CAPTER-1

INTRODUCTION

Modernist literature, known for its interesting break with traditional

writing, both in terms of contents as well as narrative techniques, remains
relevant even though nearly a century has passed from the time of writing. The
topics and narrative techniques and the way the modernists saw, or wanted us as
readers to see, the world is still very much the subject of study at universities
around the world today. We learn about the crisis experienced in a changing
society and about the way the modernists wanted to portray the truth with a
capital T, through the use of fragmentation, symbolism and metaphors. We
analyze and dissect works of literature in order to gain understanding.

Sometimes, students and other readers may be forgiven for wondering if

scholars of today, and decades past, perhaps read too much into certain literature
in their eagerness to reach beyond the words and, hopefully, find a hidden,
obscured meaning. I have found myself asking if it is possible that sometimes in
these close readings of texts, like treasure hunts through symbolism and
metaphors, meanings are created that were not meant to be.

Upon reading Mrs. Dalloway, however, I became increasingly interested

in the rich imagery used and this essay will be based on the thesis that Woolf's
symbolism in this novel is not only a way to enrich the writing and create an
added layer of interest, but the symbolism used is indeed a vital part of this
novel, without which communicating central views and ideas to the reader
would not have been possible. I argue that the symbolism Woolf uses in this
novel can be divided into two main categories, in terms of function; firstly,
symbolism used to put forth social criticism through archetypal characters and
secondly, a subtle symbolism used to speak to our senses and subconscious.
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 I therefore strive to find out in what ways symbolism is used in Mrs.
Dalloway to create meaning beyond words.

Though Mrs. Dalloway takes place in London on a single June day, 1923,
and centers on Clarissa, a woman in her early fifties, there are many stories told
in this novel through different characters and shifts in time. While Clarissa is
preparing to host a society party the same night, she walks down memory lane,
thinking about her youth and old friends. In a different part of town, however,
Septimus Smith is struggling to get through the day, suffering from severe
mental illness. At first there appears to be nothing connecting these two main
narratives but at the end when Clarissa hears of Septimus’s suicide their stories
come together as his life, and final act, enter her consciousness. Through the use
of symbolism and the method of stream of consciousness, Woolf channels her
own thoughts and criticism in fields such as gender and feminism, psychology
and the treatment of mental illness in a changing society recovering from World
War One.

The thesis gives rise to a number of questions about the nature of

symbolism in the novel and Virginia Woolf’s motivation for using it; did she
think the symbolism saturating the novel obvious enough for readers to fully
comprehend? If not: what could be the reason for the obscurity? Did Woolf
perhaps want there to be levels of the novel that were meant only for a
privileged few to grasp? Did the times, the post-World-War-One years, maybe
call for caution that you could not freely express your ideas and openly criticize
society in writing? I will approach these questions even though an exhaustive
answer will not be given.

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 She belongs to the Bloomsbury group and was influenced from the literary
group of her father's friends. A writer is the product of the society of the age and it
reflects the society showing the ideas and thoughts of the time. Virginia wrote
about the people she knew closely and of middle-class with the experiences of her
time and generation. It was the time of World War of 1920’s which played a vital
role in making up her mind in exploring the deep meaning of humanity. It was the
end of the 19th century an age of great change in England which completely
changed the rural England into a nation of cities and industries. The result of this
change was industrialisation and prosperity but at the same time there was an
increase in crimes and corruption as well and the shortage of dwellings and
morality of people declined.

The World War II further ruined the family relations and increased
frustration and tensions. Virginia belonged to the aristocratic intellectual society,
she stresses on the importance of freedom in her family. Her father promoted her
writings and allowed his children to read and write and made them understand to
express their full views in few sentences. As Mrs Woolf’s diary of 19th
December 1938 shows her writings “absorbing ever since I was a little creature
scribbling a story in the manner of Hawthorne on the green Plush sofa in the
drawing room at Saint Ives while the grown -ups dined.”

The Bloomsbury group a literary club was founded by Virginia which

started its function after Queen Victoria passed away till the Second World War.
The group was influenced by G. E. Moor’s philosophy. The refined and difficult
work with no sentimental philosophy gave the group dignity. Virginia became
the leader of the group for having studied at Cambridge and also being inspired
by the ideas of G. E Moor. She was married to Leonardo Woolf and their married
life was happy but because she was a sensitive soul she had nostalgia and
depression, when the First World War broke out and it was the end of an era of
security and stability.
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 After the War she suffered due to ill-health and depression and when the
Second World War broke out it destroyed her interest in life. Later she
committed suicide by drowning herself.

Virginia was a rational being who suppressed her feelings and had a great
control over herself. She had an appealing simplicity and seriousness in attitude.
She was also very fond of poetry, painting and music. Her novels show vital
response as she admired her surroundings and it can be traced in her works. Her
senses coordinate well with her intelligence. If she had sympathy for the people
around, she would go and meet them personally.

Symbolism in Mrs Dalloway

Virginia Woolf uses nature in a symbolic manner in her novels. There are
settings of natural phenomena with the use of day and night, autumn and spring,
sunshine and fog, holiday and season for the souls as symbols in her novel Mrs
Dalloway. She has used two patterns in her novel Mrs Dalloway first the pattern
of prose where he reader gets a picture of the modern world with its destructive
forces, class struggle and war. The other part explains the poetic form with love,
death, life and the beauty of the world. The various psychological complexities
are linked up with the social problems. The theme is concerned with the
fundamental questions and values of life and the serious indictment of society.
The novel is a mixture of feelings which are happy and polite, the flower shop,
Clarissa’s cool and dignified home and the preparation of a party. On the other
hand the smoothness cracks and reality comes in with the appearance of Peter
Walsh and the heroine Clarissa goes to the attic room in loneliness. Mrs
Dalloway represents the outward glitz and show but inside she is suffering from
spiritual barrenness.

Peter Walsh, Sally Seton and Septimus Smith are also the symbolic figures
in the novel. Peter represents adventures of foreign lands and his love, truth,

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knowledge, wealth and disagrees with pomp and show, pride and vanity.

Peter and Sally both stand for the new wave and ideals. The character of
Septimus smith is a victim of the War he was a young patriot, handsome and
intelligent who voluntarily joined the army and after the war he was reduced to a
neurotic suffering from nervous breakdown whom medicines failed to cure and
later he commits suicide.

