The Plight of Womanhood
Many themes are greatly apparent in Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway—independence, interdependence, homosexuality, and societal pressures to name a few—but the focus on the place of women and how they are oppressed in the public realm is one of the most important. In this way, Virginia Woolf’s incredible novel addresses questions, fears, troubles, etc. that women must endure in everyday life: caring for children, being a good wife, keeping the home, gaining status in the community as well as a multitude of other additional responsibilities.
Clarissa Dalloway, the inevitable hostess, is at the center of everything and yet completely alone. She is an image, an outward expression of who she is supposed to be, not who she truly is. In the book, Clarissa spends a great deal of time thinking about herself and the direction her life has taken: “Nothing else had she of the slightest importance; could not think, write, even play the piano. She muddled Armenians and Turks; loved success; hated discomfort; must be liked; talked oceans of nonsense: and to this day, ask her what the Equator was, and she did not know” (122). In this scene, Woolf sums up Clarissa. She pretends to be interesting and deep when in fact she is ordinary and shallow. This is why she has parties, this is why she is unhappy, and from this life there is no escape without grave consequence.
Lucrezia, the wife of Septimus, deal with oppression that stems, in large part, from her husband’s condition. Not only does she constantly deal with the pressures of society but she must also strive to keep her husband sane and alive. Woolf writes, “People must notice; people must see. People, she [Lucrezia] thought, looking at the crowd staring at the motor car; the English people, with their children and their horses and their clothes, which she admired in a way; but they were ‘people’ now, because Septimus had said, ‘I will kill myself’; an awful thing to say. Suppose they had heard him?” (Web). Here, the reader is privy to the plight of Lucrezia as she struggles with the difficulties that her husband’s condition brings while dreaming and yearning for something better. In her view of society, she and her husband are inferior simply because they are different—without a motor car or fancy clothing or sanity.
Although she is the most free-spirited woman in the novel, Sally Seton’s dilemma is much like that of the other women in the novel. She must adapt and conform to the societal expectations rather than retaining her natural sense of self. Woolf writes, “Clarissa remembered…her [Sally’s] daring, her recklessness, her melodramatic love of being the centre of everything and creating scenes, and it was bound, Clarissa used to think, to end in some awful tragedy; her death; her martyrdom; instead of which she had married, quite unexpectedly, a bald man with a large buttonhole who owned, it was said, cotton mills at Manchester. And she had five boys!” (Web). Although Sally has drastically changed, she finds ways to secretly work around the expectations of society. Again, then, the reader is provided with yet another example of a woman striving to conform to the burdens of society and giving up a bit of herself in the process.
Of the many themes of Mrs. Dalloway, the role of women in society during this time is especially apparent. They are constantly adjusting, changing, hesitating, waiting, and ignoring in order to fit the expectations of others who are doing exactly the same thing.
Lucrezia, the wife of Septimus, deal with oppression that stems, in large part, from her husband’s condition. Not only does she constantly deal with the pressures of society but she must also strive to keep her husband sane and alive. Woolf writes, “People must notice; people must see. People, she [Lucrezia] thought, looking at the crowd staring at the motor car; the English people, with their children and their horses and their clothes, which she admired in a way; but they were ‘people’ now, because Septimus had said, ‘I will kill myself’; an awful thing to say. Suppose they had heard him?” (Web). Here, the reader is privy to the plight of Lucrezia as she struggles with the difficulties that her husband’s condition brings while dreaming and yearning for something better. In her view of society, she and her husband are inferior simply because they are different—without a motor car or fancy clothing or sanity.
Although she is the most free-spirited woman in the novel, Sally Seton’s dilemma is much like that of the other women in the novel. She must adapt and conform to the societal expectations rather than retaining her natural sense of self. Woolf writes, “Clarissa remembered…her [Sally’s] daring, her recklessness, her melodramatic love of being the centre of everything and creating scenes, and it was bound, Clarissa used to think, to end in some awful tragedy; her death; her martyrdom; instead of which she had married, quite unexpectedly, a bald man with a large buttonhole who owned, it was said, cotton mills at Manchester. And she had five boys!” (Web). Although Sally has drastically changed, she finds ways to secretly work around the expectations of society. Again, then, the reader is provided with yet another example of a woman striving to conform to the burdens of society and giving up a bit of herself in the process.
Of the many themes of Mrs. Dalloway, the role of women in society during this time is especially apparent. They are constantly adjusting, changing, hesitating, waiting, and ignoring in order to fit the expectations of others who are doing exactly the same thing.
Page done by Sarah Lonelodge