Mrs.

Dalloway

Why I chose to read this book?

I was around 17 when my sister brought the book home, it was a new edition, very updated and
with tons of notes from the translator, I started reading it many times but I was never able or
committed enough to finish it. One thing that I remember the most, is that that every time I read
it, I felt a little bit identified by the way Virginia let her mind flow, this stream of consciousness
that was so schizophrenic and violent sometimes, it was very confusing and at the same time very
challenging to keep track of everything she -or her characters- was trying to say. The personal
choice of this book is based on that feeling it caused me when I was younger, mixed with the
feminist approach and the anti-psychiatry stance Virginia developed in her writings, along with
the world vision she tried to portray within the story.

Background
This book was first published on May 1925. It is Virginia Woolf’s fourth novel and appeared after
the union of two short stories of the author. It shares many resemblances with James Joyce’s
Ulysses, because both of them happen in May, and during a single day only. Also, Virginia Woolf
is said to have been reading Ulysses at the time she was writing Mrs. Dalloway. Mrs. Dalloway is
a book full of literary devices such as flashbacks and the stream of consciousness, everything
happens inside the minds of the characters, more than actual external situations of events, this book
is very mentally aimed, it is all about the mind, the inner thoughts and the experience of living.

It is very remarkable, at the same time, that, unlike many previous works made by female authors,
Mrs. Dalloway takes away the heroine’s name and places instead her husband’s name. This is a
way of showing how the author actually felt about the women’s place in society, their position and
who they were. By naming the book after a man’s surname, she implies that a woman loses
something after getting married, but, is it her freedom? Her will to live? Maybe it is just an
assumption, but it is certainly a matter of discussion.

Besides the importance of the word choices Woolf’s made, there are other historical factors that
mark and reveal the setting of the novel. The book was written and published a few years after the
First World War and, in a way, its mood is quite evident in terms of how the characters relate
themselves to war and, at the moment the novel takes place, peace. There is so much peace around
that people, rich people in this case, can actually throw parties as if that was the only thing that
they could do to amuse themselves.

Virginia Woolf also was a highly-educated woman with access to all the literary circles in London.
Daughter of Leslie Stephen, a man of letters: historian, writer, biographer and a former Pre-
Raphaelite model, Julia Jackson. She suffered a lot from her mental illnesses during her life, her
first mental breakdown having happened after her mother’s passing away. She was a molested
child which could have also made her mental state less steady.

About her marriage a lot can be said, but maybe the most important details are the ones related to
the kind of relationship they had. As noted in one Virginia Woolf’s many fan blogs: “the most
Victorian of Victorian young ladies.” Were the first impressions of Leonard Woolf when they met.
She had received a marriage proposal from Lyttin Strachey, which he, himself, ended up
withdrawing. After his withdrawal, he wrote to Leonard: “Your destiny is clearly marked out for
you, but will you allow it to work? You must marry Virginia. She’s sitting waiting for you, is there
any objection? She’s the only woman in the world with sufficient brains, it’s a miracle that she
should exist; but if you’re not careful you’ll lose the opportunity…She’s young, wild, inquisitive,
discontended, and longing to be in love.” This could be a hint on how men usually related
themselves to love and marriage. It is very clearly stated that she was a very beautiful and
intelligent woman, so they could take her or offer as a very high-quality product. This could also
be related to her vision of marriage and the imposition that women had to endure during the time
and maybe even nowadays. They married after three proposal from Leonard and hoped to have
children, idea the doctors said she should abstain from, due to her mental health. They practiced a
sort of polyamorous relationship, having many men-and-women lovers during their lives. After
she committed suicide, Leonard found a letter in which she stated: “I don’t think two people could
have been happier than we have been.”
Topics Within Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and Their Impact on Contemporary Society

In Mrs. Dalloway, there are a lot of different issues that take place on a single day. A succession
of events that happen almost simultaneously in a series of flashbacks an flashforwards that are
very much related to the author’s writing style. Virginia had an issue with time, life, mental health
and social roles above everything. Within the novel, the notion of time can be understood as a-
never-ending and always-flowing progress that is not even linear, because characters -and minds-
can actually move back and forth from their memories, when needed.

