Theme in Mrs. Dalloway
Throughout her novel, Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf addresses the theme of the inevitability of death in conjunction with the meaninglessness of life, and the effect of an obsession with such things upon the character Clarrisa Dalloway. The lack of meaning in life and humanity's desperate need to find it is masterfully introduced with the metaphor of the aeroplane and the struggle of the crowd to decipher its message, eventually finding only gibberish, "...and the bar of smoke curved behind and it dropped down, and it soared up and wrote one letter after another- but what word was it writing?"(21). Likewis
In Clarissa's concept of death, people give meaning to their surroundings, "haunting" certain places after they pass. Clarissa and Miss Kilman compete for Elizabeth to accept their way of life in order to provide meaning and justification for their lives in the form of an heir. Woolf equates this loss of identity to death, ironic in that she is so concerned about death and what will become of her afterwards while she herself notes that Clarissa is dead and she has since become Mrs. Dalloway herself, the effect absolutely permeating the reasoning behind her every decision. In doing so they live vicariously through Elizabeth and effectively limit her individuality; this echoes of Clarissa's loss of identity in her marriage. Memories of old friends with whom contact has long since been lost come rushing back at the oddest places and moments throughout the novel. For example, Peter has never forgotten Clarissa the way she once was, thus even though this Clarissa no longer exists even to Clarissa herself, she lives on through Peter's memory. Clarissa, like the crowd entranced by the plain, has become somewhat obsessed with finding some meaning in her life, even if only in a legacy left behind post-mortem. Both Clarissa and Peter consistently place her at Bourton in their memories as though this was her final resting place, ergo the young Clarissa though in effect "dead" continues to "haunt" Bourton as well as those that knew her. e, the inevitability of death is mirrored by the constant interruption of the clock striking the hour throughout the novel. Woolf seems to agree with this, and effectively asserts that in a sense this is true throughout the entire novel. The influence of this important theme is most clearly recognized through the actions of Mrs.
Common topics in this essay:
Clarrisa Dalloway,
Miss Kilman,
Dalloway Clarissa's,
Clarissa Peter,
Virginia Woolf,
Clarissa Clarissa,
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throughout novel,
loss identity,
inevitability death,
meaning life,
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Acceptance Essays
