Alienation and Woman's Identity in Mrs. Dalloway

UNIVERSITY OF PRISHTINA “HASAN PRISHTINA”

Faculty of Philology

Department of English

BA DIPLOMA PAPER

Alienation and Women’s

Identity in Virginia Woolf’s

Mrs. Dalloway

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Professor Student:Prof. Dr. Muhamet HamitiEgzona Mehmeti

June, 2015

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction......................................................3

2. Alienation in Mrs. Dalloway........................................5

2.1The causes and consequences of alienation in Mrs. Dalloway.........6

3. Women’s identity in Mrs. Dalloway................................17

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3.1 Clarissa Dalloway and her unstable identity..................18

3.2 Minor female characters and their limited lives..............23

4.

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….28

References……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………29

Abstract

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This paper focuses on the investigation of two of the primary

issues in Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway that is

Alienation and Women’s identity. These specific issues were

deemed worth exploring since they have been subject to

many controversies and critical works throughout the years,

therefore in writing this paper the opinions and views of

different critics have been taken into account. The aim of the

study is to unveil the causes and consequences of alienation

and women’s oppression in a post-World War I society

presented in Mrs. Dalloway. Also the study shows Woolf’s

concern and contribution as a distinguished feminist

woman writer into solving women’s issues in her novels.

1. IntroductionThe modern novelist Virginia Woolf wrote nine novels, a few

short story collections, biographies as well as non-fiction

books. One of the novels which were to become one of Woolf’s

masterpieces and establish her reputation is by all means Mrs.

Dalloway, published in 1925 resulting from a combination of two

short stories “Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street” and the unfinished

“Prime Minister”. The novel, being red superficially it may give

the impression that it is a simple novel set in London, giving us

the account of a single day in June of 1923, having as its main5

center the protagonist Clarissa Dalloway. However, one must read

between the lines to get to the heart of the novel and understand

the essence of it. As admitted in her diary (D2 248), in this

novel Woolf’s aim was to ‘give life and death, sanity and

insanity; criticize the social system and to show it at work at

its most intense’ (as cited in Goldman, 2006, p.54). Woolf’s

narrative technique shifts the focus of the narrative between

different characters, digging into their consciousness and

therefore creating a link between their lives, experiences,

thoughts; a technique which allows the reader to know the

characters not by the description provided from the author, yet

by having access into their thoughts, feelings and perceptions.

Jane Goldman (2006, p.54) states that many critics argue that the

structure of Mrs. Dalloway is somewhat similar to that of James

Joyce’s Ulysses, the latter being similarly set on a single June

day, in Dublin 1916, and according to Goldman many critics have

mistakenly compared this ‘method of shifting and collective

free-indirect discourse in Mrs. Dalloway to Joyce’s stream-of-

consciousness’.

Two of the characters in Mrs. Dalloway, namely Clarissa and

Richard Dalloway, are encountered in Woolf’s first novel The

Voyage Out. In Mrs. Dalloway Clarissa is the main focus of the novel,

along with Septimus Warren Smith and Peter Walsh whose memories,

views on life, thoughts, and experiences are presented during the

course of a single day of June. In contrast to Bildungsroman genre

which deals with an individual’s development, in this novel Woolf

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“evolves a genre that might be termed the Erfahrungsroman, or

novel of experience, in which adults assess their lives, the

choices they have made, and the impact of events that have

befallen them” (Ronchetti, 2004, p. 50). Clarissa Dalloway is a

woman in her fifties, the wife of the politician Richard Dalloway

belonging to the middle-class society. The day presented in the

novel begins with Clarissa making preparations for a party she is

to host in that very evening. Even though it may seem as an

ordinary day it appears to have a great significance for the main

characters. During this day Peter Walsh comes back to London from

India with the hope that the former friendship with Clarissa will

be reestablished. On the other hand Septimus, a mentally

disturbed war veteran, commits suicide. Towards the end of the

novel we can notice that these experiences are brought together

at Clarissa’s party.

In this paper two different issues of the novel will be

approached, that is Alienation and Woman’s identity in Mrs. Dalloway.

Throughout the years there have been many critics who have

contemplated on these matters, yet it is still a topic worth

conducting a study on it. Jeremy Hawthorn in his Virginia Woolf’s Mrs.

Dalloway: A Study in Alienation (1975) argues that madness in Virginia

Woolf’s novel “is seen both as a symbol and a result of

alienation.” He believes that such alienation has the power to

cut the individual off from society, it denies the individual

“full human contact,” and exacerbates “any predisposition towards

mental disorder in an individual who had difficult in making

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contact with other people” (as cited in Bloom, 2009, p.111). The

main focus on the issue of alienation will be Septimus, however

its impact on some of the other characters as well will be

scrutinized. As a feminist writer one of Woolf’s primary concerns

was feminism and woman’s identity which she did not hesitate to

reveal in many of her works. As Goldman (2006, p. 53) states

feminism is one of the ‘broad axes’ on which Woolf’s criticism

turns. Mrs. Dalloway is not an exception. The original title of the

novel was The Hours, yet it was published under the title Mrs.

Dalloway which gives us a hint as to the importance of woman’s

identity in this novel. Woolf in this novel portrays women of the

post-First World War society and their vague lives shaped by

patriarchal and alienating society, sexual repression, ideologies

of gender and other conventional factors. One of the reasons why

these specific issues are appealing to me is that it is arguable

that Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Warren Smith reflect in a way

Virginia Woolf herself. It is well known that Woolf had mental

problems herself during her lifetime which ultimately ended with

suicide just like Septimus. Goldman (2006, p.57) points out that

“Septimus Warren Smith’s mental illness has attracted many

biographically based critical approaches to the novel, showing

how his appalling medical treatment parallels Woolf’s own”. On

the other hand Quentin Bell wrote a biography on Virginia Woolf

where her sexuality or the lack of it has been questioned.

Clarissa seems to mirror Woolf as far as sexuality is considered.

Just like Clarissa has affection for Sally Seton yet is forced to

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suppress her feelings, Woolf had a similar affair with Vita

Sackville-West (as cited in Goldman, 2006, p. 28). A further

examination of these issues shall be provided in the other

sections.

2. Alienation in Mrs. DallowayEven though the time span in Mrs. Dalloway is limited to a single

day of June, this does not hinder Virginia Woolf from acquainting

the reader with the characters presented in the novel, their

past, present as well as thoughts and viewpoints related to the

future. It is only through Woolf’s writing technique which she

called a ‘tunneling process’ that a link between all the

characters and their experiences comes to light. What a better

example than Septimus and Clarissa, the major characters who

never actually meet in the novel yet just by living in the same

time sequence their life experiences are paralleled. Clarissa

Dalloway, a politician’s wife and ‘a perfect hostess’ and

Septimus Warren Smith, the ‘mad’ character share many

similarities yet at the same time contrast each other. As we get

to know from Virginia Woolf, in the first version of Mrs.

