THE FRAGMENTED SELF AND MODERNIST EXPERIMENTATION IN VIRGINIA WOOLF’S MRS DALLOWAY
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.58885/ijllis.v14i2.54ddKeywords:
Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway, modernism , identity , trauma , stream of consciousness , time and memory , postwar literature, subjectivity, institutional critique.Abstract
This article explores Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway (1925) as a seminal work of literary modernism that interrogates the fractured nature of identity in the aftermath of World War I. Through a dual focus on Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Warren Smith, the novel examines the tensions between interior experience and social expectation, memory and temporality, conformity and collapse. Woolf’s use of stream of consciousness, nonlinear narrative, and shifting perspectives allows for an intimate portrayal of psychological disintegration and emotional resilience. Drawing on psychoanalytic, philosophical, and socio-political frameworks, the analysis reveals how Woolf critiques institutional power, medical authority, and class hierarchy while proposing an alternative aesthetic rooted in impression and subjectivity. Ultimately, Mrs Dalloway articulates a vision of the modern self as contingent, relational, and continually shaped by both historical trauma and fleeting moments of insight.
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Bowlby, R. (1992). Feminist Destinations and Further Essays on Virginia Woolf. Edinburgh University Press.
Caughie, P. (1991). Virginia Woolf and Postmodernism: Literature in Quest and Question of Itself. University of Illinois Press.
Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (A. Sheridan, Trans.). Pantheon Books.
Showalter, E. (1985). The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830–1980. Virago.
Woolf, V. (1925/1977). “Modern Fiction.” In A. McNichol (Ed.), Essays of Virginia Woolf: Volume 4, 1925 to 1928 (pp. 157–165). The Hogarth Press.
Woolf, V. (2000). Mrs Dalloway (D. Bradshaw, Ed.). Oxford University Press.
Zwerdling, A. (1986). Virginia Woolf and the Real World. University of California Press.
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