Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf summary and analysis

 

Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, published in 1925, was a bestseller both in Britain and the United States despite its departure from typical novelistic style. Mrs. Dalloway and Woolf's subsequent book, To the Lighthouse, have generated the most critical attention and are the most widely studied of Woolf's novels.

The action of Mrs. Dalloway takes place during a single day in June 1923 in London, England. This unusual organizational strategy creates a special problem for the novelist: how to craft characters deep enough to be realistic while treating only one day in their lives. Woolf solved this problem with what she called a "tunneling" technique, referring to the way her characters remember their pasts. In experiencing these characters' recollections, readers derive for themselves a sense of background and history to characters that, otherwise, a narrator would have had to provide.

In a sense, Mrs. Dalloway is a novel without a plot. Instead of creating major situations between characters to push the story forward, Woolf moved her narrative by following the passing hours of a day. The book is composed of movements from one character to another, or of movements from the internal thoughts of one character to the internal thoughts of another.

Mrs. Dalloway has been called a flâneur novel, which means it depicts people walking about a city. (Flâneur is the French word for a person who enjoys walking around a city often with no other purpose than to see the sights.) The book, as is typical of the flâneur novel, makes the city, its parks, and its streets as interesting as the characters who inhabit them.

Clarissa Dalloway's party, which is the culminating event of the book, ties the narrative together by gathering the group of friends Clarissa thinks about throughout her day. It also concludes the secondary story of the book, the story of Septimus Warren Smith, by having Dr. Bradshaw arrive at the party and mention that one of his patients committed suicide that day.

 

The novel opens with Clarissa Dalloway, an upper-class woman in her fifties, preparing for a party she will host later in the evening. As she goes about her day, she reflects on her life choices and memories.  Introduces Septimus Warren Smith, a veteran soldier of  World War I,  suffering from psychological trauma. Septimus struggles with his mental state and is married to Lucrezia. His story runs parallel to Clarissa's throughout the novel. Besides the points of view of Septimus and Lucrezia, the points of view of a number of passersby who are not major characters in the book.   Clarissa arrives home, having ordered the flowers. She finds that her husband has been invited to lunch at Lady Bruton's. She decides to mend the dress that she will be wearing that evening at her party. Once again, she thinks about various people, things, and her past, and so the novel builds a sense of her character and what issues are pertinent to her. One significant person she thinks about is Sally Seton, a close friend of her youth, with whom she had been in love.  Peter Walsh drops by unexpectedly; Clarissa is not aware that he has returned to London from India. With this visit, the past enters the present forcibly, as the man who preoccupied Clarissa's thoughts that morning appears in person. She invites him to her party. Peter Walsh, Clarissa's former lover, reflects on his past and his feelings for Clarissa. He struggles with his failed relationships and contemplates the nature of time and memory.  Clarissa continues her party preparations, and we gain insight into her relationships with her husband, Richard Dalloway, and her daughter, Elizabeth. The narrative weaves between Clarissa's thoughts and the events leading up to the evening party.   Septimus, overwhelmed by his mental anguish, becomes increasingly isolated and detached from reality. He seeks solace in the company of his Italian doctor, Dr. Bradshaw.  The evening arrives, and Clarissa's party takes place. The narrative shifts between the party's events and the ongoing struggles of Septimus. Clarissa reflects on her life, choices, and the social expectations placed on women.   Septimus reaches a breaking point and, feeling trapped, decides to take his own life. This event marks a tragic culmination of his mental struggles. The news of Septimus' death reaches Clarissa during her party.   Woolf employs a stream-of-consciousness narrative technique, allowing readers direct access to the characters' inner thoughts. This technique provides an intimate exploration of the characters' minds and emotions, emphasizing the subjective nature of experience. The novel unfolds over the course of a single day, incorporating the technique of "time-streaming." This temporal structure, with its fluid shifts between past and present, highlights the interconnectedness of moments in the characters' lives. Mrs. Dalloway is a quintessential modernist novel, reflecting the literary movement's rejection of traditional narrative structures. Woolf experiments with narrative form, challenging conventional storytelling and presenting a fragmented, non-linear narrative. The novel addresses feminist themes, examining the social expectations imposed on women in the post-World War I era. Clarissa Dalloway's life choices, social roles, and reflections on her past relationships serve as a lens through which Woolf critiques the limitations placed on women. Septimus Warren Smith's character provides a poignant exploration of mental health and the psychological effects of war. Woolf sensitively portrays the struggles of a traumatized veteran, offering a critique of a society that fails to understand or support those grappling with mental health issues.