Dalloway there was no specific character named Septimus Smith, he

appeared later only as Clarissa’s ‘double’ (as cited in Bloom,

2009, p. 113). Even if it be in varying extent and form the two

characters, without leaving behind other characters as well, face

alienation and its irredeemable consequences. However, Septimus

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Warren Smith represents the utmost level of alienation ultimately

generating into madness. Hawthorn argues that alienation has the

power to deprive oneself of social contact which ultimately

increases the tendency of mental instability (as cited in Bloom,

2009, p.115). When we contemplate upon Septimus’s condition we

cannot help thinking of Virginia Woolf and her own mental

illness, which leads us to the possibility that that could be the

reason why she created such a character in the first place.

Goldman (2006, p.57) argues that “Septimus Warren Smith’s mental

illness has attracted many biographically based critical

approaches to the novel, showing how his appalling medical

treatment parallels Woolf’s own.”

2.1The Causes and Consequences of Alienation in Mrs.Dalloway

Woolf presents Septimus as a mentally disturbed young war

veteran, a victim of the First World War whose dream was to

become a writer. A promising writer whose creativity was blighted

by the war experiences, which eventually destroy him spiritually

and physically as well. It was Miss Isabel Pole, whose lectures

on Shakespeare Septimus used to attend prior to war, who

encouraged his sense of a writer, the idea of which fascinated

him. Eventually Septimus grew fond of Miss Isabel and the

artistic world. Ironically, this dream and his affection for Miss

Isabel seem to be the seed which later on prospers into lethal

consequences for Septimus. As Ronchetti (2004, p.58) claims

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“Septimus’s naïve idealism was such that he was among the first

to enlist when his country entered the war, hoping

“. . . to save an England which consisted almost

entirely of Shakespeare’s

plays and Miss Isabel Pole in a green dress walking

in a square.” (Mrs. Dalloway, p.71)

During the war his officer Evans, with whom Septimus seems to

have established a special bond, died, yet Septimus felt so

little or better to say nothing upon his death. Not being aware

that he was actually losing his ability to feel, initially there

was a feeling of pride prevailing Septimus. He is deluded by the

false idea of bravery that war instilled in him:

“The War had taught him. It was sublime. He had

gone through the whole show, friendship, European

War, death, had won promotion, was still under

thirty and was bound to survive.” (Mrs. Dalloway,

p.71)

Later on Evan’s memory starts evoking feelings of terror in

Septimus, it haunts him, yet it is not until he marries Lucrezia

without loving her that he realizes that he can no longer feel.

Therefore, he becomes entrapped into his internal world, shutting

himself off from the society or any human contact other than with

his Italian wife Rezia. Needless to say that the primary source

of Septimus’s madness derives from the events of the war which

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deprive him of his human feelings, emotions, and this state of

numbness is one of the symptoms of the forthcoming insanity.

However, the lack of communication with the outside world, namely

alienation, increases the predisposition towards such a mental

illness. As already mentioned all the characters suffer from

alienation to a lesser extent, whereas Septimus represents its

ultimate level which goes beyond human endurance.

Woolf admits that the novel is to present “the world seen by

the sane and the insane side by side”, the ‘sane’ being

represented through Clarissa Dalloway’s viewpoint and the

‘insane’ through Septimus Warren Smith’s (as cited in Rathee,

2012). Both are prone to societal oppression of the corrupt

modern British society. Each of them feels neglected, lonely, not

belonging into that world, Septimus Warren Smith, who feels like

an

“outcast who gazed back at the

inhabited regions, who lay like a

drowned sailor, on the shore of the

world.” (Mrs. Dalloway, p.76),

and Clarissa “She sliced like a knife through

everything; at the same time was

outside, looking on. She had a

perpetual sense… of being, out, far

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out to sea and alone” (Mrs. Dalloway,

p.7).

Even though Septimus is the one labelled as the ‘mad’ character

Clarissa’s sanity needs to be questioned as well. In the 1928

Introduction, Virginia Woolf reveals that in the first version of

Mrs. Dalloway Clarissa was, ‘. . . originally to kill herself, or

perhaps merely to die at the end of the party’ (as cited in

Bloom, 2009, p. 113). There is a peculiar resemblance of the

inner worlds of these two characters; nevertheless they differ in

their ways of dealing with depression, loneliness, modern society

or life at large. Clarissa Dalloway finds a way to preserve that

little extent of remaining sanity by taking risks, throwing

parties as a ‘perfect hostess’ she is. She believes that her only

gift is to provide some ‘moments of warmth and connection for the

bored and the isolated’, bring them together once in a while and

socialize with high-society people. Therefore we can notice that

Clarissa unlike Septimus is not completely isolated from human

contact and the outside world, however despite of being

surrounded by people the feeling of loneliness does not evanesce,

deep inside she remains lonely even when in midst of the crowd.

Clarissa’s solitude is implicitly stated through her attic

bedroom where she retreats at the end of each day to her

innermost self:“Like a nun withdrawing, or a child

exploring a tower, she went upstairs,

paused at the window, came to the bathroom…

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There was an emptiness about the heart of

life; an attic room.”(Mrs. Dalloway, p. 25)

Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Smith are in a way victims of the

society they live in. Their worlds of sanity and insanity are

closely related to the suppression of emotions and feelings

enforced by an alienating society. Jeremy Hawthorn suggests that

Septimus’s madness partly it is the result and symbol of the

isolation from human interaction, on the other hand it is the

result of some of the few social contacts that Septimus has with

characters such as Sir William Bradshaw and Dr. Holmes, his

physicians (who represent ‘civilization’ which is associated with

the war), which means that Septimus’s mental disorder is caused

partly by such societal pressures generating from an ‘alienating

society’ (as cited in Bloom, 2009, p.115).

This is ‘a novel of experience, in which adults assess their

lives, the choices they have made, and the impact of events that

have befallen them’. Clarissa, Septimus and Peter Walsh,

throughout the novel constantly ponder about their past and

question the decisions they have made. Clarissa, years ago afraid

that she would lose her independence and identity of self,

preferred Richard Dalloway over Peter Walsh whose marriage

proposal she refused. However, in Clarissa we see another

reflection of the creator of this character, namely Woolf, since

both of them share a similar affection for women, yet they are

imposed to suppress such feelings by hidden forces of a

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patriarchal society. The suppression of her feelings for Peter

Walsh and the choice of Richard Dalloway as a husband is the

turning point in Clarissa’s life and perhaps one of the reasons

why she is in a state of desperate loneliness. Hawthorn claims

that Clarissa “by shutting herself off from Peter Walsh she may

have caused the death of her soul” and also “it is worth asking

whether her rejection of Peter Walsh is to be seen as in some way

parallel to Septimus’s inability to feel the death of Evans” (as

cited in Harold, 2009, p. 118 & 120). What I mean is that

suppression of one’s emotions and feelings for a long time,

whatever they may be, eventually can cause irreparable damages

into one’s mentality and life. Nevertheless, Clarissa manages to

fit in the way of life she chose and turns the situation into her

advantage by being able to exercise the gift of the hostess,

which probably is the cause why the extent of alienation in her

case does not go into such a level as Septimus’s does. Throughout

the novel the suppression of emotions is represented also through

minor characters as well such as Lady Bexborough whose son has

died in the war and she announces his death in the bazaar

concealing her innermost, genuine feelings, so that the

impression of some kind of ‘manliness’ could be conveyed to the

people hearing it.