The writer has used nature as symbols and images where the fresh morning
The writer has used nature as symbols and images where the fresh morning air,
flap of wave, the coolness of atmosphere symbolised the youth of Clarisse at her
parents’ home. Flowers and green fields show peace, calm and contentment. The
beautiful cloudscape observes by Elizabeth as she walks home show light and
shade symbolising joys and sorrows of life. The street show mystery of all lives
and the houses, doors, windows, cities are symbols of various aspects of life.
Peter Walsh knife is taken as his silly, unconventionality, weakness and lack of
feelings. The symbols used in the novel by the writer have no traditional
ambiguity. They help the characters in showing their inner feelings and
consciousness. The streets and banks of river show the feelings of mysterious
contacts with the crowd moving and the ripples in water. It shows the mystery of
life and witnesses the solitude and the two extremes meeting in the novel. Houses
have significant meaning like shelter and express shades of human existence. It
shows activities, darkness, silence and loneliness from one room to another.

It shows integration of a person with family or a group of people in

protection and intimacy. The roses and fresh flowers in the flower shop show
happiness and love in one's life. With roses Richard Dalloways's expresses his
love for the wife Clarissa. The other symbols like birds butterflies and gulls are
also shades of human behaviour. The butterflies on flowers show the lamps that
are lost in the forest of darkness. Fishes symbolised the breaking of man's

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consciousness with of obscure signs.

Clarrisa’s character shows love and religion whereas Doris Killman

represents corrupt and possessive love. Religion is not able to give her spiritual
peace and change her moral code. Doctor Holmes and Sir William Bradshaw
stand as symbols of ruthless impositions of an individual will on others. They
represent the force and strength of character which make them the object of fear
for the others. Peter Sally and Septimus symbolise adventure of the foreign lands.
Thus we can say that the theme of the novel is death, time, personalities and
relations of the character with each other. It exposes the horrors and evils of the
materialistic world and portrays the human feelings towards relationships with
special stress on life, love, pity, sympathy and death.

Method, Secondary Sources and Structure

This essay is based on literature studies. The method I have used is to go

from the general to the specific by starting to read about modernism in literature
to gain a better understanding of what modernist writers wanted to achieve
through their writing and then to read about general symbolism in literature. I
then went on to research literary criticism about Virginia Woolf and about
symbolism in Mrs. Dalloway, in particular.
The secondary sources I have used include The Subject of Modernism
(1994), in which Tony E. Jackson writes about the history of literary
modernism and the development of narrative techniques. The Symbolism of
Virginia Woolf (1965) by N. C Thakur offers a thorough study of symbolism
and is interesting, thanks to its being of an early date, which allowed Thakur to
interview Virginia’s husband Leonard Woolf after her death, providing a direct
link to her thoughts and writing. “Virginia Woolf’s Septimus Smith: An
Analysis of ‘Paraphrenia’ and the Schizophrenic Use of Language” (1981) in an
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interesting article within the field of psychology and literature, in which Suzette
A. Henke writes about the character of Septimus Smith as a portrayal of
Virginia Woolf.
I have structured the essay as to firstly, in the chapter “Symbolism and
Woolf,” aim to give a background to Virginia Woolf’s symbolism and gain
understanding about her motivation for using it in her writing. In the next
chapter, “Characters,” I examine how Woolf builds up different personalities to
structure her novel. Here, I focus on some of the minor characters in the novel
and argue that it is through these that Woolf puts forth her criticism of society.
In the following chapter, “The World of Nature and of Objects,” I look at a
category of symbolism that I believe is used to speak to our subconscious
through pictures rather than through regular narrative.

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 CHAPTER-II
SYMBOLISM AND WOOLF
Modernist writers brought a change in how to structure the narrative
compared to traditional writing. This plotting as well as the use of metaphors in
modernist writing is what Tony E. Jackson discusses in The Subject of
Modernism. He points out that up to a certain point in literary history authors
looked upon narrative only as a way to try to represent the real thing by
describing them as realistically as possible, but that modernist writers started to
use careful plotting as a tool to determine what was to be perceived as real.
Jackson writes “with respect to plotting, we will find that a work such as Mrs.
Dalloway reveals the desire of the plot in a very specific way, a way that will
also begin to bring out the problematic status of the artist in modernism”. With
this new way of writing, the role of the author became more complicated than
before. Was the author to be visible as narrator in a story or whose perspective
should the author adopt? According to Jackson Virginia Woolf was looking for
a narrative shape that would suit her experience; “her experience was
substantial but unembodied, needing the definition of a shape and yet not of just
any shape”.
Looking for the right kind of representation of her experience, Woolf
wants to avoid writing like her realist contemporaries. These authors, whom she
called materialists, irritated her as they were too preoccupied with realistic
descriptions. Jackson explains that “in spite of all their attention to the material
surroundings and existence of their characters, their work somehow fails to
represent what Woolf finds to be the ‘proper stuff’ of fiction”. In the essay
“Modern Fiction” Woolf questions the point of reading such material novels as
“whether we call it life or spirit, truth or reality, this, essential thing, has moved
off”.

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 Instead she urges the writer to free himself from the convention of realistic
writing and instead “base his work upon his own feeling” (Woolf 98). The writer
should “look within” and Woolf suggests examining the interesting stream of
impressions in “an ordinary mind on an ordinary day”. She seems to find that if
one tries to describe things in an objective way, the true story will in fact be
obscured, that the life of the story will escape. Jackson sums up that Woolf,
however, still “feels that ‘life’ can be represented” and that she desires to do so
by using metaphor as a literary tool for structure.
In order to study this literary tool it is important to first consider some of
the related terms. In The Symbolism of Virginia Woolf N. C. Thakur examines
how symbolism in Mrs. Dalloway is used to portray the despicableness of life,
sanity and insanity and the relationship between life and death. Thakur begins
by pointing out the fact that the term symbol itself means many different things
depending on the field in which it is used and that the purpose of symbols, of
course, varies, for example, in logic, semantics or fine arts.
Thakur refers to early analyses of the Symbolist literary movement and
its usage of symbols as a way to add a spiritual, mystical element to the
literature, with hidden or unstated meanings. In this essay I will use the terms
symbolism and symbols alongside those of metaphors and images, as these, in
my opinion, are interchangeable, and because like Thakur, I wish to focus not
on definitions of the terms but on the actual symbols used by Virginia Woolf in
Mrs. Dalloway.
Virginia Woolf was looking for alternative ways to represent reality and
working out how to use symbolism in her writing was an important part of this
process. In any creative writing it is naturally important to describe persons and
surroundings in order to bring life to the characters and setting.

