British Literature after 1900 2021/22 © Piotr Matczak

MRS DALLOWAY (1925)

VIRGINIA WOOLF (ADELINE V. STEPHEN) (1882-1941)

• an English author, feminist, essayist, publisher, and critic

• considered one of the foremost modernists of the twentieth century
• born in 1882 to Sir Leslie Stephen (a notable historian and author)
and Julia Prinsep Duckworth (a renowned beauty)
• her most vivid childhood memories were not of London but of St. Ives
in Cornwall, where the family spent every summer till 1895 (this place
inspired her to write To the Lighthouse)
• when Virginia was 13, her mother died out of the sudden, and her half-
sister Stella died two years later – this led to the first of her nervous
breakdowns
• 1904 – the death of her father provoked her most alarming collapse and he was sent to a mental
hospital for a short time
• her mental instability is suggested to be brought about by sexual abuse she experienced
from her brothers, George and Gerald Duckworth
• married Leonard Woolf in 1912 (albeit he was penniless, the couple shared a close bond) and became
an active member of the Bloomsbury Group
• most famous works: Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), Orlando (1928), the book-length
essay A Room of One’s Own (1929) (A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write
fiction)
• frequently used the stream of consciousness technique in her writing – to emphasize the psychological
aspects of her characters
• after completing the manuscript of her last novel, Between the Acts, she fell into depression similar
to that she had earlier experienced; on March 28, 1941, Virginia put on her overcoat, filled its pockets
with stones, and walked into the River Oure and drowned herself; her husband buried her cremated
remains under an elm in the garden of Monk’s House, their home in Rodmell, Sussex
• final message to her husband: I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work.
And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe
all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say
that—everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone
from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two
people could have been happier than we have been.
British Literature after 1900 2021/22 © Piotr Matczak

SYNOPSIS

Mrs. Dalloway covers one day from morning to night in one

woman’s life. Clarissa Dalloway, an upper-class housewife, walks
through her London neighborhood to prepare for the party she will
host that evening. When she returns from flower shopping, an old
suitor and friend, Peter Walsh, drops by her house unexpectedly.
The two have always judged each other harshly, and their meeting
in the present intertwines with their thoughts of the past. Years
earlier, Clarissa refused Peter’s marriage proposal, and Peter has
never quite gotten over it. Peter asks Clarissa if she is happy
with her husband, Richard, but before she can answer, her daughter, Elizabeth, enters the room. Peter leaves
and goes to Regent’s Park. He thinks about Clarissa’s refusal, which still obsesses him.

The point of view then shifts to Septimus, a veteran of World War I who was injured in trench warfare and now
suffers from shell shock. Septimus and his Italian wife, Lucrezia, pass time in Regent’s Park. They are waiting
for Septimus’s appointment with Sir William Bradshaw, a celebrated psychiatrist. Before the war, Septimus
was a budding young poet and lover of Shakespeare; when the war broke out, he enlisted immediately
for romantic patriotic reasons. He became numb to the horrors of war and its aftermath: when his friend Evans
died, he felt little sadness. Now Septimus sees nothing of worth in the England he fought for, and he has lost
the desire to preserve either his society or himself. Suicidal, he believes his lack of feeling is a crime. Clearly
Septimus’s experiences in the war have permanently scarred him, and he has serious mental problems. However,
Sir William does not listen to what Septimus says and diagnoses a lack of proportion. Sir William plans to separate
Septimus from Lucrezia and send him to a mental institution in the country.

Richard Dalloway eats lunch with Hugh Whitbread and Lady Bruton, members of high society. The men help Lady
Bruton write a letter to the Times, London's largest newspaper. After lunch, Richard returns home to Clarissa
with a large bunch of roses. He intends to tell her that he loves her but finds that he cannot, because it has been
so long since he last said it. Clarissa considers the void that exists between people, even between husband
and wife. Even though she values the privacy she is able to maintain in her marriage, considering it vital
to the success of the relationship, at the same time she finds slightly disturbing the fact that Richard doesn’t know
everything about her. Clarissa sees off Elizabeth and her history teacher, Miss Kilman, who are going shopping.
The two older women despise one another passionately, each believing the other to be an oppressive force
over Elizabeth. Meanwhile, Septimus and Lucrezia are in their apartment, enjoying a moment of happiness
together before the men come to take Septimus to the asylum. One of Septimus’s doctors, Dr. Holmes, arrives,
and Septimus fears the doctor will destroy his soul. In order to avoid this fate, he jumps from a window
to his death.