The war may be over but not for Septimus, he relives every horror

of it in his mind. He is left no means of how to preserve his

soul or that much sanity which is left, except that sometimes by

shutting his eyes off and ‘see no more’. Nonetheless, a part of

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Septimus remains sane, he is still able to perceive beauty around

him and we can sense his creativity when contemplating on

ordinary, trivial things surrounding him while on Regent’s park,

that kind of beauty that not everyone is able to perceive, as

well as when sharing his creative ideas and thoughts related to

the hat-making with Rezia.

“. . . wherever he looked at the houses, atthe railings, at the antelopes stretching

over the palings, beauty sprang instantly.

To watch a leaf quivering in the rush of

air was an exquisite joy. Up in the sky

swallows swooping, swerving, flinging

themselves in and out, round and round, yet

always with perfect control as if elastics

held them; and the flies rising and

falling; and the sun spotting now this

leaf, now that, in mockery, dazzling it

with soft gold in pure good temper; and now

and again some chime (it might be a motor

horn) tinkling divinely on the grass stalks

—all of this, calm and reasonable as it

was, made out of ordinary things as it was,

was the truth now; beauty, that was the

truth now. Beauty was everywhere.” (Mrs.

Dalloway, p. 57)

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Both Clarissa and Septimus enjoy the outside, physical world;

enjoy the pleasure of sheer existence, even though Clarissa fears

death she believes that she will exist forever at any cost in

some way or the other. Septimus is deprived even of that

pleasure, being left no choice other than ending his life before

the end of this June day. Just before throwing himself from the

window he pauses and the narrator tells us that: “He did not want to die. Life was good. The

sun hot. Only human beings—what did they

want?” (Mrs. Dalloway, p.122)

We often have a tendency to believe that lacking the ability to

feel may have certain advantages in one’s life, nonetheless it

weakens one’s soul, isolates it, eventually destroying it instead

of preserving. Ronchetti (2004, p. 58) argues that the

realization of Septimus that he could no longer feel incites in

him a feeling that he has done some crime and that he must be

“condemned to death by human nature in the form of Dr. Holmes and

Sir William Bradshaw”. Firstly victimized by war and later on by

being exposed to such people as Sir William Bradshaw, Septimus’s

life keeps becoming more intolerable. Dr. Holmes and Sir William

Bradshaw represent the evil part of a society; to Septimus they

represent “predatory humanity at its worst”. They arrange for

Septimus to be sent to an asylum separating him from Lucrezia the

only human whom he still maintains social contact with. This

threat of separating him from his only connection to human

society is beyond Septimus’s endurance and before dusk falls he17

chooses to end his life once and forever rather than allowing

such people as Holmes and Bradshaw to deprive him of that little

extent of sanity and identity left. Genuinely they do not want

for Septimus to be cured, each has his own selfish reasons,

Holmes being interested in Rezia whereas Bradshaw’s aim is to

experiment with Septimus. He is a man eager of power and enjoys

when patients submit to him. One of Woolf’s critics E.M. Forster,

being a novelist himself, on a survey of Virginia Woolf’s Works

suggests that Woolf employs “an approach towards character

construction in the Tolstoyan sense: Sir William Bradshaw for

instance, is uninterruptedly and embracingly evil” (as cited in

Majumdar & McLauren, 2003, p. 177). After hearing the news of

Septimus’s suicide Clarissa is aware of the damage that Bradshaw

might have inflicted on him:

“…Sir William Bradshaw, a great doctor yet

to her obscurely evil, without sex or lust,

extremely polite to women, but capable of

some indescribable outrage—forcing your

soul, that was it—if this young man had

gone to him, and Sir William had impressed

him, like that, with his power, might he

not then have said (indeed she felt it

now), Life is made intolerable; they make

life intolerable, men like that?” (Mrs.

Dalloway, p. 151)

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In Septimus’s case one can see the damages that the underlying

forces of the modern times and society are capable to inflict in

one’s life, not to mention the ones who have lost communication

with the outside world. Their vulnerability and inclination

towards mental disorder allows the pressures of modern existence

to numb and eventually crush them.

The phenomenon of ‘divided selves’ of a character was becoming

common in the period when Mrs. Dalloway was written. Moreover,

despite of being a phenomenon of literature it so happens that in

the British society of that time a distinction of one’s public

and private world was coming to light. This concept of ‘divided

selves’ is not missing in Mrs. Dalloway. Jeremy Hawthorn in his Mrs.

Dalloway: A study on Alienation argues that it is Septimus Smith’s

“attempt to synthesize the public and the private that results in

his inability to conform to the requirements of his society” (as

cited in Bloom, 2009, p.112). The resemblance and hidden

relationship of Clarissa and Septimus cannot go unheeded. One can

argue that these two characters are actually two sides of one

single person, the sane and the insane part of Clarissa Dalloway.

Virginia Woolf represents Septimus as Clarissa’s alter ego, who

achieves what Clarissa does not have the strength to. Therefore,

she is the only one who understands why he has committed suicide

even though they never share a single contact. In receiving the

news of his suicide while in her party “she felt glad that he had

done it; thrown it away… He made her feel the beauty; made her

feel the fun”. By ending his life Septimus embraces the role of a

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scapegoat, sacrificed so that the other side of the coin Clarissa

can survive. Yet if we take them to be the divided selves of a

single person it means that a side of Clarissa dies the moment

Septimus commits suicide. Hawthorn claims that while Clarissa

finds solace for her loneliness at her parties renewing her

spiritual world, Septimus seeks and finds embrace in death (as

cited in Bloom, 2009, p. 116). While Septimus is being threatened

to be deprived of his only link to human society that is his

wife, Clarissa’s sanity in a way is also preserved by means of

that contact left between her and her husband, Richard Dalloway.

Both feel a desperate need for people, according to Hawthorn

“madness is the supreme isolator, and the more a man needs other

men, the more madness is feared” (as cited in Bloom, 2009, p.

116). In finding out that Lucrezia has been invited to Holmes’s

home Septimus is reminded of his solitude, hearing voices in his

mind pleading him to kill himself:

“He had four little children and he had

asked her to tea, she told Septimus.

So he was deserted. The whole world was

clamouring: Kill yourself, kill yourself,

for our sakes. But why should he kill

himself for their sakes?” (Mrs. Dalloway, p.

102)

Likewise Clarissa feels like an outcast when returning from her

morning walk and finding out that Lady Bruton has invited Richard

20

at a luncheon without her, she feels that she is getting old and

withered.

Communication is one of the key elements in one’s life. In Mrs.

Dalloway there is a clear lack of communication preventing the

characters from truly expressing their most genuine emotions,

keeping them from creating certain bonds with each other.

