, purity, and sensitivity that are the unique characteristics of feminist literature. The conflicting demands of love and individuality, madness and sanity, passion and reason find their way into Clarissa Dalloway’s life at a time when she feels compelled to reassess her life of passionless (yet apparently selfless) wifely and motherly duty. Her double, Septimus Warren Smith, is realized symbolically as the person she might have been: If she cares too little, Smith cares far too much, for his friend Evans (killed in the war), for his young bride, for Shakespearean England, and for all the abstract terms that mean something only to those willing to die to preserve them—love, honor, integrity, justice, and so forth.

Septimus’ suicide compares with Clarissa’s “emotional suicide” as a way of maintaining one’s freedom from subversion and preserving one’s integrity, even against those whom one loves. It is this contradictory vision, coupled with the psychological realism of the novel and the lyrically woven strings of thought, time, experience, personalities, identities, love, and madness, that has made Mrs. Dalloway one of the most significant books of the twentieth century. Feminists and antifeminists alike find this work a monumental achievement. Other works by Woolf include Jacob’s Room (1922), To the Lighthouse (1927), The Waves (1931), Orlando (1928), Flush: A Biography (1933), The Years (1937), and Between the Acts (1941).

The New Modern Era

The nineteenth century brought about developments that significantly transformed European society. Mercantilism and industrialization gave rise to a powerful new class. This burgeoning middle class, known as the bourgeoisie, quickly surpassed the cultural, political, and economic influence of the aristocracy that had previously dominated nations and empires. The century was also marked by the spread of democracy and workers' rights movements. However, it wasn't until after World War I (1914-1918) that the profound and permanent changes in European society were fully recognized.

Mrs. Dalloway captures this sense of an era's conclusion. Clarissa's Aunt Parry, an elderly figure who appears at Clarissa's party, symbolizes this decline and the end of an old way of life. The old woman reminisces about her days in Burma, evoking the peak of British imperialism and colonialism. Yet, as Lady Bruton's anxious remark about the situation in India highlights, the days of paternalistic European colonialism have ended. India and other former colonies, once comfortable homes for colonials like Clarissa's aunt, are now becoming sites of serious independence struggles.

Lady Bruton also mentions the rise of the Labour Party. (This new party gained a parliamentary majority in England in 1924, the year before Mrs. Dalloway was published.) This detail reflects how England had become radically modern, moving towards a fuller social democracy, a political system that still defines most modern nations today, including the United States. The Labour Party's name signifies its representation of governance by the people, for the people, as opposed to rule by an aristocracy or an oligarchic class.

Elizabeth Dalloway, a young woman contemplating a career, also signifies change, as entering the workforce was a social possibility not previously available to women.

World War I

World War I bears some similarities to the Vietnam War. Like the latter, it is remembered as a conflict many believed should have been avoided and one that deeply traumatized its soldiers. It was an imperial war in two senses. Firstly, it aimed to curb the European territorial ambitions of Prussian imperial rule. Secondly, it was partly sparked by border disputes among European nations on the African continent (European nations had started colonizing African territories in the late nineteenth century). It was a power struggle concerning traditional European ruling classes and had little relevance to the everyday concerns and struggles of most European citizens.

What was startling about the war was its prolonged duration and the staggering number of casualties. (It continued for four years, resulting in the deaths or severe injuries of millions of young men.) The combat style that emerged during this conflict was trench warfare. In this method, soldiers dug deep trenches from which they fired at the enemy. When ordered to charge, they would climb out of these trenches and face the enemy directly. These narrow, confining trenches were conducive to disease, as they were often muddy and wet due to frequent rainfall. Soldiers felt that the trenches were as much pre-dug graves as they were shelters from enemy fire. Additionally, poison gas (mustard gas) was deployed during WWI, and soldiers exposed to the fumes without gas masks either died or suffered greatly.

During cease-fires, enemy soldiers sometimes formed friendships in the area known as no man's land, which lay between opposing trench lines. Soldiers on both sides often believed that their true enemies were not each other, but the officers, politicians, and generals orchestrating the war. The slaughter, injuries, and fear resulting from this poorly managed conflict left many war veterans deeply traumatized. This trauma came to be known as "shell shock" in the years following the war. Septimus Warren Smith, a brave soldier who ultimately becomes a suicidal, broken man, exemplifies Woolf's critique of this tragic war.