Peter hears the ambulance go by to pick up Septimus’s body and marvels ironically at the level of London’s
civilization. He goes to Clarissa’s party, where most of the novel’s major characters are assembled. Clarissa works
hard to make her party a success but feels dissatisfied by her own role and acutely conscious of Peter’s critical
eye. All the partygoers, but especially Peter and Sally Seton, have, to some degree, failed to accomplish the dreams
British Literature after 1900 2021/22 © Piotr Matczak

of their youth. Though the social order is undoubtedly changing, Elizabeth and the members of her generation
will probably repeat the errors of Clarissa’s generation. Sir William Bradshaw arrives late, and his wife explains
that one of his patients, the young veteran (Septimus), has committed suicide. Clarissa retreats to the privacy
of a small room to consider Septimus’s death. She understands that he was overwhelmed by life and that men
like Sir William make life intolerable. She identifies with Septimus, admiring him for having taken the plunge
and for not compromising his soul. She feels, with her comfortable position as a society hostess, responsible
for his death. The party nears its close as guests begin to leave. Clarissa enters the room, and her presence fills
Peter with a great excitement.

MODERNIST NOVEL

• stream of consciousness – free flow of loosely related thoughts in the narrative, usually being those
of one of the characters; example: when Clarissa watches cars driving by, she has a perpetual sense
of being out, far out to sea and alone – she ends up with the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live
even one day
• introspective – based on feelings and internal life, human mind; many characters in the novel focus
a lot on their inner lives, for example Clarissa Dalloway who constantly worries about her party
to be a success, or Septimus pondering the cruelty of world
• symbolic – although not the most symbolic modernist novel (cf. Ulysses or A Portrait of the Artist
as a Young Man), there are some symbols here: the Prime Minister as the embodiment of England’s old
values and hierarchical order system, Walsh’s pocketknife symbolizing his inability to make decisions
(constant opening and closing), the old woman in the window representing privacy of the soul
and loneliness, trees symbolizing life
• no linear storyline – many retrospections – the main level of flashbacks are Clarissa’s memories
of her youth spent with Peter Walsh, and the history of their love relationship; also Septimus devotes
a lot of space in his mind to war memories, connected with his deceased friend Evans
• no clear ending – the story ends when Clarissa approaches Peter and Sally to have a conversation
with them, and Peter feels ecstasy and terror when she finds herself in front of him; the last passage:
It is Clarissa, he said. / For there she was leaves a lot of space for interpretation and prediction of the later
events; the story is not closed, it is ambiguous what will happen later
• fragmentation and different points of view (but they are somehow interconnected) – the story is told
mostly from the perspectives of Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Warren Smith, but we learn a lot about
other character’s views, e.g. Richard Dalloway’s or Peter Walsh’s; although the plot changes frequently
from one storyline to another, they all seem to interweave and pass similar truths
• narrative experiments: interior monologue, stream of consciousness, free indirect speech –
all these techniques appear frequently in the novel, presentation of events from different points
of view – subjectivity
British Literature after 1900 2021/22 © Piotr Matczak