Hawthorn points out that “Septimus wishes to communicate but is

scared of self-exposure”(as cited in Bloom, 2009, p.118).

“Communication is health; communication is

happiness.

Communication, he muttered.

‘What are you saying, Septimus?’ Rezia

asked, wild with

terror, for he was talking to himself.”

(Mrs. Dalloway, p.77)

Certainly the lack of communication increases one’s

predisposition towards alienation. Septimus, the one who needs it

most understands the importance of communication in life. Yet

whenever he tries to communicate he is misunderstood even by his

wife who thinks that he is talking ‘nonsense’. Throughout most of

the novel the characters never say what they really mean, we get

to know their true feelings and thoughts only through the

narrator. It is due to the lack of communication that Peter Walsh

fails to renew his former friendship with Clarissa; both are

unable to express what they truly feel. There is Clarissa as well

21

who is not happy with her life yet never shares it with anyone,

even her husband. Miscommunication instills a feeling of hatred

in Clarissa and Miss Kilman, the tutor of Clarissa’s daughter;

they despise each other even though there is a scarce interaction

between them. It could be argued that miscommunication aggravates

Septimus’s mental condition, ultimately leading to his suicidal.

Hawthorn suggests that Septimus’s inability to feel results in

a loss of what R.D Lain calls ‘ontological security’. He explains

that Septimus, due to the lack of sense of security has a

constant, abnormal need for other people, namely Rezia, which is

“an exaggerated version of a normal human need” (as cited in

Bloom, 2009, p. 119). Rezia is the only thread keeping him

connected to the existence; once the society threatens to cut off

that thread from him such an existence for Septimus is no longer

bearable. Notwithstanding Septimus’s necessity for Rezia, it is

questionable whether she, being herself desperate and an ‘alien’,

contributes in exacerbating his internal alienation. Her patience

is being pushed to the limits; she is unable to conform to such a

fate of dealing with a ‘mad’ person who talks ‘nonsense’ to

himself.

“But Lucrezia Warren Smith was saying to

herself, It's

wicked; why should I suffer? She was

asking, as she walked down the broad

22

path. No; I can't stand it any longer…”

(Mrs. Dalloway, p.53)

As human beings we all have a necessity to have a private world

that no one but us can have access to. However there is also a

satisfaction achieved in accomplishing the need to reveal

ourselves, our innermost secrets. One needs to achieve a harmony

between the private and the public, the internal and the external

worlds. Hawthorn explains that albeit he suggests that human

alienation is a result of the failure to synthesize the private

and the public selves “which despite of being divided are

complete opposites as well”, the necessity for the individual to

have a private space of his own cannot be denied, some “untrodden

snow in his soul which confirms his own human individuality

without implicitly or explicitly denying the human individuality

of others”. Laing also further on claims that “genuine privacy is

the basis of genuine relationship, and it is perhaps to preserve

the last few square feet of untrodden snow in his soul that

Septimus kills himself” (as cited in Bloom, 2009, p.120).

Septimus’s shutting off of his feelings evolves into irredeemable

loneliness to a point that is beyond the scope of human

endurance. While he is leading a passive life Clarissa is more

inclined into taking risks in order to overcome loneliness and

preserve her sanity. Her desperate necessity for people is

fulfilled in her parties, her means of renewing her sense of

identity. According to Hawthorn none of the characters succeeds

23

in achieving a harmony between the divided selves, the public and

private, they remain fit to a society which requires a

disjunction between the two, except for Septimus the only

character whose reconciliation of the public and the private

generates into madness (as cited in Bloom, 2009, p. 122).

Muir claims that Woolf in Mrs Dalloway is not concerned with the

character, which is shown in action, in crises (and novels are

consequently full of crises), but with the state of being (as

cited in Majumdar & McLaurin, 1997, p.182).

One of the principal characters in the mind of whom the novel

takes place, whose presence is felt and whose life experience is

intertwined along with Clarissa’s and Septimus’s during the

course of that June day is Peter Walsh. After a period of five

years, the former suitor of Clarissa comes back from India to

London hoping to meet Clarissa and renew their friendship. While

wandering in the streets of London Peter, just like Clarissa,

recalls his past memories, contemplates on the decisions made and

their effect on his current life. Clarissa’s refusal to his

marriage proposal seems to have done irreparable harm in his

life, rendering him incapable of a happy life. A middle aged man

whose life has not turned out the way he would want to; one

cannot help noticing that he as well is prone to internal and

external alienation. Having no friends, no family perhaps not

even a home, he lives in utter loneliness.

“..it must be lonely at his age

24

to have no home, nowhere to go to” (Mrs.

Dalloway, p. 154)

When he comes to Clarissa to tell her that he is in love and is

getting married with some Indian woman called Daisy, we see a

disparity between what is being said and meant, each of them

pretending to be happy with their lives while they are certainly

not. However, Woolf’s technique of narration allows us to know

their inner thoughts and hidden emotions despite of the lack of

communication. In the last page of the book we see Peter’s

excitement in being in the presence of Clarissa:

“I will come,’ said Peter, but he sat on

for a moment. What is this terror? What is

this ecstasy? he thought to himself. What

is it that fills me with extraordinary

excitement? It is Clarissa, he said. For

there she was” (Mrs. Dalloway, p.159)

Septimus and Peter Walsh share a similar dream, that of becoming

a writer. Yet both fail in its accomplishment. In her Studies in

Major Literary Authors (2004, p.52) Ann Ronchetti argues that Peter

“as one who was expected to become a writer and occasionally

entertains the idea of researching topics of interest in the

Bodleian in his retirement, has not been able to master the

events of his life and turn them to his fullest creative

advantage.” Unlike Clarissa whose upper-class background has

25

given her advantage in life, Peter has been unable to succeed and

is considered as a failure among his friends. Peter himself feels

that his vulnerability and sensitivity towards Clarissa has

handicapped him, “His relations with Clarissa had not been

simple. It had spoilt his life” (157), it has constrained him to

such a mediocre life, and has caused his emotional life to

collapse. Analyzing closely the three major characters Clarissa,

Septimus, and Peter there can be noticed some similarities that

prevail in the characters of each. They all seem to enjoy the

physical world around them in a peculiar way, the fact of sheer

existence is a source of their utmost pleasure, each of the three

believe in one’s independence and autonomy as a necessity in

one’s life, each of them have a critical mind, criticizing people

around them and society at large and most importantly even if it

be in varying extent they all feel like ‘outcasts’ unfit for an

existence in the modern times, keeping themselves secluded from

the life around them. We see Peter trying to convince himself

that he is content with his secluded existence “one doesn’t want

people after fifty” (65). While in the case of Septimus, “the

alienation from social life bred by his combat experience

degenerates into madness—perhaps the ultimate manifestation of

one’s apartness from others save for death itself, which he also

reaches before the end of the novel” (Ronchetti, 2004, p. 52),

Peter’s alienation from human society seems to be the result of

Clarissa’s refusal of his marriage proposal. As Carey (1969, p.

26

33) suggests “Peter has tried, and failed, to fit all the pieces

of the past into the empty spaces of the present”.

