Ms. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf – Thet Oo

Dalloway

Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf, is a novel written in a narrative form. In the novel, Woolf attempts to narrates the conscious stream of her main character, Clarissa, using third person narrative. Others characters who are fairly related to Clarissa are Septimus, Sally, Richard, and Peter. In A Sketch of the Past, Virginia Woolf states, “Behind the cotton wool [of daily life] is hidden a pattern; that we—I mean all human beings—are connected with this…” Although the novel might appear as simply narrating the random events and Ms. Dalloway’s conscious stream of thought, we can understand the character’s identity conflict and complicated relationships with other characters. Septimus and Clarissa have the most common because they both suffer from severe depression, having difficulty construct their own identities, and being misunderstood by others. Peter Walsh whose marriage proposal had been refused by Clarissa suddenly paid a visit to her house and tempted to ask her if she was happy with her current marriage. It shows that he still obsesses with Clarissa and has not gotten over the refusal yet. Moreover, her relationship with current husband, Richard Dalloway, has becoming shallow and she feels that they have no emotional connection with each other. It becomes clear to Richard as well when he is unable to say he loves her as he cannot even remember the last time he said it. Sally is the female character in the story whom Clarissa was sexually attracted to but was not able to move their relationship longer as their relationship would be badly criticized by society at that time.