The Pursuit of the Essence of Consciousness in Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse

What Are We Doing Here?: The Pursuit of the Essence of Consciousness in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse In her novels Woolf examines the relationships and inner-workings of people 's minds and how these portrayals are connected to Woolf 's own ideals regarding life and death. In two of her most popular novels, Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, Woolf examines these issues, leaving the paramount investigation of life unanswered and leaving the reader with the ability to form their own ultimate judgment. In order to find answers to this, her ultimate question, we must search through her recurring themes to interpret our own vision of Woolf 's views on the main aspects of life as we know it. This paper will demonstrate how Woolf explored the meaning of life and death within the inner thoughts and relationships of her characters and how she used ambiguous characters to demonstrate the need for a balance in one 's relationship with the self and with others in order to truly find happiness in life. In Mrs. Dalloway, the issue of life and death in cooperation with the character 's emotional and mental inner-workings is a prominent theme. Woolf addresses the meaning of life and how one should live theirs, as well as how one should not. Woolf balances the importance of individual self and the dissemination of that individual 's self among others within a cast of interconnected characters. The question of life and death is repeatedly explored through Clarissa, Peter, and Septimus- often in a more connected way that one might notice during a first reading.
In “Walking the Web in the Lost London of Mrs. Dalloway”, Andelys Wood suggests that “The challenge to readers is that the reality...time in the mind and time on the clock, the experiences of the writer, characters, and readers, all are connected by the novel 's web” (19). In the novel 's opening Clarissa is walking through town to buy flowers for her party. She puzzles over the meaning of

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