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 Thakur points out that although Woolf may not have systematically
studied symbolism per se, there is evidence in her diary and critical essays that
she did spend a lot of time thinking about symbolism and studying the running
use of metaphor in early literary works, such as Greek tragedies, and from this
working out her own approach to the use of symbols. For example Woolf writes
in “On not Knowing Greek” that metaphors should be “close enough to the
original to illustrate it, remote enough to heighten, enlarge and make splendid”
(Woolf 28) and hereby seems to mean that the metaphors or symbols used
should not stray too far from the real thing depicted, or the meaning will be lost.
It should, as I understand it, balance carefully on the border between what is
apparent and what is obscured in order to have the desired effect of making the
reality in question stand out, enhanced.
Furthermore, Woolf thought it important that the intuitive realization that a
symbol is meant to give us should be instant “because we start doubting the real
and the symbolical if we do not apprehend symbol and meaning
simultaneously” (Thakur 3). To put it plainer: we have to understand both the
symbol and its meaning straight away for there to be a point in using it,
otherwise “we are puzzled as to what we ought to understand” and “this
hesitation, she feels, is fatal”. Another aspect is that Woolf feels that symbols
should evoke and suggest rather than inform. In her diary she partly admits to
preparing symbols for specific uses, and then also realizing that the right way of
using symbols is to include them as images that do not have to work out a
meaning, but only need to suggest.
However, I tend to believe that most readers find it challenging to interpret
the symbolism used. This is so for the very reason that they may not have access
to Woolf’s diary and literary criticism. In fact, even when we do, it shows that
Woolf’s own theories about the right way to use symbolism are not straight
forward.
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 It is likely that even Woolf herself thought it complicated to get the
balance just right between symbols that are vague enough to evoke and suggest
instead of inform, and at the same time are clear enough to provide us with
instant intuitive realization of what they mean. It is difficult even in theory to
fully grasp how we could use metaphors in our own writing that are “close
enough to the original to illustrate it, remote enough to heighten, enlarge and
make splendid.”

Adding to the above mentioned aspects, Woolf, apart from being well
aware of the nature of the symbol, also knew how symbols affect our minds.
She realized that by putting together pieces of information in the shape of
images along with the words you could achieve a fuller picture of
understanding. Also Woolf, in The Common Reader, explains the technique in
which images are repeated on purpose to work on our emotions and become
symbolic (Woolf qtd. in Thakur 5). When, for example, ticks and mannerisms
of characters repeatedly are reported in the shape of images they hint at
something of peoples’ personalities and these actions become symbolic. In Mrs.
Dalloway there is an abundance of images and as a reader you enter into a
different world through the thoughts, ideas and observations made by the
various characters. Instead of using detailed descriptions of people’s
appearances such as: “He was a short man in his forties with dark hair and
glasses. He wore a new, black suit and size 6 brown shoes…” which would
have given us a pre-made package of how to view the person, Woolf, in her
streams of consciousness narrative method, scatters fragments of images for the
readers to gather up and to piece together as to form our own, maybe individual,
understanding of the character. Using this technique means that the focus shifts
from the appearance and outer details to how the person actually is, thinks and
feel on the inside. And this, I think, must have been what Virginia Woolf saw as

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most important and infinitely more interesting than pure exterior looks.
In one passage in Woolf’s essay “On Being Ill,” she explains that symbols
make us grasp what is beyond the surface and that we by instinct gather up “this,
that, and the other – a sound, a colour, here a stress, there a pause” and that
when all put together they evoke “a state of mind which neither words can
express nor the reason explain.” So as to sum up; “we need symbols, because
words are meager in comparison with ideas” (Woolf qtd. in Thakur 6). This, I
think, is a wonderful way to explain how such a complicated process of
fragmented images and symbols really fill an important function in Woolf’s
writing. Taken together, Woolf’s thoughts and theories mentioned above show
that her use of symbolism certainly is not left to chance, but is planned in detail
and that her own approach to the use of symbols is the result of a complex
thought process.

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 CHAPTER-III

CHARACTERS

Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway (1925) was published during a time
when British society was still recovering from World War One. Many people
still suffered from loss and mourning and post-war trauma. In spite of having
won the war, British society was, of course, very much affected and struggled to
find a way back to some sort of normality. People tried to rebuild their lives as
best they could but the effects of the war were to be felt for a long time to come.
People had not experienced suffering on this scale before and society did not
know how to best deal with it.

I suppose that everyone knew someone who had died in the war or who
had come back a very different man from who he was before the war. New ideas
started to circulate and traditional values were questioned. There were different
interests at stake, social, political and economic.

The ruling class wanted to preserve society the way it was before the war,
always having enjoyed certain privileges. The working class had everything to
gain from change, for example, the independence of not having to answer to the
upper class. And did the role of women also change in this dynamic society?
Furthermore, thousands of men who had fought in the war suffered mentally
from their experiences and were in need of treatment. Was it possible to rebuild
society like it had been before the war or had the war caused society to change
permanently? These aspects are necessary to consider as they form a backdrop
to Woolf’s novel.

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 Undoubtedly, the difficult post-war times affected Virginia Woolf
privately and subsequently affected her writing. She was upset by social
injustice and I sense that she was particularly upset by the type of
defenselessness that a person can feel when he or she, so to speak, is up against
society.
She feels that it is man’s exploitation of man that causes the suffering and
that this exploitation can take place anywhere and be either social, political,
economic or religious (Thakur 55). In her diary she writes “I want to give life
and death, sanity and insanity; I want to criticize the social system and to show
it at work, at its most intense” (Woolf qtd. in Thakur 55) and so she chose Mrs.
Dalloway as a channel to put forth her criticism against society.
Noting Woolf’s intent to show the intense social system at work, it is
important to consider what different roles symbolism have in her writing. I
argue that the symbolism in this novel can be divided into two main categories,
in terms of function: firstly, symbolism used to put forth social criticism
through archetypal characters and secondly, a subtle symbolism used to speak
to our senses and subconscious. In my opinion, the characters of the novel serve
an extra important function as both structural device in the narrative and as the
main channel for the criticism. Woolf wanted to make her characters into
symbolic archetypes in order to show how society lacked in humanity and how
people took advantage of each other for personal gain. For this reason I have
chosen to study some of the characters in Mrs. Dalloway and their symbolic
value. As mentioned earlier, I focus less on Clarissa and Septimus, as these two
characters often are the subject of study in literary criticism, and more on some
of the surrounding characters and argue that it is mainly through these that
Woolf puts forth her criticism of society.

