Virginia Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway Essay - 1871 Words

Virginia Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway â€Å"Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.† -Jules de Gaultier Set just after one of England’s worst tragedies, Virginia Woolf’s 1925 novel Mrs. Dalloway is a vivid picture of the effects of World War I on London’s high society, often in glaring contrast to the effects of shell shock suffered by war veteran Septimus Smith. For members of high society, the War’s impact is largely indirect, mainly affecting their conversations at posh social functions. Although the war has had little impact on these people, some strive to develop a deeper understanding of the War’s main consequence: death. For Septimus, who has endured the direct impact of the War as a soldier, however, the memories†¦show more content†¦Although a small point, it is necessary to add that even Septimus’s wife, Rezia, though not in the same social circle as Clarissa, sees the impacts of the War as ordinary. When reflecting on Septimus’s tendency to talk to his dead friend, Evans, Rezia thinks, â€Å"[Evans] had seemed a nice quiet man; a great friend of Septimus’s, and he had been killed in the War. But such things happen to everyone. Everyone has friends who were killed in the War† (64). This statement is to Rezia a mere fact, which highlights that she, like those in Clarissa’s circle, is also blissfully ignorant of the horrors involved in the War, drawing attention to the insurmountable gulf that exists between Septimus’s experience of the War, and everyone else’s imagined perception of it. Indeed, the relaying of information as mentioned above often serves as entertainment for the upper class throughout the novel, even if the entertainment is derived from such a serious topic as war-related casualties. Even though millions were killed, and many injured, Clarissa’s class typically cannot comprehend the brutality experienced by soldiers in combat, much less the unrelenting stresses and images that follow them long after they have left the battlefield. However, high society cannot ignore such cases of human suffering, so they become a sort of fashionable topic. At Clarissa’s party, for example, Lady Bradshaw treats the subject almost casually,Show MoreRelatedEssay on Virginia Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway1927 Words   |  8 Pagesof a window. The book Mrs. Dalloway’s Theme is to show proper balance in the lives of all characters because Mrs. Dalloway, who chooses a life of safety with Richard, Septimus couldn’t keep stability in his life, and lady burton wants to enforce balance by sending people to Canada. Raised by a privileged English household in 1882, writer Virginia Woolf had freethinking parents (Adeline). Born Kensington, London, England, United Kingdom, January 25, 1882 as Adeline Virginia Stephen never married;Read MoreAnalysis Of Virginia Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway1756 Words   |  8 PagesIt is itself doubtable that Virginia Woolf’s 1925 novel Mrs. Dalloway would or even could exist, as we know it today, without T.S. Eliot’s 1922 poem The Waste Land – but what’s near-certain to me now is that Woolf may not have ever even written the character of Septimus Warren Smith, had she not read Eliot’s poem first. Moreover, after going back and reviewing both of these works, the presence of The Waste Land in Septimus, and of Septimus in The Waste Land, are intensely palpable, if not completelyRead MoreAnalysis Of Virginia Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway1131 Words   |  5 PagesI, highlights the ineffable aspect of the war even for the most skilled authors, saying that: reviewing a novel in 1917, Virginia Woolf suggested that the War was towering too closely and tremendously to be worked into fiction yet†¦ (Tylee, 154). Regardless of this, Virginia Woolf was able to successfully portray individual aspects of the war through her novel Mrs. Dalloway, using a variety of stories to historicize this catastrophic event. One lens in particular, the love story, provides an importantRead MoreStream of Consciousness in Virginia Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway1354 Words   |  5 PagesConsciousness in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway. â€Å"These novels may very well be within a category we can label stream of consciousness, so long as we know what we are talking about. The evidence reveals that we never do – or never have done so.† (5). (Humphrey, 1954). This quote from Robert Humphrey, author of Stream of Consciousness in the Modern Novel, is about the use of the writing technique, stream of consciousness, in novels such as James Joyce’s Ulysses and Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway; he highlightsRead More Perception is Reality in Virginia Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway1976 Words   |  8 Pages Although the entire novel tells of only one day, Virginia Woolf covers a lifetime in her enlightening novel of the mystery of the human personality. The delicate Clarissa Dalloway, a disciplined English lady, provides the perfect contrast to Septimus Warren Smith, an insane ex-soldier living in chaos. Even though the two never meet, these two correspond in that they strive to maintain possession of themselves, of their souls. On this Wednesday in June of 1923, as Clarissa prepares for her partyRead MoreEssay about Issues in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway630 Words   |  3 PagesIssues in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway revolves around several of the issues that preoccupied the Bloomsbury writers and thinkers as a group. Issues of androgyny, class, madness, and mythology run throughout the novel. While that is hardly an exhaustive list, these notions seem to form the core of the structure of the novel. Woolf herself, when envisioning the project, sought to produce â€Å"a study of insanity and suicide, the world seen by the sane and the insaneRead MoreThe Importance of Time in Virginia Woolfs Mrs Dalloway.4013 Words   |  17 PagesVirginia Woolfs Mrs Dalloway is a modernist novel, which shows new techniques to express a different point of view with regard to the notion of time. It is not without importance to note that the novel has no chapter headings. Nevertheless it is immediately obvious that the interest of the novel is not only in the form but also in the content. The action takes place in a single day of June in 1923 and what is interesting in the s tructure of the book is that simultaneously with the story of thisRead More The Importance of Time in Virginia Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway Essay1603 Words   |  7 PagesThe Importance of Time in Virginia Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway We live in a consumer society consuming time. We use time to function smoothly but also to channel the direction of our lives. As a college student, I am constantly aware of time. I have a time frame for finishing my college career, as well as constant deadlines to meet. Daily, I divide my hours between my job, my studies, and my friends. In the midst of following external time, I strive for a balance with my internal time. My personalRead More The Effects of Society in Virginia Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway Essay3075 Words   |  13 Pageswhere people are struggling to fit in. Virginia Woolf sees this. Woolf views society as a center for conflict for the characters in her novel. They struggle with the internal dilemma of whether they should be who they want to be or what everyone else wants them to be. In the novel Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf uses stream of consciousness to demonstrate the pressures and effects of society on different characters in the 1920’s. Using both Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Smith, Woolf reveals howRead More An Analysis of Virginia Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway Essay examples3326 Words   |  14 PagesAnalysis of Virginia Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway Somewhere within the narrative of Mrs. Dalloway, there seems to lie what could be understood as a restatement - or, perhaps, a working out of - the essentially simple, key theme or motif found in Woolfs famous feminist essay A Room of Ones Own. Mrs. Dalloway does in fact possess a room of her own - and enjoys an income (or the use of an income) that is at least five hundred a year - (Room: 164). But most importantly, Clarissa Dalloway also deals