A minor character which could easily be described as “the

villain”, along with Dr. Holmes and Sir William Bradshaw, is Miss

Kilman the tutor of Clarissa’s daughter Elizabeth. The reader

gains a rather dark impression of her as we hear the description

from the narrator “so insensitive was she, dressed in a green

mackintosh coat” (10). A repellent, mysterious character living

entrapped in the claws of an alienating society; another

‘outcast’ just like the other characters mentioned so far.

Clarissa and Miss Kilman harbour a feeling of hatred for each

other. Carey (1969, p.43) suggests that Clarissa is terrified

just by the idea of Miss Kilman “the vulgar, envious, destructive

force that, like a serpent, has slipped into the Dalloway house

and threatens to poison and destroy Clarissa”. Just like

Septimus, Clarissa and Peter, Miss Kilman as well suffers from

alienation, trying to find solace in religion, giving history

lectures and playing violin as a means of consolation.

Hawthorn argues upon Boris Kuznetsov’s notion that “Modern

notions of moral harmony require that an individual existence be

determined by its importance to the collective destiny” and

claims that the fact that Septimus, Clarissa and Miss Kilman

submit themselves to a society which requires a disjunction of

one’s public and private world, individual and collective

destiny, the achievement of that sort of reconciliation is made

impossible for them (as cited in Bloom, 2009, p. 122).

27

Septimus’s act of suicide is actually his triumph, by ending his

life he refuses to submit further to the cruelties of the modern

society. Indeed, by sacrificing his life he manages to preserve

his identity and autonomy, ‘the last few square feet of untrodden

snow in his soul’. Ronchetti (2004, p.59) points out that “in

choosing to take his own life, he defies the prevailing order and

asserts his autonomy, reclaiming control over his life in the act

of ending it, something that his culture has prevented him from

doing for quite some time.” In hearing the news of his suicide

the reader can sense the thrill of a triumph in Clarissa as well.

Septimus, ‘the insane’ serves as a scapegoat whose death permits

Clarissa’s existence.

As we learn from Virginia Woolf Septimus was designed later on

for the purpose of saving ‘the heroine’, based on this and other

insights related to Mrs. Dalloway provided from Woolf in her diary

Snaith (2007, p.62) believes that the idea that Woolf was trying

to express in bringing the two opposite parts namely

sanity(Clarissa) and insanity (Septimus) of one single person

incarnated in two different characters and creating a connection

between them, as it becomes obvious in the end when ‘Clarissa

identifies herself with Septimus’ saying that ‘ She felt somehow

very like him’(152),was to show that ‘sanity and insanity are not

separate or opposed but connected’.

Hawthorn in his Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway: A Study in Alienation (1975)

concludes that “the alienation of the individual at odds with

society animates the work, ultimately making Septimus a sort of

28

hero manqué, who willingly accepts death in order to preserve his

own existential unity” ( as cited in Bloom, 2009).

3. Women’s Identity in Mrs. DallowayWoolf’s feminist approach in her novels has aroused a great

interest in her works of fiction, and it has been subject to many

critical works throughout the years. Moreover it is arguable that

this aspect of her writing changed the opinion of her readers and

many critics of that time regarding Woolf and it contributed in

the establishment of her reputation as a feminist writer. It is

not a surprise that feminism and women’s identity was one of the

primary concerns addressed in her works since as we learn from

her biography she was always interested in these matters, and

actively participated in different organizations related to women

and their concerns. Snaith (2007, p.98) points out that Virginia

Woolf “grew up with feminism, addressing envelopes for the

People’s Suffrage Federation in 1910 (Black 1983, 183–4),

arranging meetings and speakers for the Women’s Co-operative

Guild for several years, and stating, in 1916, that she was

becoming ‘steadily more feminist’ in response to the war, this

preposterous masculine fiction.” The shift from the Victorian era

to the modern one inflicted enormous social and political changes

which were also reflected in the literature of that period,

including Woolf as well whose writing is concerned with modern

29

life. Therefore criticizing the social system of the modern era

that was taking place during her lifetime was one of her primary

concerns in Mrs. Dalloway. Furthermore Goldman (2006, p.133) argues

that “Woolf’s writing was often the territory over which

feminism’s struggles with postmodernism were conducted in this

period”. Nonetheless, to understand Woolf’s idea it is pertinent

to dig into the background so to understand what caused her to

devote herself and her writings to such a matter. As we know

women of the earlier periods were considered intellectually and

physically weak and inferior to men. The social conventions

implied that it is more suitable for women to stay at home and

their education fields consisted mostly of sewing, nursing and

painting and it could be said that the primary occupation for

women before the mid of the 19th century was marriage. Woolf

herself being raised among a patriarchal system affected by her

father’s domination as well as the sexual abuse she suffered from

his brother contributed in the growing of her awareness against a

male dominated society.

Woolf as a feminist woman writer who was known for her

treatment of women’s helpless situation, in Mrs. Dalloway unveils

the causes behind women’s oppression, and gives us the account of

the struggles that women of that time faced to obtain the meaning

of life and realize their identity. Virginia Woolf portrays women

of the post-First World War society and their vague lives shaped

by patriarchal society, sexual repression, ideologies of gender,

alienation and other conventional factors. Clarissa being the

30

centre of the novel will be the main focus of this study as far

as woman’s identity is concerned, thus her multifaceted, unstable

identity and the obstacles that prevent her from achieving a

fixed notion of the ‘self’ will be scrutinized. We have already

seen that most of the novel evolves around Clarissa Dalloway,

Peter Walsh and Septimus Warren Smith who according to Richard

Hughes “together are an unanswerable illustration of that

bottomlessness on which all spiritual values are based” (as

cited in Majumdar & McLaurin, 1997, p. 159).

3.1 Clarissa Dalloway and Her Unstable IdentityHere it is Clarissa Dalloway, a middle aged woman belonging to

the upper-class society, kind yet at the same time a character

predisposed to be shallow and snobbish. I have already mentioned

in the previous section that the events of the novel are confined

in a single day of June in London, a significant day for the

major characters, Clarissa who is preparing for a party she hosts

that night while Peter Walsh comes back from India and meets with

Clarissa, and Septimus ‘the insane’ of the novel who commits

suicide at the end of it. After refusing Peter’s marriage

proposal Clarissa marries Richard Dalloway a Member of Parliament

with whom she lives in London. One can notice that Mrs. Dalloway

is written in a genre in which adults assess their lives, the

choices they have made and their effect in their present lives.

Clarissa, throughout most of the novel plunges into her memories

31

contemplating upon the decisions she had made and reflecting on

how they are affecting her present life. Her refusal of Peter’s

proposal is one of the matters she ponders the most about, trying

to convince herself that she has made the right decision in

marrying Richard and not him. She has loved Peter and it seems

that she still loves him, yet her craving for personal freedom

and complete autonomy over her life prevents her from accepting

his proposal. Clarissa faces a discrepancy of desires, she indeed

wishes to love and be loved, nonetheless on the other hand yearns

for privacy and independence; a desire which she believes that

were she to marry Peter it would have been unobtainable since

with him everything had to be shared.

