How are the themes of repression and oppression presented in Mrs. Dalloway?

In the novel, Clarissa Dalloway represses her talents and desires to conform to her socially prescribed role as a woman. She becomes the perfect society hostess and the active, vigilant supporter of her husband's career. She treats her own desires as secondary. She may have once been in love, when she was young, with another woman, Sally Seton, but she represses that desire as socially unacceptable. Mrs. Dalloway spends the day of her party doing things like buying flowers—activities that some might be considered frivolous. She is, however, an exemplary hostess and throws a successful party, but the novel conveys a strong sense that had her society not repressed women, she could have been and done more with her life.

Septimus Smith is oppressed by the trauma he suffers from the death and destruction he witnessed in World War I. He can't get beyond it, and it leads him to contemplating suicide. He is also oppressed by a medical system that, as represented by people like Sir William Bradshaw, is insensitive to the real needs of people in his situation. He jumps out of a window, killing himself, rather than allow himself to be subjected to medical treatment.

The themes repression and oppression are presented through the stream of consciousness thoughts of the novel's characters and the actions they take. In the novel, Woolf moves quickly in and out of the heads of her characters, reproducing their thoughts as they think them as they all go about a single day, through this weaving together the story of an entire damaged society.

In Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs. Dalloway, the themes of repression and oppression can be analyzed through the perspective and experiences of Doris Kilman. Miss Kilman, Elizabeth Dalloway's teacher, is repression personified. For example, she harbors deep and passionate feelings towards the beautiful young Elizabeth, but she does nothing about them; rather, Miss Kilman seethes with unexpressed emotion and looks for solace in prayer. She also feels she is a victim of oppression. Miss Kilman, who is of German descent, was treated badly by her previous employers, because she refused to say that all Germans were villains. Not only does she feel like she is a victim of the school's intolerance, evidenced by their decision to fire her, but she also feels scorned and mistreated by her current employer, Clarissa Dalloway, who is a member of a social class Miss Kilman will never be a part of.

In this novel everybody is shown to be oppressed by the inherent loneliness that is an essential part of living. This is shown most clearly during Clarissa's shopping expedition to Picadilly, when, even though she is surrounded by the heaving tumult of so many people rushing around, she is struck by how lonely she feels:

She had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day.

The image of the sea is an important symbol of the way in which this loneliness can threaten to drown those who are not strong enough to withstand it, such as Septimus and Lady Bradshaw. One of the essential truths of the human condition therefore in this novel is the oppression of loneliness and how it acts upon humans and threatens us.

Repression is shown through the way in which many, if not all of the characters are struggling with a sense of sadness that they battle against expressing. Clarissa, in the following quote, links this sadness to the aftermath of the Great War that has just been endured:

This late age of the world’s experience had bred in them all, all men and women, a well of tears. Tears and sorrows; courage and endurance; a perfectly upright and stoical bearing.

The reference to "Tears and sorrows" is particularly important in this text, for many characters are shown to cry as a result of unsuccessfully repressing their sorrow. Male and female characters alike, such as Septimus, Clarissa, Rezia and Peter Walsh, all break into tears during the course of the novel because of the great sorrow that lies within them that they have only tried to repress.

What themes of memory are present in Mrs. Dalloway?

I think that if you are assessing the role of memory in the Woolf work, you would have to engage into how the past filters into present and future.  The vision of consciousness that Woolf offers is one where there is not a clear demarcation of time.  When Woolf suggests that "All human relations have shifted," she might be articulating how our notion of consciousness has "shifted," as well.  Part of this would have to reside in how consciousness is constructed, with elements of our past, future, and even conditional filtering into the present.  This becomes something of vital importance.  Clarissa and other characters in the novel construct reality out of both their own pasts, projecting this into the future and into the present.  The past is not something absent.  Rather, Woolf argues that it plays a vital role in forming present and future identity.  It is here where memory is seen in its most important light.  To fully grasp its significance is something that Clarissa must reflect upon in the present, thereby changing it.  In  this, the conception of time offered is a fluid and dynamic one, showing that the past and memory is vital to the construction of consciousness.

What are some comic elements in Mrs. Dalloway?

Mrs. Dalloway is primarily not a comic novel, dealing as it does with suicide, loss, compromise, failure, aging, the inability of the medical system to treat mental illness, and the repercussions of World War I. Further, Woolf has no authoritative narrator in this novel, leaving it to the reader to interpret tone and meaning.

Nevertheless, Woolf uses dark comedy to poke fun at (satirize) patriarchal illusions. For instance, she makes fun of the pomposity and self-importance of Hugh Whitbread, who attends Clarissa's party:

Hugh [Whitbread], intimating by a kind of pout or swell of his very well-covered, manly, extremely handsome, perfectly upholstered body (he was almost too well dressed always, but presumably had to be, with his little job at Court).

Using words like "manly," "extremely handsome," and "perfectly upholstered," Woolf ridicules Hugh's strutting, inflated self-image and his superficiality: he derives his sense of worth from external qualities, such as his body and his clothes. She also punctures him by referring to his job at Court, of which he is very proud and which makes him feel important, as "little."

Woolf also comically skewers the inflated, patriarchal delusions of grandeur in Peter Walsh's thoughts about himself:

He was an adventurer, reckless, he thought, swift, daring, indeed (landed as he was last night from India) a romantic buccaneer, careless of all these damned proprieties. . . . He was a buccaneer.

Peter Walsh is no buccaneer, regardless of how much he wants to harbor this fantasy (and, to his credit, he does realize this).

There is a dark humor in Peter spending half an hour following a girl in the streets. Peter rationalizes this by making up a fantasy about her, noting that "one makes up the better part of life."

Ultimately, it is these male fantasies, comic in themselves, that lead to tragedies like World War I. The inflated egos of patriarchal men, if silly and comic, take a heavy toll on society.

There is also a comic element in all the flurry and fuss over Mrs. Dalloway's party. She is an admirable person, but is a party what she should be using her energies and gifts to produce?

What other themes are present in Mrs. Dalloway?

The answer to this question rather depends on what themes you have already identified. However, one of the more interesting themes from my perspective is that of social change. This theme is based on the setting of the novel and in particular the way that WWI impacts on the characters. Let us remember it is this that has destroyed the life of Septimus. Also, the content of the novel makes it clear that we are entering a new world where social class has an ever-diminishing impact on a person's life chances. Consider the way that Bradshaw has now managed to gain a title even though he came from humble and obscure origins. Likewise, we are told that Septimus, before his wartime experience, was heading up the social ladder.

Other details that are refered to that point towards social change are the rise in power of the Labour Party and colonial unrest in India. The Labour Party in Britain traditionally has always represented the majority rather than the influential moneyed minority, and thus points towards a decline in the power of the aristocracy. The unrest in India also indicates that Britain's power is on the wane.

Consider to the presentation of gender through the character of Elizabeth Dalloway. Women like her are now able to have their own career, whereas before the only role open to women was to be a wife. Therefore, throughout this exciting and vibrant novel, social change, through focusing on formerly oppressed groups of society and the way that they now have options and rights, is a major theme.