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Positions and Social Standing
One of the first people we are introduced to in Mrs. Dalloway is Hugh
Whitbread who comes through the park, seemingly on an important errand.
Upon seeing him Clarissa thinks, “Hugh – the admirable Hugh!”(Woolf 5).
After having greeted Clarissa extravagantly we catch a glimpse of what type of
person Hugh is when he starts telling Clarissa of his wife being ill “[…]
intimating by a kind of pout or swell of his very well-covered, manly, extremely
handsome, perfectly upholstered body (he was almost too well dressed always,
but presumably had to be, with his little job at Court)” (Woolf 6). Through the
way Woolf lets us see the mannerisms of Hugh when he talks and Clarissa’s
thoughts about him, we get the picture of an over-dressed somewhat pompous
man who likes to think that he is in a high position, doing an important job in
circles that count. Hugh appears to swell with pride and contentment for having
a position at court but in the eyes of other people he merely seems reduced to an
overdressed errand boy. Clarissa thinks of Hugh as an old friend and seems to
value his friendship but at the same time he makes her feel inferior, skimpy and
schoolgirlish (Woolf 6).

Other people that are close to Clarissa, namely her friend Peter Walsh and
her husband Richard, on the other hand, loathe him. Richard is said to having
been “nearly driven mad by him” and Peter had once uttered that Hugh “had no
heart, no brain, nothing but the manners and breeding of an English gentleman”
(Woolf 7).

The concept of the English gentleman is something fundamental in the

awareness of British people. Looking back in time, and at positive connotations,
the gentleman was someone of means, educated and refined, many times worthy
of admiration. He naturally stood out from of the mass of the uneducated and
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poor and perhaps was a symbol for the ideal man.

The criticism Woolf puts forth through Hugh appears to concern the
tendency that people want to feel important and, more to the point, look
important to other people. Maybe she feels that the gentleman concept has lost
its value in a time when education started to become more readily accessible
and that there was no excuse for people to put on airs and graces on pretence of
being more valuable than other people (especially not because you came from
the upper class).

Like an inflated, colourful balloon with nothing but air inside, Hugh
functions as a symbol of all those who have inherited their social standing and
who are protective of their position as it allows them an easy life.
This need to be close to the rich and famous in the early 20th century is
something that we now can see has snowballed out of proportion. In Hugh we
can see something of today’s preoccupation with exterior looks and exaggerated
interest in celebrities. Hugh is only interested in what is on the outside: fine
clothes, a title and having the right contacts. He brags about his position at court
but has no real ambition in his career. Richard, on the other hand, works long
hours at parliament to make a difference in society, but appears to receive little
recognition for his work. Peter, who is the very opposite to Hugh, cares very
little about his own appearance and social standing and is instead consumed by
thoughts and emotions. Compared to Richard and Peter, Hugh appears even
more pompous and superficial.

In addition, Hugh symbolizes all those in society who feel a yearning to be

close to, and also loyal to, powerful people (such as the Queen or the Prime
Minister in this novel). This tendency can, it appears, have disastrous effects.
People are prepared to do anything for the famous and Thakur argues that this

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 “worship of greatness […] becomes symbolic of the distortion of values which
leads to unnatural loyalties, one of the causes of war and its inhuman

destruction”. It may, at first, seem a little exaggerated to blame the war on Hugh.
However, when considering him as symbolic of a crowd of people, who all have
given up their own critical thinking in order to be loyal to somebody in power,
Hugh’s ridiculous persona instead begins to appear potentially sinister.

Religion to Rule Others

Doris Kilman, a poor spinster passed forty, is the tutor of the Dalloways’
daughter Elizabeth. Kilman had wandered into a church a couple of years earlier
supposedly very upset and angry about something and had found that “the hot
and turbulent feelings which boiled and surged in her had been assuaged”(Woolf
136). The Reverend had told her it was the hand of God that had helped her and
ever since she had called herself a Christian. She is introduced early in the novel
when Clarissa, who feels distanced from her daughter, ponders that Elizabeth
cares more for her dog than for gloves and shoes (which Clarissa feels is
regretful). Indeed, the only comforting thought, to Clarissa, is that Elizabeth at
least is not like Miss Kilman who, even worse, spends all her time “in a stuffy
bedroom with a prayer book” (Woolf 12). The picture Woolf draws of religion
reduced to reading prayer books in stuffy bedrooms, is certainly a negative one.
With satire she gives us Kilman as a symbol for all the despicable things people
sometimes claim to do in the name of religion. For example, Kilman has singled
out Clarissa, whom she thinks of as a fool and simpleton, and she feels it is God’s
will that she should bring Mrs. Dalloway to her knees and humiliate her (Woolf
137). Needless to say, this goes against the Christian message of love and
understanding.
Elizabeth’s closeness to Miss Kilman is a source of great annoyance to
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Clarissa who thinks that “religious ecstasy made people callous [and] dulled their
feelings” (Woolf 12). Miss Kilman seems to have a way of reaching into
Clarissa’s innermost core and touching something raw and unprotected there.

Clarissa feels criticized for being who she is and caring for what she does,
and as we often do when we feel criticized, she reacts with anger. She feels
loathing when she thinks about the bitter Miss Kilman who (despite her low
social standing) always makes Clarissa feel inferior and who is perpetually
dressed in an old, green mackintosh coat.
The coat itself serves as an extension of Kilman and a symbol of religion.
Celia Marshik has studied this particular piece of clothing and writes in “The
Modern(ist) Mackintosh” that “The mackintosh in modernism sends a warning”
to the reader and argues that this, somewhat infamous, garment often is used by
writers to signal something negative in their characters (64). Clarissa thinks about
“love and religion” as something detestable and she sees them as “clumsy, hot,
domineering, hypocritical, eavesdropping, jealous, infinitely cruel and
unscrupulous, dressed in a mackintosh coat” (Woolf 138). Marshik argues that
“the range of qualities that Clarissa projects onto Kilman –and specifically onto
her coat –points to the latter’s repulsive physicality, to Clarissa’s upper-class
distaste for the unfashionably dressed, and to Kilman’s position as Clarissa’s
rival for Elizabeth’s love and attention”.

I think that Woolf, with her mackintosh-clad Kilman as a symbol,

communicates quite clearly to the reader the negative sides of religion. Maybe,
it is the aspect of someone forcing their ideas on someone else that is
particularly sensitive. Woolf shows how one person feels she has the right to
bring another person to her knees and humiliate her, in the name of God. At the
same time it becomes obvious what havoc religious extremists can cause in

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society, if they were to act like Kilman.