“For in marriage a little licence, a little

independence there must be between people

living together day in day out in the same

house; which Richard gave her, and she him

(where was he this morning, for instance?

Some committee, she never asked what.) But

with Peter everything had to be shared,

everything gone into” (Mrs. Dalloway, p.6).

Clarissa’s portrayal of Peter implies that he is that kind of man

who enforces a life under a patriarchal order, he would have her

soul and identity absorbed by dictating to her the way to live

and act. His love and attention would have engulfed her.

Therefore, she chose Richard over Peter, freedom rather than love

32

so that she could protect the privacy of her soul. Clarissa’s

ideal marriage is one where there is some independence left

between the husband and wife, which she easily attained in her

passionless relationship with Richard. Yet we do not see her as

being happy, the memories of Peter keep coming back and forth

overwhelming her thoughts. Even though she willingly sought the

life she is living by her deliberate choice of Richard for her

husband, their relationship could be evaluated as superficial,

passionless one. Richard’s love not being dictatorial and

possessive allows her to have the freedom she longs for, hence

Clarissa engages in a pathetic attempt to convince herself that

she chose wisely and that her marriage has proved to be a

successful one. Clarissa apparently lacks the passion required in

any kind of relationship, she refuses to submit herself ‘body and

soul’ to men and this lack of affection and intimacy causes

Clarissa to enter a state of desperate loneliness which she

endeavors to diminish by embracing her social role and exploiting

her art of a perfect hostess, which the social position provided

by Richard Dalloway allows her to do. This could be paralleled

with Woolf’s passionless marital experience as well, as we learn

from Quentin Bell she was ‘frigid’ (VWB2 6), her marriage to

Leonard ‘was not dependent upon the intenser joys of physical

love’ (VWB2 5). The sexual abuse she suffered from her half-

brother could be an explanation as well (as cited in Goldman,

2006, p.28). Clarissa’s belief that she has no other skills or

talents other than providing parties, bringing people together

33

and ‘knowing people almost by instinct’ actually implies the

constraints imposed in women by a patriarchal society. Living

under such an order she has been persuaded that she is not

capable of anything rather than embrace and act conform to her

role as a Member of Parliament’s wife.

“Not that she thought herself clever, ormuch out of the ordinary… She knew nothing;

no language, no history; she scarcely read

a book now … Her only gift was knowing

people almost by instinct, she thought,

walking on.” (Mrs. Dalloway, p.7)

From her memories at Bourton with Sally Seaton the reader is

informed that just like Septimus and Peter, Clarissa as well was

inclined to literature. She used to read Plato, Shelley and

Morris and has hoped to write; nonetheless she doomed herself to

failure the moment she chose for a spouse a man such as Richard

Dalloway who stifles her soul and creativity. As Sally Seaton

predicted he made ‘… a mere hostess of her, encourage her

worldliness’ (62). However, it is arguable whether the blame

should be put merely on Richard, since we realize that Clarissa

always had a tendency to be a snob and worldly person and in fact

this could be the reason behind her choosing of Richard,

willingly seeking to be in a higher social position so that she

can exercise her vocation of a hostess. Peter’s observations

related to Clarissa help the reader to better understand her

34

personality. Years ago he predicted that she will become “the

perfect hostess” he had always thought of her as being an

excessive snob and socially ambitious “she was worldly; cared too

much for rank and society and getting on in the world” (63).

Nonetheless Ronchetti (2004, p.51) suggests that what stimulates

Clarissa to accept and embrace her role as an upper-class society

woman is her desire to express her art as a hostess rather than

snobbery, and “this embracing of the actualities of her life

reflects a willingness to compromise—to accept the personal

limitations of her role in order to have access to a medium in

which she may ply her art.” Peter loves her yet he could never

understand Clarissa’s excessive desire to socialize and according

to him she is the reflection of the hypocrite, worldly British

society. Despite of his scolding, the need to unburden the

pressures of a restricted life and soothe the loneliness even if

it be just for some hours prompts Clarissa to continue doing what

she believes that she does best, seeking and offering warmth by

means of her party-making talent. Goldman (2006, p.53) argues

that “as the name of the eponymous heroine suggests, women’s

identity is considered here as circumscribed by men” and

Clarissa’s ‘gift’ allows her to somehow preserve her threatened

identity. The vagueness of her life is made more bearable for her

by exposing herself to such idle pleasures as bringing people

together in one place, gossiping about and criticizing them. The

identification by others as a hostess gives her enormous

pleasure, parties regenerate her soul and identity making her

35

feel that she is worthy of something. Nonetheless despite of

Clarissa’s enjoyment of the parties it could be questionable

whether she willingly, due to her abundant zest for

entertainment, involves herself in such entertainments or whether

it is the attempt to embrace the role of the upper class woman

that urges her. The narrator tells us that “Every time she gave a

party she had this feeling of being something not herself”, and

here we can see Clarissa’s struggle to realize her true identity

by exercising her ‘art’ as a hostess, yet deep down she knows

that the ‘perfect hostess’ is not her real self. According to

Ronchetti (2004, p.50) Woolf uses Clarissa’s parties to ridicule

the artists, poets, musicians, academics invited there, a

strategy she has used in some of the other novels as well,

portraying them as amateurs.

Clarissa’s means of celebrating life in the form of congregating

people in her house and socialize with them proves to be

inefficient, we are reminded of her solitude by her retreatment

to her most intimate, private world at the end of each day in the

attic bedroom where we can sense ‘an emptiness about the heart of

life’, there she would sleep alone in a narrow bed. Her attic

room provides her a space and tranquility in which her soul

remains away and free from the coarse reality, and thus has the

capability to listen its own rhythms alone.

Peter always knew that Clarissa lacked female sympathy, she was

frigid, lacked the sensuality needed in a heterosexual

relationship, and the attic room serves her as a refuge from

36

submitting herself to her husband. Ronchetti (2004, p.54) points

out that “Clarissa’s apparent deficiency of passion for Richard

has protected her from the intensity of love, which, like

institutionalized religion, she feels, destroys the privacy of

the soul”. Richard granted her the space she needed to preserve

the ‘virginity of her soul’, for she believed that even in a

marriage there must be a gulf between husband and wife, each

having some ‘untrodden snow of their souls’.