POINTS OF VIEW/SOCIETY

• the truth fades in relativity

• Clarissa: safe position in the society, comfortable life, ambiguous: belongs to the pre-war social order
and society; for her, the most important point is that the war is over and she strives to come back
to the old life (so she was having a party), as she says, she is going to kindle and illuminate; however,
the war somehow sticks deeper to human minds and it is not easy to eradicate it
• Peter Walsh: unconservative (to some extent), idealistic, lost Clarissa because she was overwhelmed
with him and his need to be everything to her; marriage for him is not a business transaction, but an act
of true love; belongs to the old world to a certain extent, but understands and embraces the soon-to-
come change (loosening of conventions, such as women doing their make-up in public), and he knows
it is inevitable
• Septimus: mad, insane, stuck in the Great War environment, but has something to say about the post-
war society too he possesses deep anger and hate for the world, because he’s seen a lot and thinks
that the world has no values, is very brutal and primal
• Miss Kilman – an old teacher of Elizabeth Dalloway, always being on bad terms with Clarissa due to their
different points of view (Clarissa – liberal, anticlerical; Miss Kilman – religious, conservative);
she, because of her German heritage, had to find a place for herself in the British society – she became
a tutor, because she had problems with getting a job; she understands the change and states to Elizabeth
that law, medicine, politics, all professions are open to women of your generation – she knows the feminist
change is on the verge of happening
• postwar society: people are having parties, discussing different topics than war; but there are people
traumatized by the war (Septimus); after the war, a lot of people are doing their best to reverse the old
way of living, so Clarissa is throwing a party and people are trying to avoid the war theme; some people,
however, will always be scarred by the military events and they still have to find themselves a place
in the society; the old, traditional England will never come back
• cultural change: older people would like to conserve the status quo (Mrs. Bruton) but the younger
generation understands the need for change – conflict of generations
• Woolf’s vision (To the Lighthouse): she felt, with her hand on the nursery door, that community of feeling
with other people which emotion gives as if the walls of partition had become so thin that practically
(the feeling was one of relief and happiness) it was all one stream. – the walls being social and cultural
constraints, and the individual should focus on bringing himself to the community, to feel the connection

STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS (TIME IN THE NOVEL)

• time not linear – human mind wanders, and the time in the novel represents meanderings of one’s mind;
time is not constant, it is relative, it sometimes flows faster, and sometimes slower; there is constant
fluctuation of time
• psychological time – Nothing exists outside us except a state of mind, he thinks; a desire for solace,
for relief, for something outside these miserable pigmies, these feeble, these ugly, these craven men
British Literature after 1900 2021/22 © Piotr Matczak

and women. – time is not constant, it is relative, it sometimes flows faster, and sometimes slower; time
is not what we see on the clock, but the concept of our minds and the rate of the stream of thoughts
happening
• the present saturated with the past – flashbacks that have a huge impact on the reality (the most vivid
example is Septimus, whose flashbacks hinder his functioning in the real life); all the past events
the characters went through reflect on their current behavior

A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN – FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE

• I thought, looking at the shelf where there are no plays by women, her work would have gone unsigned.
That refuge she would have sought certainly. It was the relic of the sense of chastity that dictated anonymity
to women even so late as the nineteenth century. Currer Bell, George Eliot, George Sand, all the victims
of inner strife as their writings prove, sought ineffectively to veil themselves by using the name of a man.
Thus they did homage to the convention, which if not implanted by the other sex was liberally encouraged
by them (the chief glory of a woman is not to be talked of, said Pericles, himself a much-talked-of man)
that publicity in women is detestable. Anonymity runs in their blood.
• patriarchal convention: women – private sphere, men – public sphere (as a result, women had
to disguise themselves as men to publish books, and the history of women’s writing is somehow hidden)
• feminist movement – Woolf herself was a feminist, and she advocated strongly in her writings against
the patriarchal system and the men’s rule; the statement about anonymity running in women’s blood
is the problem pointed out by her, that in the society women are expected to stay silent, to mirror
their husbands, not to have their own views
• Clarissa Dalloway – a perfect wife, since she married Richard, she has been doing nothing but explaining
his views to people when asked about them, giving parties to show how good their marriage is;
she is annoyed that she’s not even Clarissa anymore, but just Mrs Dalloway; she has almost lost her true
identity
• Lady Bruton – a woman who doesn’t act in a female way, because she knows that in order to achieve
her goals she needs to be more like a man; she criticized Clarissa for having been ill, as it means being
weak and there is no time for that; she is not a real woman in a sense that a woman was perceived
in the nineteenth century
• Angel in the House by Coventry Patmore – a poem about the woman’s main aim to please the man,
and it is stated that the woman should take pleasure in pleasing the man; the poem was vastly criticized
by Virginia Woolf, and she wrote that Killing the Angel in the House was part of the occupation of a woman
writer