Narration and Point of View

From the opening sentence, Mrs. Dalloway demonstrates a seamless blend of a third-person narrator's perspective with a first-person character's viewpoint, making it impossible to distinguish between the two: "Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself." Had these perspectives been clearly separated, the sentence might have read: "Mrs. Dalloway said, 'I will buy the flowers myself,'" or included the word "that": "Mrs. Dalloway said that she would buy the flowers herself." In this latter case, the reader would likely perceive the words following "that" as the narrator's interpretation or summary, rather than an exact reflection of Mrs. Dalloway's thoughts or speech. Instead, Woolf perfected a narrative style known as "represented thought and speech," which captures the flow of a character's mind in the past tense, third person. The narrator conveys the character's thoughts and speech, but the words are entirely and immediately infused with the character's unique voice and style, making it impossible to separate the narrator from the character. Woolf devised an elegant and efficient technique for shifting between and representing multiple characters' speech and thoughts, avoiding the awkwardness of excessive dialogue or switching between sequences of different characters' first-person thoughts. Related literary terms include reported thought and speech, free indirect discourse, and stream-of-consciousness.

Time

Mrs. Dalloway stands out due to its events occurring within a single day. This unconventional approach highlights the novel's intricate treatment of time. For instance, while many people perceive time as the regular ticking of a clock—seconds, minutes, hours, and days—this book illustrates how individuals can relive entire years within minutes through the workings of memory. Peter and Clarissa, for example, walk a few steps in London and recall significant periods of their youth, reflecting on how these years influenced and shaped their lives.

Moreover, the novel expands on the concept of time by presenting the thoughts of various characters, each of whom remembers and experiences time, the past, and the present differently. In this novel, chronological time is just one aspect of time, as characters bring the past into the present, allowing the meaning and memories of the present to be shaped by the past, and vice versa, shaping their memories and feelings about the past with their current experiences.

Character Double

Septimus Warren Smith can be viewed as a double for Clarissa in the novel. As a character double, he embodies traits and a storyline that complement and expand upon Clarissa's character and narrative. Literary critic Alex Page, in "A Dangerous Day: Mrs. Dalloway and Her Double," states, "Septimus's character is in all essentials Clarissa's, but taken to a deadly extreme." While Clarissa experiences isolation, Septimus becomes detached from reality; where Clarissa copes with societal expectations and disappointments, Septimus succumbs to more intense pressures. The deep connection between these characters is highlighted by Clarissa's profound distress when Dr. Bradshaw informs her at her party that one of his patients has committed suicide that day. She withdraws from her guests in shock upon hearing about Septimus's death, as if she too could be overwhelmed by the same despair that ultimately claims the young man's life.

Many critics have observed that Woolf's fourth novel signifies a pivotal moment in her journey toward artistic independence and maturity. Particularly, it is Clarissa Dalloway's interior monologue or stream-of-consciousness, intertwined with the urban setting, that signals a new chapter in Woolf's command of literary technique. She also employs flashbacks and photographic methods to recall childhood experiences, demonstrating that external events gain significance only through the internal or subjective connections the observer makes with them.

These narrative techniques of montage reflect Woolf's eagerness to experiment with the portrayal of consciousness and emphasize the importance of perspective in any three-dimensional narrative. This approach allows the author to delve into the psychology of her characters and the psychological time that propels them through their life stories.

1920s: In Britain, the Labour Party ascends to power, women gain the right to vote, and the first significant wave of communication and travel technologies emerges or, in some instances, becomes widely adopted (radio, telephone, telegraph communications; automobile and airplane travel).

Today: International communication and connectivity have advanced so dramatically, thanks to computer technology and the Internet, that the term "globalization" is now commonplace. The modern world envisioned in the 1920s has unmistakably arrived.

1920s: Modernism, a collection of artistic movements aiming to reflect the cultural and social shifts of a new century through form and style, is thriving. Modernists advocate for internationalism.

Today: Art at the end of the twentieth century is characterized by postmodernism. This term indicates how its forms are both related to modernism (postmodernism) and, in some respects, defined in opposition to modernism (postmodernism). Postmodernists explore and critique globalization and transnationalism.

1920s: Although the American colonies of Europe (such as the United States and the nations of South and Central America) have long established their independence, the twentieth century witnesses nationalist and independence movements in Europe's remaining colonies in Asia and Africa. These movements conclude in the 1960s.