“ . . . There is a dignity in people; a

solitude; even between husband and wife a

gulf; and that one must respect . . . for

one would not part with it oneself, or take

it, against his will, from one’s husband,

without losing one’s independence, one’s

self-respect—something, after all,

priceless. (Mrs. Dalloway, p.98)

Guiguet believes that Woolf is a ‘purely psychological

writer’. He further suggests that ‘To exist, for Virginia Woolf,

meant experiencing that dizziness on the ridge between two

abysses of the unknown, the self and the non-self’ (as cited in

Goldman, 2006, p.129). The account of one ordinary day in the

city of London and the confinement of the events, major and

trivial ones as well, in the timespan of that day suggest that

Woolf’s idea was to provide us with the character’s lives

besieged by vagueness and casualness of everyday life. The

37

characters react to the sights and events of the day. Clarissa

most of the time is buried in her thoughts and memories of her

past, remaining stuck there for as long as the ‘announcer’ of the

passing of time, represented by the Big Ben clock, brings her

back to reality. The progression of time causes feelings of

terror in her, aging and death is something she cannot conform

herself to. The main characters Clarissa, Peter and Septimus are

overwhelmed by the notions of life and death. Clarissa’s fear of

death is eased as she consoles herself in her belief that death

will not turn her into nothingness, somehow she will manage to

preserve her identity.

“. . . somehow in the streets of London, on

the ebb and flow of things, here, there,

she survived, Peter survived, lived in each

other, she being part, she was positive, of

the trees at home; of the house there,

ugly, rambling all to bits and pieces as it

was; part of people she had never met;

being laid out like a mist between the

people she knew best, who lifted her on

their branches as she had seen the trees

lift the mist, but it spread ever so far,

her life, herself.” (Mrs. Dalloway, p.7)

While walking in the streets of London she enjoys the momentary

plan of her life, the trivialness the casualness of it “what she

38

loved was this, here, now, in front of her; the fat lady in the

cab”. Clarissa struggles to withstand the underlying forces of

aging and the approaching death. Ronchetti (2004, p.53) suggests

that in order to defend herself from the claws of death Clarissa

harbours in her mind ‘a pandemic notion of her identity’,

believing herself to be part of everything and everywhere.

3.2 Minor Female Characters and their Limited LivesWoolf as a distinguished feminist writer, who placed a great

emphasis and attempted to solve in her works women’s issues and

relationships with other women led to lesbian approaches to her

works and Woolf herself. As we learn from her biography Virginia

Woolf was inclined to engage in homosexual relationships, such as

with Vita Sackville-West. Bell invokes this affair to confirm his

view that Woolf ‘regarded sex, not so much with horror, as with

incomprehension’ (as cited in Goldman, 2006, p.28). Knowing this,

one cannot help but think that Clarissa mirrors Woolf’s own

sexual preferences. Clarissa as well is attracted to women

perhaps more than she is to men.“She couldn’t resist sometimes yielding to

the charm of a woman, not a girl, of a

woman confessing, as to her they often did,

some scrape, some folly. And whether it was

pity, or their beauty, or that she was

older, or some accident- like a faint scent

or a violin next door…she did undoubtedly

39

then feel what men felt. Only for a moment

but it was enough”. (Mrs. Dalloway, p.26)

She had loved Sally Seaton years ago, however just like Woolf she

is not able to cherish such feelings due to the limitations

imposed on her by a prevailing patriarchal society.

Woolf in a way ridicules the British society and the prevalence

of a patriarchal order which was the reason why a woman was

obliged to suppress feelings other than towards men. Again we see

Clarissa’s real identity concealed in her innermost self as a

result of the hidden forces of the society. The affair with Sally

Seaton remains a memory reminding Clarissa of the most intense,

ineffable emotion she will ever experience.

“Then came the most exquisite moment of her

whole life passing a stone urn with flowers

in it. Sally stopped; picked a flower;

kissed her on the lips. The whole world

might have turned upside down! The others

disappeared; there she was alone with

Sally. And she felt that she had been given

a present, wrapped up, and told just to

keep it, not to look at it—a diamond,

something infinitely precious.” (Mrs.

Dalloway, p.28)

40

Goldman (2006, p. 55) suggests that diamond in this case

symbolizes “the lost lesbian erotics.” Woolf uses this scene to

rebuke the patriarchal society and show how such forces are

capable to interfere in one’s most exquisite moment and feelings

and destroy the magic of it. As Clarissa recalls, the most

precious and the most splendid moment she will ever experience

was disrupted by representatives of a patriarchal society, namely

Peter and old Joseph: "Star-gazing?" said Peter. It was like

running one's face against a granite wall in the darkness! It was

shocking; it was horrible!”(29). Clarissa had felt Peter’s

‘determination to break into their companionship.’ There was some

‘purity’ and ‘integrity’ in her feelings for Sally that she has

never felt for a man. While young Sally Seaton was different in

character compared to Clarissa, she was an audacious,

disregardful woman showing willingness to take risks; she was

also predisposed to be an artist “she would paint, she would

write” and was openly against patriarchal society.“There they sat, hour after hour…..talking

about life, how they were to reform the

world. They meant to found a society to

abolish private property.” (Mrs. Dalloway,

p.20)

Their relationship could be taken as a symbol of their anti-

patriarchal attitude. However, Clarissa chose to submit to the

roles and constraints imposed by society, which urged her to

suppress her affection for Sally who was forbidden for her. More

41

or less this reaction is expected from Clarissa, yet to our

surprise Sally as well ultimately yields to the patriarchal

forces confining herself in the defined roles of a mere wife and

mother. She gets married to an owner of cotton mills with whom

she has five sons. One can see that no matter how strong and

powerful is women’s desire to pursue the most genuine feelings

and find the real identity they end up defeated because the only

female identity accepted is the one dictated from the male

dominated society they live in.

Clarissa and Sally are not the only ones leading a limited life

conform to the rules of a patriarchal order, minor women

characters are also victimized and as Ronchetti (2004, p.50)

suggests each of them tries to find an “outlet for the pressures

and frustrations of their limited lives.” We have Lady Bruton an

elderly woman with a high social status who tries to get involved

and solve political and social issues, yet the ideologies of

gender get in the way as we see when she asks for Hugh Whitbread

and Richard Dalloway’s help to write a letter with the purpose of

promoting emigration in Canada. Again we see the woman as

intellectually inferior to men, as Fernald (2006, p.111) suggests

“Lady Bruton’s sense that she needs male assistance to

effectively participate sheds light on how gendered assumptions

about public discourse undermine and limit women.” She is the

example of a conventional upper class woman who is left no choice

other than to yield to her husband’s whims and efforts to gain

domination over her. Her outlet of the pressures of a restricted

42

and trivial life is in attending idle dinner parties. Another

minor character is Miss Kilman who also leads a trivial existence

perhaps more than the other women characters. Being a suspect for

having German sympathies due to her German ancestry Miss Kilman

has lost her job which is perhaps the reason why she holds a

grudge against everyone and everything around her. Now she finds

solace for her cruel fate in tutoring Elizabeth, Clarissa’s

daughter but there is a mutual animosity going on between her and

Clarissa. Miss Kilman’s feelings of hatred towards Clarissa are

based on her belief that Clarissa is part of the patriarchal

society which has ruined her life and that is why she wants her

to be as miserable as she is. “If she could have felled her it would have

eased her. But it was not the body, it was

the soul and its mockery that she wished to

subdue; make feel her mastery. If only she

could make her weep, could ruin her;

humiliate her; bring her to knees crying.”