Life is also a topic within the book, because, on the other hand, we have Death, the sense of death
coming after us. Life means youth, and youth means beauty and passion, and the will to live and
to love, the motion of flower petals when they fall from their vessels, the intrigue of what the future
will carry for us. Life is hope. But, in this novel, life is ending, life is fading in a non-stop vortex
that nobody can really deal with. Clarissa Dalloway feels old, she grieves a lot because of her age
and her life having been wasted and her marriage being not the one she really desired. But, Clarissa
has also a goal, she has to throw a party, a big party, that could keep everyone in London talking
for weeks, making them happy for a while, forgetting about the life decisions they made wrong,
the problems they face in their households, the affairs they wish they had erased and forgot, and
that everything wrong in their lives could be appeased with this party.

Feminism is also a topic here, because Clarissa knows that, her only goal in life is to make others
happy or to make them feel as if she is helpful. She has no more voice than for picking up flowers
in the morning and throwing incredible parties, in which she is the perfect elegant hostess she was
prepared her whole life to be. To feel as if your only purpose in life is to be a servant to others,
and never be heard unless is for asking for permission, might sound very striking nowadays, for
some people. I personally believe, that Virginia’s aim with this portrayal of Clarissa was to make
people wonder why is this all so normal and established and why do people accept this as a rule
and never rebels against it.

When it comes to mental illness, I think the book itself is a statement on how can a person feel
mentally trapped on an idea forever, and that thatt does not necessarily mean they have a disease.
Clarissa, a healthy woman in her fifties, seems to be okay with her past decisions, although she
wishes she had done things differently. She is able to endure this whole situation by simply going
back and remembering her doings. This style or device for writing is very representative of the
author’s mental health. When a person has that many mental wounds, that person tends to think
that way: as a maze. It is a helpful device that shows us the power of writing our minds without
having set any rules or linear order for it to happen, it’s pure though, without any sort of constrict.

On the other hand, if we consider the figure of Septimus and his mental illness, one that no one
wants to believe he really has, he depicts the figure of the fallen man. He is a weak person, he has
witnessed the horrors of war, he lost his friend and watched him being blown by a bomb. He is
unhappy while watching the lifestyles people carry in London. He cannot find peace, not for a
second. If we contrast his dreadful, grieving figure and mood with the all caring, positive and
nostalgic Clarissa’s figure, we can say, in a way, that the roles were inverted. Clarissa took the
place of an endeavoring woman, who wants to achieve things and is seemingly very clear minded,
Septimus, on the contrary, is a man so damaged that cannot even deal with being alive, he states
that the world is dangerous and there is no hope for it to change or improve. He is a dehumanized
being, while Clarissa is all humane and analytical. Clarissa thinks about everything, she analyses
every detail of everything she passes by, Septimus wants to disappear, the only things he really
analyses are the delusional visions he experiences.

Conclusion
Mrs. Dalloway is a book that gives us a lot to think about, on many numerous topics. It is a
masterpiece of human behavior and the meaning of life and death; the way times passes by us and
how unavoidable suffering is. It refers to many social roles and impositions that deal with the
figure of the female subject, such as the lack of freedom women have, even when they are rich.
And, on the other corner, there are lots of references to the war and its consequences, the way it
destroys, more than material assets, lives and souls. This novel could also be an augury of what
Virginia really felt inside of her, and, as Septimus, how her life was going to end.
Bibliography
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mrs-Dalloway-novel-by-Woolf
http://virginiawoolfblog.com/the-marriage-of-virginia-and-leonard-woolf/
https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/dalloway/
https://www.gradesaver.com/mrs-dalloway
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM-fyF7xFtk
La señora Dalloway, Ediciones Cátedra, 2005.