The Importance of Time in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs.Dalloway

Modern English novel Theme: The importance of time in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs.Dalloway As human beings, we are unique in our awareness of death. â€Å"We know that we will die, and that knowledge invades our consciousness†¦it will not let us rest until we have found ways, through rituals and stories, theologies and philosophies, either to make sense of death, or, failing that, to make sense of ourselves in the face of death.† Attaching significance to life events is a human reaction to the sense of â€Å"meaninglessness† in the world. Fearing our ultimate annihilation, we form belief systems to reassure us in the face of death. Religion provides us with elaborate rituals at times of death and faith assists believers in mourning and coping with†¦show more content†¦Dalloway (Woolf, 1996) in 1925, the modernist writer and critic Virginia Woolf released one of her most celebrated novels upon the literary world. Examining ‘an ordinary mind on an ordinary day’ (Woolf, 1948, p 189) Woolf explores the fragmentary self through ‘streams of consciousness’, whereby interior monologues are used to tell the story through the minds of the principal characters. Told through the medium of omniscient narration, this story about two people who never meet has no resolution and the characters remain where they started, locked in their own heads, in a constant state of flux. As a contemporary study of post-war Britain, however, Mrs Dalloway mirrors the fragmentation that was taking place within her own culture and society, and provides a â€Å"delicate rendering of those aspects of consciousness in which she felt that the truth of human experience really lay.† A number of themes and motifs are explored, but this essay will consider the representation of time within the novel. For Woolf, time is a device with which she not only sets the pace of the novel, but with which she also controls her characters, setting and plot. It is also used to question ‘reality’ and the effect of that on the individual characters within the story as they journey through their day. As these different modes are uncovered, psychological time will be revealed and its impact on the main characters of Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Warren Smith will beShow MoreRelated Virginia Woolf as Feminist and a Psychoanalyst Essay1864 Words   |  8 PagesVirginia Woolf as Feminist and a Psychoanalyst When first introduced to the feminist and psychoanalytical approaches to literary criticism, it seems obvious that the two methods are opposed to each other; at the very least, one method -the psychoanalytic - would appear antagonistic to feminism. After all, there is much in Freuds earlier theories that a feminist would find appalling. It also seems to be a conflict that the feminists are winning: as feminist criticism gains in popularityRead More Modernist Movement in Fords Good Soldier and Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway1625 Words   |  7 Pages Ford Madox Ford and Virginia Woolf were major contributors to the modernist movement. They, as well as others (such as James Joyce), were trying something new, by breaking down the boundaries of traditional writing. Fords Good Soldier and Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway are two particular examples of the genre. These novels were not well-received in their own time. As time went on, however, the attitudes of the literary world changed and were ab le to finally see these works for what they really areRead More An Analysis of Virginia Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway Essay examples3326 Words   |  14 PagesAn Analysis of Virginia Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway Somewhere within the narrative of Mrs. Dalloway, there seems to lie what could be understood as a restatement - or, perhaps, a working out of - the essentially simple, key theme or motif found in Woolfs famous feminist essay A Room of Ones Own. Mrs. Dalloway does in fact possess a room of her own - and enjoys an income (or the use of an income) that is at least five hundred a year - (Room: 164). But most importantly, Clarissa Dalloway also