How Virginia Woolf Presents Women in Mrs Dalloway “For most of history, anonymous was a woman” Nellie Lofthouse

“For most of history, anonymous was a woman”

Nellie Lofthouse Lower Sixth

Feminism was the movement that sought to enhance the quality of women’s lives by defying the norms of society based on male dominance. Feminism in literature first emerged in the late 19th and early 20th century on account of how women had been underrepresented in this field previously. Virginia Woolf was a significant pioneer of this movement, claiming that “for most of history, anonymous was a woman.” She placed enormous value on the importance of women rejecting the female stereotype and admired the work of writers such as Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte. Woolf examined their lives and the way they translated their resentment of male dominance in their literature. For example in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, where Jane laments the limitations put upon women by Victorian conventions, she says “it is narrow minded in their more privileged fellow creature to say that (women) ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings.” Woolf was intent on attacking the patriarchal and unbending rules of society in her literature. In her novel Orlando, Woolf wrote “as long as she thinks of a man, nobody objects to a woman thinking.” The 1925 novella Mrs Dalloway was unconventional in its structure, as Woolf rejected the archetypal plotline that underpins most novels, with the events taking place over the course of one day. However, in some ways this allowed Woolf to give women a voice. Susan L. Brody argues that “in tracing Mrs. Dalloway’s ordinary, ‘neither brilliant nor tragic’ existence, Virginia Woolf sought to set forth a meaningful place for women in literature of her time.”

Virginia Woolf uses the novella to depict the idea of women being torn between their public commitment and their own desires. This is most prominently seen through the protagonist Mrs Dalloway who strives for her own “independence.” The opening lines of the novella are “Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.” Even the opening suggests female aspiration to break free from the ties of society and live by their own principles. However, she is defined by her husband’s name “Dalloway” and is known by the epithet

Book cover of Mrs Dalloway that she is simply a “perfect hostess” as the entirety of the novella is centred around her preparing for Mrs Dalloway said the party she is to give that evening. she would buy the Woolf presents a flowers herself. woman who has to conform to the norms of society, but in doing so, estranges her public self from her private self, which Woolf considered to be dangerous as it was detrimental to one’s 13 selfhood. As the novella progresses, we are allowed to see Clarissa’s character develop as she finds her own identity.

Mrs Dalloway also takes an interesting approach to the idea of female professions. Living in 1920s England, Woolf would have been well aware that the employment opportunities for women were limited and often underpaid. The most common female professions of the time consisted of things such as factory workers, and

certainly women in upper class society were not permitted to have jobs, unless it were considered “respectable”, such as a governess. Instead their job was simply to get married, look after children and, in the words of the poet Coventry Patmore, be “the angel in the house.” One of the interesting things about Mrs Dalloway is that it attacks society’s refusal to allow women to pursue their ambitions. Woolf repeatedly resents the idea of frustrated womanhood in Mrs Dalloway, and women who could have been so much more in a different time. Woolf briefly tells the story of Lady Bradshaw in the novella, who is married to a rich doctor. The reader learns of her love of “photography”, but her talent is simply viewed as a hobby with no possibility of a profession. One of the quotes that best suggests the idea of women being stripped of their ambition and domesticised is that they are “wedged on a calm ocean.” This seems to vividly evoke the sense of the entrapment and pacification of women.

One of the most interesting and controversial things about Mrs Dalloway is Virginia Woolf’s descriptions of different women. Woolf frequently portrays women in a masculine light. At the beginning, Woolf describes the character of Lady Bexborough as “slow and stately, rather large; interested in politics like a man.” Woolf’s identification of women in a similar way to men would have been a Whereas women were historically often controversial portrayal in 20th century underrepresented in literature, or simply England with women being interpreted misunderstood by being classified into a as entirely different to men. However, stereotype, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway Woolf’s portrayal of her female characters represents women in a more accurate with masculine characteristics was light, and amongst many other things, the significant in her contribution to “killing novella is a discovery of female identity and the angel of the house” which she believed expression. This idea is seen through the was “part of the occupation protagonist Clarissa of a woman writer” as she “No need to Dalloway. Woolf wrote in her 1931 paper Professions For Women. It also aided the formation of hurry. No need to sparkle. allows the reader to experience Clarissa’s development until what was considered to be the “new woman.” The way that Woolf portrays men and No need to be anyone but eventually she finds her own identity with “a shock of delight.” women in her literature is yourself.” Virginia Woolf interesting as she seems to demonstrates the suggest how they should respond to each importance of each individual being able to other in society. In her novel A Room of find their own identity. Mrs Dalloway was One’s Own, Woolf stated “perhaps a mind controversial in its depiction of women, but that is purely masculine cannot create, any certainly helped in breaking the stereotypes more than a mind that is purely feminine, that dominated society, by giving women I thought. But it would be well to test a voice in literature. The novella promotes what one meant by man womanly, and individuality and seems to suggest that by conversely by woman - manly.” While this rejecting the female stereotype, women idea would have seemed strange in 20th can discover something of their own century England, Woolf does promote an self, and Woolf certainly believed that interesting idea that perhaps for society connection with one’s inner self was vital to properly function, women must see for true happiness. Mrs Dalloway promotes the world from a male perspective, and a valuable message to everyone, and that likewise, a man from a female perspective. is the importance of finding one’s own She seems to note that both male and identity. As Virginia Woolf said, “No need female elements of the mind are necessary to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be to produce truly great literature. anyone but yourself.”

Vanessa Redgrave as Mrs Dalloway in the 1997 film Mrs Dalloway