(Mrs. Dalloway, p.102)

She feels that if she humiliates Clarissa it is as if she had

her revenge against the world which is indifferent of her

suffering. Ronchetti (2004, p.50) states that “Miss Kilman has

mentally condemned Clarissa for being a daughter of “the rich,

with a smattering of culture”. She also tries to find consolation

by devoting herself to religion, nonetheless fails in achieving

it. Her physical appearance reflects her inner soul and suggests

43

a suppression of her femininity. On the other hand Clarissa’s

hatred results from her fear that Miss Kilman will possess

Elizabeth’s soul and take her daughter from her.

Another example of women’s limited lives is Lady Bradshaw, wife

of the physician Sir William Bradshaw, who follows her husband

wherever he goes, unconditionally obeying him: “Sweet was her

smile, swift her submission.” Again a woman with no profession of

her own, enjoying her marginalized life conducted by her husband

and from time to time engaging herself in taking photographs of

old churches.

We have already mentioned Septimus the ‘insane’ of the novel and

his wife Rezia whom she marries without loving her. Therefore,

Rezia is another victim of the patriarchal society doomed to

loneliness and suffering.“She was very lonely, she was very unhappy!

She cried for the first time since they

were married. Far away he heard her

sobbing; he heard it accurately, he noticed

it distinctively; he compared it to a

piston thumping. But he felt nothing. His

wife was crying, and he felt nothing; only

each time she sobbed in this profound, this

silent, this hopeless way, he descended

another step into the pit.” (Mrs. Dalloway,

p.74)

44

Clarissa, Lady Bradshaw, Sally Seton, Lady Bruton and Rezia as

Ronchetti (2004, p.51) points out inhabit a world ruled by a

patriarchal social system. Women serve men by embracing and

acting conform to the limitations and the roles as a wife, mother

and daughter imposed on them by such an order.

In Mrs. Dalloway there are some references to prostitution as well.

Sally Seton points out that “she considered him responsible for

the state of ‘those poor girls in Piccadilly’—Hugh, the perfect

gentleman, poor Hugh!—never did a man look more horrified!” (60).

Peter Walsh also feels the same about Hugh:

“. . . God knows, the rascals who get

hanged for battering the brains of a girl

out in a train do less harm on the whole

than Hugh Whitbread and his kindness!” (Mrs.

Dalloway, p. 142)

Many readers find it hard to like the character of Clarissa

Dalloway who cares more about her roses than the Armenians.

Jeremy Hawthorn suggests that “given her belief in the

unchangeable nature of her world, Clarissa cannot reconcile a

love for humanity at large with a love for those symbolic roses”

(as cited in Bloom, 2009, p.122).

Before the dusk falls Septimus commits suicide and the news of it

is communicated in her party by the Bradshaws:

45

“Oh! thought Clarissa, in the middle of my

party, here’s death, she thought. . .. What

business had the Bradshaws to talk of death

at her party? A young man had killed

himself. And they talked of it at her party

– the Bradshaws, talked of death. He had

killed himself– but how? (Mrs. Dalloway,

p.150)

It looks like the privacy of the soul that both Clarissa and

Septimus struggle to maintain and protect from the external

threats requires a price to be paid or a sacrifice. Septimus

sacrifices his physical life in order to preserve the freedom and

independence of his soul, whereas Clarissa is left with her

incompetence of surrendering herself to love and sexuality. She

is not deprived of her physical life yet she chooses to deprive

herself from genuine feelings of love and passion so that she can

perpetuate her identity, which is perhaps even worse than death

itself. In hearing the news of Septimus’s death she knew why he

had done it and a feeling of relief and salvation overwhelmed

her. As Ronchetti (2004, p.59) suggests Septimus’s act of suicide

causes her to ‘reprieve’ in her struggle to find the meaning of

her life and realize her identity and just enjoy the moment given

to her “He made her feel the beauty; made her feel the fun.”

Clarissa thought to herself: “There was an embrace in death”

believing that Septimus has sought and found solace in death.

Hawthorn suggests that one can interpret Clarissa’s inability to

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submit herself sexually to a man as her actual fear being that

‘there is death in an embrace’, the apprehension that she will

extinguish hinders her from giving herself ‘body and soul’, ‘she

fears the loss of self—seen symbolically magnified in Septimus’s

death—that it threatens’ (as cited in Bloom, 2009, p.117).

Clarissa manages to remains physically alive yet the patriarchal

society causes her soul to stifle and die, dooming her to an

identity dictated and accepted by such an order and to failure in

achieving a fixed and independent notion of the “self”.

4. Conclusion

Two of the most prominent issues of the novel Mrs. Dalloway namely

Alienation and Women’s identity have been approached in this

paper. We have seen how alienation and limited exposure to life

can generate into madness and irreparable damages into one’s

life. A pure example of this hypothesis we see in Septimus’s

case, the young war veteran whose exposure firstly to war and

then to a society which enforces alienation, especially in people

who have difficulties in creating links and connections with

human society and the outside world, drives him into a state of

madness. These circumstances cause him to escape his mental

world, and ultimately he chooses to escape the physical one as

well. Based on the fact that Septimus does not permit such a

society to deprive him of the independence and autonomy over his47

life and soul, his action of suicide can actually be interpreted

as a triumph and not cowardice as Dr. Holmes refers to him after

throwing himself from the window “The coward”.

On the other hand we have seen Clarissa and other women

characters whose identity is constantly jeopardized by men.

Clarissa being the protagonist of the novel, I have tried to

examine mostly her multifaceted, unstable identity and the

obstacles that prevent her from achieving a fixed notion of the

“self”. During the novel we see her struggling to obtain the

meaning of her life and discover her true identity. Despite of

her struggles she and other women in the novel are left with no

other choice but to accept and embrace the identity dictated by

the society they live in. Patriarchal society, ideologies of

gender and other conventional factors doom them to a marginalized

existence, suppression of genuine emotions and ultimate

loneliness.

It can be concluded that one needs to achieve a balance between

the private and the public worlds of oneself, loneliness and

freedom, the known and the unknown within ourselves which neither

of the characters is able to.

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References

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Publishing.

Briggs, J. (2006). Reading Virginia Woolf. Edinburgh University Press.

Fernald, A. E. (2006). Virginia Woolf: Feminism and the Reader. New York:

PALGRAVE MACMILLAN.

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Gary Carey, M. (1969). Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. New York: Hungry

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Goldman, J. (2006). The Cambridge Introduction to Virginia Woolf. New York:

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McLaurin, R. M. (2003). VIRGINIA WOOLF: THE CRITICAL HERITAGE. London &

New York: Taylor & Francis e-Library.

Rathee, D. M. (2012). “Virginia Woolf and the Construct of Sanity

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Ronchetti., A. L. (2004). The Artist, Society & Sexuality in Virginia Woolf's

novels. New York & London: Routledge.

Snaith, A. (2007). Palgrave Advances in Virginia Woolf studies. New York:

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Stape, J. M. (2002). Editing Virginia Woolf Interpreting the Modernist Text. New

York: Palgrave.

Woolf, V. (1925). Mrs. Dalloway. Feedbooks.

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