Preserving Social Order

In the previous sections we have seen how Hugh is used symbolically to
criticize the gentleman’s wish to protect his own privileged social standing and
Kilman to criticize those who misuse religion to control others. In a similar way,
the two doctors portrayed in Mrs.Dalloway are used to channel critique in a
related area: the tendency in powerful people to believe it within their rights (and
duty) to rule people weaker than themselves. This, in order to preserve social
order in the society.

Here, Woolf specifically focuses on how exposed and ill-treated those

suffering from mental illness really are by the doctors. Central to the plot,
therefore, is Septimus, suffering mentally from the trauma of war. Septimus’s
illness, we understand, recently has developed quite drastically and the doctors of
this time were ill equipped to deal with mental illness.

Dr. Holmes, a general practitioner, has been Septimus’s doctor but

Septimus’s condition becomes worse; he hallucinates, hears voices and speaks of
killing himself. On the day that the novel takes place he is taken by his wife
Rezia to see Sir William Bradshaw, a psychiatrist from the upper class. Holmes
had told Rezia that there was “nothing whatever seriously the matter with
[Septimus] but was a little out of sorts” and that she had to make her husband
“take an interest in things outside himself” (Woolf 23). In fact, Holmes
recommends that Septimus should play cricket, which is “a nice out-of-door
game, the very game for her husband” (Woolf 27) and speaks of porridge-eating
as a way to maintain good health (Woolf 100).

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 Holmes, then, on one hand, has told Rezia that there is nothing wrong with
Septimus that some sporting activities and healthy eating cannot cure. Bradshaw,
on the other hand, sees that Septimus’s condition is very serious but lacks the
empathy and the ability to connect with him.

Septimus tries to communicate his fragmented thoughts but Bradshaw has

no interest in hearing him out because he is so sure of himself and of what is best
for his patient. He brusquely decides to have Septimus removed to one of his
homes to receive the rest cure “rest, rest, rest; a long rest in bed. There was a
delightful home down in the country where her husband would be perfectly
looked after” (Woolf 106). This removal to a home, however, goes against both
Rezia and Septimus’s wishes and as a result this stressful situation causes
Septimus’s condition to get even more critical.

In contrast to Septimus, who suffers after the visit, Sir Bradshaw feels
quite content with his own way of handling his patient. He says that “he never
spoke of ‘madness’; he called it not having a sense of proportion” and that
whenever a man came into your room threatening to kill himself “you invoke
proportion; order rest in bed” (Woolf 108). Woolf writes “Worshipping
proportion, Sir William not only prospered himself but made England prosper,
secluded her lunatics, forbade childbirth, penalized despair, made it impossible
for the unfit to propagate their views until they, too, shared his sense of
proportion” (109). Bradshaw not only enjoys his position but loves the fact that
he can convert people to his way of thinking and the feeling of power this
brings. He feels he does his England a great service, protecting it from threats
and upholding order.
Elaine Showalter writes in the introduction to the 1992 edition of Mrs.
Dalloway that “Woolf reserves her harshest satire for the doctors”. She argues,
”The bluff middle-class Holmes tries to deal with Septimus’s anguish by forcing
20
him into the rigid mould of middle- class English masculine conduct” and
Bradshaw with “his cold and arrogant manner, the style of someone accustomed
to give orders, is the one least likely to succeed in the light of Septimus’s
delusions of persecution”. Showalter continues, “Woolf’s indignant
representation of the therapeutic advice Septimus receives from Doctors Holmes
and Bradshaw also incorporates her own unhappy experience with doctors”.
She had undergone the rest cure herself and had found the isolation and
absence of intellectual activity to be a maddening type of therapy. However,
Showalter is of the opinion that although the doctors were “tactless, snobbish,
patronizing and obtuse” the rest cure probably was the best care available in
those days. Realizing these limitations in treatment for psychological trauma at
the time, it is, nevertheless, interesting to consider what an alternative treatment
could have meant to Septimus.
In Virginia Woolf and Trauma Karen DeMeester argues that Septimus’s
suicide is a direct result of his inability to communicate his experiences to others
and thereby give meaning to those experiences. She recognizes that Septimus is
suffering from Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder and that trauma survivors tend to
structure their lives round a single traumatic event which is relived over and
over. When the trauma survivor is stuck in this constant repetition he is unable
to move forward toward recovery.
I think it is interesting to note, as the symbolic, archetypal, doctors,
Holmes and Bradshaw, do the exact opposite to what could have helped
Septimus. They refuse to let him talk about his experiences, thoughts and
feelings. They do not wish to communicate with their patients at all; on the
contrary, they seem to want to silence them. An interesting point, made by
DeMeester, is that Septimus, as a war veteran, has potential power, through his
story, to criticize the society that sent him and his compatriots to war (83) and
that hearing the terrible testimonies by survivors, it was not surprising that the

21
community wished to deny their truths. Therefore, to keep social order intact, it
became important to powerful forces, like Bradshaw, to keep Septimus and
others like him quiet (84-85). Woolf was not aware of how research within the
fields of psychology would help to develop, for example, cognitive behavioral
therapy but still managed to identify exactly what was lacking at the time:
communication.

22
 DeMeester writes “Woolf’s form brilliantly depicts trauma and deftly
manifests in art a psychological condition that science failed to understand until
half a century and several wars later”.

The Independent Critics

While characters like Hugh, Kilman, Holmes and Bradshaw are used as
symbolic archetypes to criticize negative and unwanted aspects of society, there
are characters who serve a different function. Peter Walsh, Sally Seton and
Septimus Smith, all portrayed as either adventurous or as not behaving in a way
that society expects them to do, are not themselves the subject of criticism but
work as channels for criticism. As these three are interested in reading literature
they represent the type of educated class that might present a threat to people
like Bradshaw. Woolf writes that Bradshaw “had worked very hard; he had won
his position by sheer ability” and “there was in Sir William, who had never had
time for reading, a grudge, deeply buried, against cultivated people who came
into his room and intimated that doctors, whose profession is a constant strain
upon all the highest faculties, are not educated men”.
Two of Clarissa’s oldest friends are Sally Seton and Peter Walsh. In her
musings, throughout the day of party preparations, Clarissa returns in memory
to her summers spent at Bourton as a girl. Sally is portrayed as free-spirited,
daring and provoking and she has a special kind of allure that made Clarissa
think of her fondly even thirty years later. Sally appears unafraid of breaking
with the conventional picture of how a young woman should be and simply did
what she felt like doing. She liked to see the reactions of people around her and
was not intimidated by people of power. People who opposed this type of
unconventional behavior probably thought Sally to be shockingly disrespectful,

23
not knowing how to behave like a lady. Peter was in love with Clarissa and still
suffers from her rejection as she chose to marry Richard Dalloway instead. The
accumulated picture of Peter through the novel is that he is in touch with his
feelings and breaks the traditional image of manliness. He does not seem
interested in climbing the social ladder, does not appear too upset about not
having written as he once set out to do, not having made a career.

