Mrs Dalloway
Mrs Dalloway is a novel by Virginia Woolf published on 14 May 1925. It details a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a fictional upper-class woman in post-First World War England.
The working title of Mrs Dalloway was The Hours. The novel originated from two short stories, "Mrs Dalloway in Bond Street" and the unfinished "The Prime Minister". In autumn 1922, Woolf began to think of the "Mrs Dalloway" short story as the first chapter of her new novel, and she completed the manuscript in late autumn 1924.
The book describes Clarissa's preparations for a party she will host in the evening and the ensuing party. With an interior perspective, the story travels forwards and backwards in time to construct an image of Clarissa's life and the inter-war social structure. The novel addresses the nature of time in personal experience through multiple interwoven stories, using a stream of consciousness narration style.
In October 2005, Mrs Dalloway was included on TIME Magazines list of the 100 best English-language novels written since its first issue in 1923.
On January 1, 2021, Mrs Dalloway entered the public domain in the United States.
Plot summary
Clarissa Dalloway goes around London in the morning, getting ready to host a party that evening. The nice day reminds her of her youth spent in the countryside in Bourton and makes her wonder about her choice of husband; she had married the reliable, successful, Richard Dalloway instead of the enigmatic and demanding Peter Walsh. She "had not the option" to be with a female romantic interest, Sally Seton. Peter reintroduces these conflicts by paying a visit that morning. Peter's visit made it clear that he was still in love with Clarissa, and Clarissa expressed her desire for Peter to take her away. Clarissa additionally invites Peter to her party that evening.Septimus Warren Smith, a First World War veteran suffering from deferred traumatic stress, spends his day in the park with his Italian-born wife Lucrezia, who experiences major loneliness as a result of her husband's isolating illness. His going to war affected not only his ability to function, but Lucrezia's as well. Septimus is now visited by frequent and indecipherable hallucinations, mostly concerning his dear friend Evans, whom he had unresolved unrequited sexual feelings towards, and who died in the war; otherwise Septimus seems to be unable to feel emotions for anyone, even his wife. Septimus's relationship with his physicians, Sir William Bradshaw and Dr Holmes, is extremely poor. He fears for his safety in the presence of both doctors and often questions human nature after their interactions. As a result of his involuntary commitment to a psychiatric hospital he takes his own life by jumping out of a window.
Clarissa's party in the evening is a slow success. It is attended by most of the characters she has met throughout the book, including Sally, Peter, and others from her past. Clarissa discovers that Sally, whom she has not seen for several decades, and who used to be a free-spirited tomboy, has become a respectable, matronly mother to five boys.
The novel ends with Clarissa hearing about Septimus's suicide at the party and gradually coming to admire this stranger's act, which she considers an effort to preserve the purity of his happiness. Clarissa also acknowledges her ability to relate to Septimus regardless of her limited knowledge of him.
Characters
;Clarissa Dalloway;Elizabeth Dalloway
;Richard Dalloway
;Miss Kilman
;Sally Seton
;Lucrezia "Rezia" Warren Smith
;Septimus Warren Smith
;Peter Walsh
;Hugh Whitbread
;Sir William Bradshaw
Style
In Mrs Dalloway, all of the action, aside from the flashbacks, takes place on a day in "the middle of June" of 1923. It is an example of stream of consciousness storytelling: every scene closely tracks the momentary thoughts of a particular character. Woolf blurs the distinction between direct and indirect speech throughout the novel, freely alternating her mode of narration between omniscient description, indirect interior monologue, and soliloquy. The narration follows at least twenty characters in this way, but the bulk of the novel is spent with Clarissa Dalloway, Peter Walsh, and Septimus Smith.Woolf laid out some of her literary goals with the characters of Mrs Dalloway while still working on the novel. A year before its publication, she gave a talk at Cambridge University called "Character in Fiction", revised and retitled later that year as "Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown".
Mrs Dalloway is commonly thought to be a response to James Joyce's Ulysses. Both novels use the stream of consciousness technique to follow the thoughts of two characters, one older and one younger, during one day in a bustling city. Woolf herself, writing in 1928, denied any deliberate "method" to the book, saying instead that the structure came about "without any conscious direction".
