Mrs. Dalloway
Akshit Bhatnagar
Student
Computer Science and Engineering
April 19, 2013
Role of Mrs. Dalloway in “Mrs. Dalloway” and effect of social structure on the role
Mrs. Dalloway, a novel written by Virginia Woolf, details a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway who is a high-society woman in post-World War I England. Clarissa Dalloway is fifty one year old protagonist of the novel. She is wife of Richard Dalloway and mother of Elizabeth. The novel has described a single day bringing in different characters to show the social structure of post-World War I England. Clarissa spends the day organizing her party which is to be held tonight and also thinking of the time when she was young. There is a second main character Septimus, a war veteran, who is disturbed due to his friend’s death in the war. He suffers from hallucinations of his deceased friend. He thinks as if it was his mistake that Evans was killed and he should be punished with death sentence and therefore he often tells his wife Lucrezia that he will kill himself. Lucrezia is an Italian woman who has no friends in London and had to leave her family to marry Septimus who is now mentally ill so she is very homesick.
Story starts with Clarissa going out to buy flowers in the morning for her party that she will host in the evening. On the way to the flower shop she reflects her past thinking about her decisions including her decision to marry Richard Dalloway rather than Peter Walsh. Peter Walsh is an old friend of Clarissa. She rejected his marriage proposal in the past. As Clarissa buys flowers the story is shifted to Septimus who is terrified when he hears the sound of car backfiring. He struggles with the after effects of war. He still continues to have conversations with his friend Evans whom he lost in the war.
Virginia Woolf starts by emphasizing the fact that Mrs. Dalloway herself is going out to do the shopping. She has been ill for some time and now that she has recovered she is going to do what she
Student
Computer Science and Engineering
April 19, 2013
Role of Mrs. Dalloway in “Mrs. Dalloway” and effect of social structure on the role
Mrs. Dalloway, a novel written by Virginia Woolf, details a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway who is a high-society woman in post-World War I England. Clarissa Dalloway is fifty one year old protagonist of the novel. She is wife of Richard Dalloway and mother of Elizabeth. The novel has described a single day bringing in different characters to show the social structure of post-World War I England. Clarissa spends the day organizing her party which is to be held tonight and also thinking of the time when she was young. There is a second main character Septimus, a war veteran, who is disturbed due to his friend’s death in the war. He suffers from hallucinations of his deceased friend. He thinks as if it was his mistake that Evans was killed and he should be punished with death sentence and therefore he often tells his wife Lucrezia that he will kill himself. Lucrezia is an Italian woman who has no friends in London and had to leave her family to marry Septimus who is now mentally ill so she is very homesick.
Story starts with Clarissa going out to buy flowers in the morning for her party that she will host in the evening. On the way to the flower shop she reflects her past thinking about her decisions including her decision to marry Richard Dalloway rather than Peter Walsh. Peter Walsh is an old friend of Clarissa. She rejected his marriage proposal in the past. As Clarissa buys flowers the story is shifted to Septimus who is terrified when he hears the sound of car backfiring. He struggles with the after effects of war. He still continues to have conversations with his friend Evans whom he lost in the war.
Virginia Woolf starts by emphasizing the fact that Mrs. Dalloway herself is going out to do the shopping. She has been ill for some time and now that she has recovered she is going to do what she
Cited: Zwerdling, Alex. “Mrs. Dalloway and The Social System.” PMLA Vol. 92, No. 1 pp. 69-82. Modern Language Association, Jan., 1977. Print. Forbes, Shannon. “Equating Performance with Identity: The Failure of Clarissa Dalloway 's Victorian "Self" in Virginia Woolf 's "Mrs. Dalloway." The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association, Vol. 38, No. 1, Special Convention Issue: Performance. Midwest Modern Language Association, Spring,2005. Print.