He sees himself as a buccaneer and adventurer. He is unimpressed with

people like Hugh and with politicians and feels he can see through them. Other
characters appear to find him a bit of a social misfit: a drifter and career failure,
always in love with someone or in some kind of trouble.

Peter and Sally are able to see through people and it is their critical thinking
that sets them apart from other characters in the novel. Maybe they are freer than
many others because they do not worry so much about what people may think of
them. Thakur argues that they are ordinary people who are more or less ignored
by those of rank and that are declared mad “because they do not follow the
proportion of the herd” and that they symbolize a minority of intelligent people
who are aware of the shortcomings of modern society. Certainly, choosing your
own way in life grants you the freedom to ignore convention but may also have
its price, perhaps feelings of alienation or exclusion from community.

Another person experiencing alienation in society is, of course, Septimus.

Also he is interested in literature, reading Dante and Shakespeare. He had
studied before the war, not because it was expected of him but because he
wanted to and because it was important to him (Woolf 92) and also had
ambitions to write poetry. Suzette A. Henke writes in her article “Virginia
Woolf’s Septimus Smith: An analysis of “Paraphrenia” and the Schizophrenic

24
Use of Language” that Woolf had proposed in her notes for Mrs. Dalloway “that
her sketch of Septimus was to “be left vague – as a mad person is – not so much
character as idea” and that “He must somehow see through human nature – see its
hypocrisy, and insincerity”. Despite Woolf’s suffering from depressions she
wrote that she also found her bouts to be creative periods and helped her see
visions.
She felt that the illness gave rare insight into a different level of
consciousness that evaded most people and so one understood more than most,
seeing more clearly (Thakur 8, 62). Septimus has been given this insight. He has
visions and hears divine messages where he feels he is selected to find out the
secrets of life. He wants to communicate these to the world but does not get the
chance as the doctors effectively silence him. To Septimus the doctors symbolize
all that is despicable in humans: “Once you fall, Septimus repeated to himself,
human nature is on you. Holmes and Bradshaw are on you” (Woolf 107).
So when in despair, hearing Holmes coming up the stairs and closing in on
him, he takes his own life. He throws himself out of the window calling out, with
some triumph, “I’ll give it you!” (Woolf 164). The question is if he is to be seen
as a victim, visionary or maybe revolutionary? DeMeester argues that Septimus’s
choice to end his life may be seen as a revolutionary act that defies the doctors’
attempts to repress his wartime experience. Henke, on the other hand, offers a
different angle: “As the symbolic representative of an authoritarian society,
Holmes forces Septimus to choose between the ‘freedom’ of death and enforced
incarceration in a madhouse”.
Of course, these interpretations may essentially mean the same thing.
Septimus is forced to make a choice between life and death; only in the first
interpretation he chooses death because he really wants to communicate his
terrible experiences and in the second he chooses death because he refuses to be
put into a home.

25
 The three characters of Sally, Peter and Septimus, each in their own way,
stand in contrast to the types of persons that Whitbread, Holmes and Bradshaw
represent. Throughout the novel the picture builds of these men as being loyal
to the crown and England, interested in power and social standing at best. They
are depicted as brutes without feeling who are arrogant, domineering and
insensitive to human suffering. They are uneducated in literature and
uninterested in soul searching.
Looking at them this way the characters collectively form a grey
impenetrable wall, whilst Septimus, Peter and Sally stand for the free-spirited
challengers who have thrown themselves into life with both joys and miseries,
letting the stream take them wherever it will.
And where, one may ask, does Clarissa fit in? Is she caught in between,
wanting to be free in spirit but safe in body? She lives her inner life as a young,
fresh-faced girl, running around the gardens at Bourton, with perpetual summer,
fresh air, flowers in bloom, loving and feeling the kinship of Sally and Peter,
admiring their spirit and inner strength but fearing that she, Clarissa would not
fit in no matter how much she wished. Maybe, she realized that she wanted a
simpler kind of life and so settled for Richard, welcoming the structure of their
life in London.
Going into the role of the angel in the house I see it as Clarissa making a
safe choice, something she feels that she can manage. She seems to love life in
London and all that comes with it, but on a day like the one in the novel, feeling
melancholy and thinking of how things could maybe have been different.

26
27
 CHAPTER-IV
THE WORLD OF NATURE AND OF OBJECTS

Mrs. Dalloway takes place in London and contrary to what one may at first
think there are frequent references made to nature in the scenes from this large
city, both to flowers, trees, birds and to scenery, weather conditions and
elements such as water and air. The references to nature are made on different
levels: describing the actual surroundings in present London, visions through
memory and various symbols and metaphors. The references to nature also vary
for different characters in the novel. Through Clarissa we often see images of
flowers and of summer life at Bourton, to which she repeatedly comes back in
her mind. On this June morning in 1923 Clarissa sets out to buy flowers for her
party and finds herself drawn back in time by the colours and fragrances of the
flower shop. As she lets her eyes sweep over the delphiniums, sweet peas, and
masses of carnations she breathes in the “earthy garden sweet smell […] the
delicious scent, the exquisite coolness” (Woolf 13) and memories from her
girlhood summers at Bourton come before her eyes.

The beauty of the flowers soothes her previously upset state of mind
“nonsense, nonsense, she said to herself, more and more gently, as if this
beauty, this scent, this colour […] were a wave which she let flow over her”
(Woolf 14). With these images the flower shop seems like an island and refuge
in the midst of the city and Clarissa’s soothing chant and breathing in of flower
scent works as a meditation to calm her and focus on happier thoughts.
There are, of course, different ways to look at nature symbolism, for
example, the rather direct approach Thakur uses to explain how the state of
Clarissa’s girlhood is externalized by the fresh, calm and still early morning air
at Bourton, and that surroundings and time of day also are symbolic.

