Essays on Mrs. Dalloway

Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway uses chance and coincident as narrative tools. Woolf creates tunnels between characters which are linked through shared chance experiences, such as a car backfiring that is witnessed by entire crowds. By doing this, Woolf is able to introduce different plot lines with different protagonists that never meet, but demonstrate society as a whole. Mrs. Dalloway and Septimus Smith never actually meet, but their paths cross through jumps in the narrative structure, and by chance ...

Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway highlights the unequal relationship between men and women living in the post-WWI period in London. The novel is set in 1923, three years after women have gotten the vote, yet there is still a female dependence on the male sex both economically and socially. This can be seen through Woolf’s female protagonist, Clarissa Dalloway, whose marriage to Richard has secured her status, financially and socially, in terms of achieving her goal to appear as “the perfect ...

This passage from Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway portrays the view of mental illnesses at the time of Woolf’s life. The character of Dr. Holmes is used to show Woolf’s negative opinion of so-called professionals and the ineffective practices used to treat mental illnesses. In this passage, Woolf uses repetition of terms, little plot build-up, and changing perspectives to help illustrate her meaning. “Holmes would… Holmes would…Holmes would” (149). The repetition of this term shows Woolf’s ...

The idea of mental illnesses is a concept that is still, even in this day and age, not fully understood by most of society, even though it is fairly common. In order to find an immediate “cure” we turn to countless doctors, psychiatrists, and even religious leaders, in hopes that they can magically make the illness just go away. However, without truly understanding the illness itself, it is very difficult to be able to help and actually treat someone with a positive result. Take depression for ...