Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)

Life
She was the daughter of an eminent Victorian man of letters, Leslie Stephen, so she
grew up in a literary and intellectual atmosphere. Her education was informal: she took
private Greek lessons, some courses at Kings College and freely explored her fathers
library. Her mother died when she was thirteen, which brought about her first nervous
breakdown.
Her relationship with her father got difficult, she afterwards stated he was aggressive
and tyrannical and had a conventional idea of the woman as the angel of the house.

The Bloomsbury group

In 1904 her father died and she and her sister Vanessa moved to Bloomsbury and
joined the Bloomsbury group.
They were an avant-garde group of writers, artists and thinkers who despised
conventional morality, rejected artistic conventions and condemned middle class sexual
moralism.
The members of the group gained the fame of radical thinkers thanks to Virginia
Woolfs revolutionary prose style, Bertrand Russels pacifist philosophical theories,
Vanessa Bells and Duncan Grants post-impressionist paintings.
The Bloomsbury group attitudes anticipated the trends of mid 20th century:
unconventional sexual practices, anti-war feelings and socialism.

Marriage
In 1912 she married Leonard Woolf, a writer who afterwards engaged in politics, joining
the Labour Party, and in sociological studies.
According to some, he was not only supportive of his wife but enabled her to live as
long as she did by providing her with the comforts and the atmosphere she needed to
live and write; others hold that Leonard Woolf's treatment of his wife encouraged her ill
health and ultimately that he was responsible for her death.

Literary career
In 1915 she published her first novel, The Voyage Out, still traditional in pattern,
entered a nursing home and attempted suicide.
In 1925 Mrs. Dalloway appeared, followed by To the Lighthouse and Orlando (devoted
to Vita Sackwille-West), both experimental novels. She was also a literary critic and an

essayist. One of her most famous volumes is A Room of Ones Own, where she
explores issues connected with women and writing and states economical
independence is vital to artistic independence. This work had a great impact on the
feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Her last novel is The Waves (1931), where
she seems to recognize a link between her creative process and her illness. Her
mental illness deteriorated, her depression was aggravated by World War II.

Death
On 28 March 1941, she put on her overcoat, filled its pockets with stones, and walked
into the River Ouse near her home and drowned herself. In her last note to her
husband she wrote:
Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of
those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't
concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the
greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I
don't think two people could have been happier 'til this terrible disease came. I can't
fight any longer....

A modernist writer
V. Woolf wanted to represent her characters inner world of feelings and memories.
According to her, human personality is shaped by the continuous shifts of impressions
and emotions. As a consequence, the events that traditionally made up a story were of
no importance to her. What really mattered was the impression the events produced on
the characters minds.
The omniscent narrator disappears. The point of view shifts into the characters minds,
where flashbacks, anticipations, associations of ideas, momentary impressions are
represented as a flux. Examine for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary day.
The mind receives a myriad of impressions From all sides they come, an incessant
shower of innumerable atomsso thatif a writer could write what he chosethere
would be no plot, no comedy, no tragedyin the accepted style.
(V. Woolf, Modern Fiction, 1919)

Woolf and Joyce

While Joyce shows his characters thoughts directly, sometimes disregarding grammar
and syntax, V. Woolf maintains logical and grammatical organization. While Joyce was
interested in language experimentation, V. Woolfs use of words is poetical, allusive and
emotional. Similar to Joyces epiphanies are V. Woolfs moments of being, the rare

moments of insight during the characters daily life when they can see reality beyond
appearance.

Mrs Dalloway
Plot
Clarissa Dalloway wanders around in London in a sunny morning, getting ready for the
party shes going to give in the evening. She visits several shops and meets
acquaintances and friends.
She remembers her youth, when she decided to marry Richard Dalloway, a reliable
man, instead of Peter Walsh, ambiguous and demanding. Later in the morning, when
shes at home, Peter pays an unexpected visit to her.
Setpimus Warren Smith, a veteran of the war suffering from post-war traumatic stress,
spends the day in the park with his wife. They are observed by Peter Walsh, who
envies them, as they look like a happy couple.
Later in the day, Septimus, who suffers from hallucinations mainly connected with the
death of a friend in the war, learns his psychiatrist is going to commit him to a mental
asylum. The man commits suicide jumping out of a window.
At Mrs. Dalloways party most of the characters who have appeared in the novel come
up. Mrs. Dalloway learns of Septimus suicide from his psychiatrist, whos one of her
guests. She secretly admires the act of this stranger, she considers an effort to
preserve his purity of feelings.

Characters:
Clarissa Dalloway
She looks like a quite superficial woman, interested only in fashion and parties. Shes
talkative, as if wanting to keep conversation going in order to avoid any serious topic.
Actually shes uncommonly introspective and dwells on memories she does not share
with the other people. Shes always been aware that in choosing to marry Richard
instead of Peter shes preferred a quiet upper-class life to adventure, but she also
learns, after meeting Peter again, that his charm could have been superficial. She often
thinks about death, and at the end of the novel she suddenly realizes it can be a way of
keeping purity of feelings alive.
Anyway, her choice is not to commit suicide, but to go on living.

Septimus Warren Smith

He is obsessed by his own choices: to fight in the war as a volunteer, to have saved his
life but be responsible of his friends death, to have married a woman who loves him
but he actually does not love at all.
In being so often concentrated on his memories and internal life, hes similar to
Clarissa, which makes the boundary between sanity and insanity quite thin. Anyway, he
chooses to escape his problems and reality committing suicide, while Clarissa, even if
in a way she admires him, chooses to take on the responsibility of her own choices.

Peter Walsh
Hes an artist, deeply critical of society and the others, but he doesnt seem to have
made much of his life.
Hes always been so concentrated on himself hes actually incapable of real love or
sympathy, even if he seems to have loved and still love Clarissa.
He cannot accept the idea hes getting old and refuses the very thought of death.

Richard Dalloway
Hes simple, faithful, stable and loves Clarissa.
Hes built a life of comfort, safety and wealth around her, but he has never and will
never really understand her.
Once he tries to overcome his stiffness and decides to tell her he loves her, but hell
never manage to do it.

Themes
Lack of communication: the characters are all basically unable to communicate. Both
Clarissa and Richard and Septimus and his wife are aware of it, but they are also
deeply aware honest and sincere communication at this point of their life would destroy
the bond of reciprocal affection they share, however thin it is.
The fear of death: the characters have gone through the war, which means theyve
experienced the loss of relatives and friends, so the thought of death is constantly in
their mind, but their reaction is different. Richard accepts it, as the price paid to defend
the traditions of the country he believes in, and as part of human destiny. Septimus is
so obsessed with it he prefers to face death instead of go on living with his memories
of the war. Clarissa alternatively dreads it, sees it as a liberation, ultimately accepts to
go on living with her memories and fears.