28
 The early morning is a symbol of Clarissa’s youth and the trees and
flowers represent her aspirations towards a rosy, budding life.
The rooks that she sees rising and falling are symbols of the rising and
falling emotions that she was feeling for Peter (Thakur 65). Coming back to the
flower shop, that worked like a refuge for Clarissa, there are other places
depicted or hinted at in the novel that give different characters peace when they
think about them. For example, Rezia, desperately unhappy upon understanding
that Septimus is dead, lets her mind wander to the gardens of Italy. Sally and
Clarissa as well as Richard also think of their respective gardens and country
retreats when they long for quiet and calmness (Thakur 65).
However, Clarissa’s visions of nature are not all of this peaceful kind.
Upon realizing that Lady Bruton had asked her husband Richard to lunch
without her Clarissa feels “as a plant on the river-bed feels the shock of a
passing oar and shivers: so she rocked: so she shivered” (Woolf 32). When
Clarissa feels the loathing for Miss Kilman seep through her she thinks “It
rasped her, though, to have stirring about in her this brutal monster! to hear
twigs cracking and feel hooves planted down in the depths of that leaf-
encumbered forest, the soul” (Woolf 13).
Such rich and poetic language shows how effectively images can carry
meaning that goes beyond words and right into us. Moreover, Henke writes
about symbolism in written language as a way to let a person suffering from
mental disorder communicate his thoughts and feelings to readers. Through the
method of stream of consciousness we can see in pictures what Septimus
otherwise could not communicate to us in words. Henke writes that “Virginia
Woolf suffered all her life from a sense of personal fragmentation” and that
Woolf had a “sense of duality, and of a consciousness divided between ‘fact and
vision’, mania and depression, a mystical conviction of organic wholeness and
an isolated feeling of alienation and dread”.
29
 She made use of this experience in her portrayal of Septimus. When
Septimus is waiting in the park for his appointment with Bradshaw he has
visions and feels connected with the trees. He believes that “the human voice
[…] can quicken trees into life […] leaves were alive; trees were alive. And the
leaves being connected by millions of fibers with his own body […] when the
branch stretched he, too, made that statement” (Woolf 24).
The sounds and visions taken together, that morning in the park, meant the
birth of a new religion to him (Woolf 24). He thinks “Men must not cut down
trees. There is a God” and when he hears sparrows sing to him in Greek (Woolf
26) he is convinced that he has been “called forth in advance of the mass of men
to hear the truth [and that this] supreme secret must be told to the Cabinet; first,
that trees are alive; next, there is no crime; next, love, universal love” (Woolf
74). In this way, letting fragmented images speak, we can sense something of
what Septimus is experiencing and how complicated his world of reference is.
The imagery indicates that Septimus, like Woolf, is convinced of a mystical,
organic wholeness and that he feels a part of cosmos.
This mystical wholeness is also what brings together the two main
characters in Mrs. Dalloway. Jackson writes that “the novel pointedly connects
Septimus and Clarissa in many ways, through shared phrases, imagery and
actions” but that they “differ from each other significantly with respect to their
sense of self” (131). What he seems to mean is that Clarissa has a clear sense of
who she is, and Jackson calls it “a modernist recognition of subjectivity”, that
Septimus lacks.
When Clarissa thinks of herself as “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 (Woolf 10) she recognizes her thought as a symbolic likeness.

30
 When Septimus, on the other hand, feels that his body is connected to the
trees by millions of fibres and stretched with the movement of the branches
(Woolf 24), he does not recognize this as symbolic but feels it is real. Jackson
words it; “he has merged (in his own mind at least) with the natural world
around him […] he appears to have become metaphorically identical with the
trees”.

It can be seen from the above analysis that nature symbolism can have
different functions and operate on different levels, from describing actual
surroundings to being part of the inner landscape of a person’s mind. My view
is that the most important function that this symbolic imagery has is to speak to
our senses and subconscious through pictures rather than through regular
narrative. Using nature and elements as images and metaphors, can start thought
processes triggered by our senses. This is where the actual subtlety lies in this
novel’s stream of consciousness, the way Woolf makes fragmented images and
words work together and by doing so, imitate how our minds work.

Objects and Actions of Symbolic Value

Often when the term symbolism is mentioned it may be objects as

symbols that first of all spring to mind. The idea that a tangible object should
have a particular meaning is something that is easy to grasp. In Mrs. Dalloway
one such object is Peter’s pocket-knife. There are several different theories
about the meaning of Peter’s knife. Showalter writes “Constantly fiddling with
the pocket-knife which symbolizes his masculinity, Walsh fantasizes about
sexual adventures, and even follows women in the streets”.

31
 Alternatively, the knife can also symbolize Peter’s different feelings and
becomes a visual image and extension of his thoughts. When Peter for example
reflects on Clarissa’s choice of husband he feels irritated and shuts “the knife
with a snap” (Woolf 44). Another time he compares his own life to Clarissa’s.
Her life seems to have gone on unchanged in comfort while he has been
through various adventures in India.

Upon this reflection Peter “took out his knife quite openly […] and
clenched his fist upon it”(Woolf 47). Later when he tries to understand why he
had been so emotional and thinks that it is jealousy that “survives every other
passion of mankind” he holds “his pocket-knife at arm’s length” (Woolf 88),
only to, moments later, conclude that Clarissa could have spared him a lot of
suffering if she had only married him, shutting his pocket-knife thinking that
women “don’t know what passion is”.

Another object that carries symbolic meaning, both in itself and in the
actions connected with it, is Clarissa’s green dress that she plans to wear to her
party. She goes up to her room and as she looks at herself in the mirror she
purses her lips to give her face point “That was her self – pointed; dartlike;
definite. That was her self when some effort, some call on her to be her self,
drew the parts together” (Woolf 40). It appears that Clarissa puts on a sort of
show and radiance for the benefit of people who come to visit her. She “had
tried to be the same always, never showing a sign of all the other sides of her –
faults, jealousies, vanities” (Woolf 40).
These thoughts about her looks and ways lead her to go and look for her
evening dress. She “gently detached the green dress and carried it to the
window. She had torn it. Some one had trod on the skirt […] By artificial light
the green shone, but lost its colour now in the sun. She would mend it. […] She
32
 would wear it to-night.” (Woolf 41).
Clarissa sits down in midst of the preparations for the party and sends silent
thanks to her servants “for helping her to be like this, to be what she wanted,
gentle, generous-hearted” (Woolf 42). As she starts to mend her dress she feels
“calm, content, as her needle, drawing the silk smoothly to its gentle pause,
collected the green folds together and attached them, very lightly, to the belt”
(Woolf 43). The very action of the needle like “on a summer’s day waves
collect, over-balance, and fall; collect and fall”, soothes Clarissa, “and the whole
world seems to be saying “that is all”…fear no more” (Woolf 43).
Clarissa takes out the dress to look at in the daylight the same way as one
might at times examine oneself in the mirror to find one’s true self. She sees that
the dress is torn and maybe this is a metaphor for Clarissa feeling scarred in some
way. Who has “trodden” on her and inflicted the scar we do not know. It may be
the way she felt slighted and jealous “like this of Lady Bruton not asking her to
lunch” (Woolf 40) or it may be feelings or memories from the past.
Thakur argues that in her effort to hide the not so flattering parts of her
personality and by “appearing to be gentle and generous, there is something
artificial, something tinselly” and that the green dress “that shines in artificial
light but loses colour in the sun, becomes a suggestive symbol of the ‘perfect
hostess’”.
An alternative reading could be that Clarissa appears (to others) to be
herself in the artificial light but she knows this is only a false front, a façade.
The dress becomes a symbol of Clarissa’s personality. Her party is like a stage
where she is allowed to shine, radiantly in the spotlight. She acts a part and likes
it. However, were she to step down from the stage and take off her costume she
might be afraid to be caught out as no one special, and not measure up to the
picture others have of her as a radiant person.