Today: Colonies no longer exist; instead, a collection of independent nations spans the globe.

James Joyce's Ulysses, which was finally published in 1922 after numerous battles with censorship, was praised by intellectuals of the time, and has continued to be celebrated since, for its groundbreaking contribution to the novel's form. Set over the span of a single day, the novel explores its themes through flashbacks and interior monologues. Joyce, along with Virginia Woolf and Marcel Proust, is recognized for employing style and technique to pioneer the modern psychological novel.

Mrs. Dalloway is Woolf's second novel employing stream-of-consciousness; her first was Jacob's Room (1922). The character Jacob Flanders is a quiet seeker of reality, and his room, or series of rooms, symbolizes his quest for personal meaning. Although lacking a conventional plot, this novel is recognized as one of the most sensitive depictions of the unfulfilled journey into adulthood. Woolf's third stream-of-consciousness novel, To the Lighthouse (1925, see separate entry), showcased her mastery of this innovative narrative technique, which significantly influenced the course of modern fiction.

Mrs. Dalloway was transformed into a movie titled the same in 1997, under the direction of Marleen Gorris. The film features the esteemed British actress Vanessa Redgrave in the role of Clarissa Dalloway.

Sources

Allen, Walter, The Modern Novel in Britain and the United States, EP Dutton & Co., New York, 1964.

Forster, E. M., Aspects of the Novel, Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1927.

----, Virginia Woolf, Cambridge University Press, 1942.

Hawthorn, Jeremy, Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway": A Study in Alienation, Sussex University Press, 1975.

Henke, Suzette A., "Mrs. Dalloway: The Communion of Saints," in New Feminist Essays on Virginia Woolf, edited by Jane Marcus, University of Nebraska Press, 1981, pp. 125–147.

Jensen, Emily, "Clarissa Dalloway's Respectable Suicide," in Virginia Woolf: A Feminist Slant, edited by Jane Marcus, University of Nebraska Press, 1983, pp. 162–179.

Johnson, Manly, Virginia Woolf, Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., New York, 1978.

Naremore, James, The World Without A Self: Virginia Woolf and the Novel, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1973.

Page, Alex, "A Dangerous Day: Mrs. Dalloway and Her Double," in Modern Fiction Studies, Vol. VII, No. 2, Summer 1961, pp. 115–124.

Woolf, Virginia, The Diary of Virginia Woolf, edited by Anne Olivier Bell with Andrew McNeillie, 5 vols., Hogarth Press, 1977–1984.

Woolf, Virginia, Mrs. Dalloway, Harcourt Brace & World, New York, 1953.

Woolf, Virginia, A Writer’s Diary, edited by Leonard Woolf, Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1954.

----, "Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown," in The Gender of Modernism, edited by Bonnie Kime Scott, Indiana University Press, 1990.

For Further Study

Abel, Elizabeth, Virginia Woolf and the Fictions of Psychoanalysis, University of Chicago Press, 1989.
Abel's chapter on Mrs. Dalloway explores how Woolf's novel engages with and challenges Freud's theories about women.

Daiches, David, Virginia Woolf, James Laughlin, 1942.
Daiches provides an excellent and accessible overview of Woolf's artistic and literary contributions.

Edwards, Lee R., "War and Roses: The Politics of Mrs. Dalloway," in The Authority of Experience: Essays in Feminist Criticism, edited by Arlyn Diamond and Lee R. Edwards, University of Massachusetts Press, 1977, pp. 161–177.
This essay offers a crucial and informative perspective on the political dimensions of Mrs. Dalloway.

Fussell, Paul, The Great War and Modern Memory, Oxford University Press, 1975.
Fussell's book is the definitive text on World War I—its impact on popular imagination, soldiers' experiences, and war poetry.

Lee, Hermione, Virginia Woolf, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1996.
Lee provides a recent, highly readable biography of the author.

Thomas, Sue, "Virginia Woolf's Septimus Smith and Contemporary Perceptions of Shellshock," in English Language Notes, Vol. 25, No. 2, December 1987, pp. 49–57.
Thomas examines literature and societal attitudes toward shell shock during Woolf's era.

Zwerdling, Alex, Virginia Woolf and the Real World, University of California Press, 1986.
Zwerdling's book discusses the social and political contexts and arguments within Woolf's novels.