Themes
The novel has two main narrative lines involving two separate characters ; within each narrative there is a particular time and place in the past that the main characters keep returning to in their minds. For Clarissa, her charmed youth at Bourton keeps intruding into her thoughts on this day in London. For Septimus, his time as a soldier during the "Great War" keeps intruding, especially in the form of Evans, his fallen comrade. Other characters, such as Peter Walsh, also find themselves returning to moments in their past.Time and secular living
Time plays an integral role in the theme of faith and doubt in Mrs Dalloway. The overwhelming presence of the passing of time and the impending fate of death for each of the characters is felt throughout the novel. As Big Ben towers over the city of London and rings for each half-hour, characters cannot help but stop and notice the loss of life to time in regular intervals throughout the story. For Septimus, who has experienced the vicious war, the notion of death constantly floats in his mind as he continues to see his friend Evans talking of such things. The constant stream of consciousness perspective of the characters, especially Clarissa, serves as a distraction from this passing of time and the ultimate march towards death, but each character is constantly reminded of the inevitability of these facts. Further emphasizing the passage of time is the time-frame of the novel, which takes place in the course of a single day, like Joyce's Ulysses.The idea that there can be meaning in every detail of life, and a deeper appreciation of life as a result, is emphasized by the constant connection of characters to memories and to simple ideas and things. Clarissa even feels that her job is to offer "the gift" of connectedness to the inhabitants of London. Woolf's writing style crosses the boundaries of the past, present and future, emphasizing her idea of time as a constant flow, connected only by some force within each person. An evident contrast can be found between the constant passing of time—symbolized by Big Ben—and the seemingly random crossings of time-lines in Woolf's writing. Yet, although these crossings seem random, they only demonstrate the infinite possibilities that the world can offer once it is interconnected by the individual character of each person.
Mental illness
Septimus, as the shell-shocked war hero, operates as a pointed criticism of the treatment of mental illness and depression. Woolf criticises medical discourse through Septimus' decline and suicide; his doctors make snap judgments about his condition, talk to him mainly through his wife, and dismiss his urgent confessions before he can make them. Rezia remarks that Septimus "was not ill. Dr Holmes said there was nothing the matter with him."Woolf goes beyond commenting on the treatment of mental illness. Using the characters of Clarissa and Rezia, she makes the argument that people can only interpret Septimus' shell shock according to their cultural norms. Throughout the course of the novel Clarissa does not meet Septimus. Clarissa's reality is vastly different from that of Septimus; his presence in London is unknown to Clarissa until his death becomes the subject of idle chatter at her party. By never having these characters meet, Woolf is suggesting that mental illness can be contained to the individuals who suffer from it without others, who remain unaffected, ever having to witness it. This allows Woolf to weave her criticism of the treatment of the mentally ill with her larger argument, which is the criticism of society's class structure. Her use of Septimus as the stereotypically traumatised veteran is her way of showing that there were still reminders of the First World War in London in 1923. These ripples affect Mrs. Dalloway and readers spanning generations. Shell shock, or post traumatic stress disorder, is an important addition to the early 20th century canon of post-war British literature.
There are similarities in Septimus' condition to Woolf's struggles with bipolar disorder. Both hallucinate that birds sing in Greek, and Woolf once attempted to throw herself out of a window as Septimus does. Woolf had also been treated for her condition at various asylums, from which her antipathy towards doctors developed. Woolf committed suicide by drowning, sixteen years after the publication of Mrs Dalloway.
Woolf's original plan for her novel called for Clarissa to kill herself during her party. In this original version, Septimus did not appear at all.
Existential issues
When Peter Walsh sees a girl on the street and stalks her for half an hour, he notes that his relationship to the girl was "made up, as one makes up the better part of life." By focusing on characters' thoughts and perceptions, Woolf emphasizes the significance of private thoughts on existential crisis rather than concrete events in a person's life. Most of the plot in Mrs Dalloway consists of realizations that the characters subjectively make.Clarissa Dalloway is depicted as a woman who appreciates life. Her love of party-throwing comes from a desire to bring people together and create happy moments. Her charm, according to Peter Walsh, who loves her, is a sense of joie de vivre, always summarized by the sentence: "There she was." She interprets Septimus Smith's death as an act of embracing life and her mood remains light, even though she hears about it in the midst of the party.