33
 As we have seen, tangible objects, such as Peter’s knife and Clarissa’s
dress can, of course, be used as symbols, however, it is not so much the actual
objects as the actions described in connection with these, that are interesting.
When Clarissa looks at her dress it is not the fabric that she sees, but herself, in
an introspective moment. Like the dress, she has flaws, but she also sees the
good qualities. The image of Clarissa sewing, with repetitive movements of the
hand, signals growing harmony within her.

The ways in which Peter handles his knife: looks at it, clenches his fist
upon it and thrusts it in his pocket, indicate his general frame of mind and
betrays his feelings for Clarissa in a far more true-to-life way than words in
regular narrative could do. In fact, what Woolf does with her images, is to
imitate how, in real life, we subconsciously and constantly try to decode each
other’s body language, in order to gain information about the other person’s
thoughts and feelings.

34
 CHAPTER-V

CONCLUSION

While symbolism previously had been used to add mysticism to various

works of literature, Virginia Woolf used symbolism not only a way to enrich
the writing and create an added layer of interest, but as a tool to structure her
novel. Woolf wanted to find a narrative shape that suited her and through
experimenting with streams of consciousness, fragmentation and careful
plotting she could both avoid materialistic descriptions and find a suitable way
to incorporate her own experiences. Primarily, as in any story, rich descriptive
language, saturated in adjectives, serves the purpose of describing the
characters and settings to us quite openly and, so to speak, set the framework of
the storyline. On a deeper level, though, the symbols speak to us
subconsciously.
Woolf wanted her symbolism to balance carefully on the border between
what is apparent and what is obscured, in order to have the desired effect of
enhancing the narrative. She also thought it important that the realization of
both the symbol used and of what it was representing should be instant. It
would, of course, be interesting to know how deep the understanding of the
symbolism was among Woolf’s so-called common readers at the time of first
publication and if the way in which she used symbolism had the desired effect.
Would it, then, be possible for a person to read the novel without prior
understanding of symbolism? The answer is, of course, yes, even though this
may result in very different readings depending on the individual. However, to
be able to appreciate the subtle signals that the symbolism communicates to our
senses it often takes several readings.
You need a trained eye and, a more than basic, awareness of symbolism to
be able to read between the lines and appreciate the fine and intricate shades of
meaning.
35
 Therefore the question if Woolf wanted everyone to grasp the meaning on
this level, or if it was meant for a chosen few, here remains unanswered.
In Mrs. Dalloway there is a difference between the symbols used in terms
of category and function. On the one hand, there are the characters used to
structure the novel. This category, I have argued, is the most important one for
the understanding of Woolf’s criticism of a society that she thought superficial.
On the other hand there are the references to nature and the use of different
objects symbolically.
These categories are maybe equally important, but on a different level, as
they serve to add subtle feelings and reflect people’s emotions, frames of mind
and unspoken thoughts. Consequently, these different types of symbolism are at
play simultaneously in the novel; they are intertwined. We get both the
framework of the archetypal characters that are used symbolically and the rich
imagery to help us visualize what goes on in people’s minds. By piecing
together the loose images that Virginia Woolf has scattered before us we
gradually build our understanding of the different characters.
Flowers and gardens may say something about Clarissa being naïve and
shallow in focusing on the beautiful things in life such as parties and being
preoccupied with reminiscing about her youth, but also suggest that there is a
spiritual side to her. The nature references that surround Septimus have the
function to make us understand the intricate workings of his mind and confused
state. We start to understand things about their personalities that would be
difficult to sum up in a few sentences. The symbolism works in a way as to say
in pictures what cannot be expressed in words. The visions offered through
symbolism open up new possibilities for us to understand layers of meaning.

36
 We are exposed to the visual surroundings of the novel through the
different characters and we experience the inner landscape of their minds. In the
novel we listen in on the characters’ streams of consciousness; we see the world
through their eyes.
Could Woolf ever have foreseen her texts still being read and critiqued
about hundred years after they were published? Of course, the world has vastly
changed since the time of publishing, in terms of acting as a canvas for how we
may understand things differently now to then. However, I believe Woolf’s
creative imagery still speaks to us through our senses. We can see through our
inner vision, hear the sounds, feel the touch; we can nearly feel the fragrances
of flowers and taste the city life. Furthermore, the symbolism is indeed a vital
part of this novel, without which communicating central views and ideas to the
reader would not have been possible.

37
 Work Cited

Primary Source:

Mrs.Dalloway, Virgina Woolf’s, Published 1990.

Secondary sources:

1. DeMeester, Karen. “Trauma, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and Obstacles to Postwar.

2. ed. by Suzette Henke and David Eberly.New York: Pace University Press, 2007.

3. 77-94. Print.

4. Henke, Suzette A. “Virginia Woolf’s Septimus Smith: An Analysis of ‘Paraphrenia’.

5. The Schizophrenic Use of Language.” Literature and Psychology XXXI.4 (1981).

6. Jackson, Tony E. The Subject of Modernism; Narrative Alterations in the Fiction

of Eliot, Conrad, Woolf, and Joyce. Michigan: The University of Michigan Press,

1994. Print.

7. Marshik, Celia.“The Modern(ist) Mackintosh.” Modernism/modernity, vol. 19, No. 1.

8. Showalter, Elaine. “Introduction.” Mrs. Dalloway. London: Penguin Books Ltd,

1992. xi-xlv. Print.

9. Thakur, N. C. The Symbolism of Virginia Woolf. London: Oxford University Press.

1965. Print.

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