COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF VIRGINIA WOOLF’S ESSAYS AND THEIR APPLICATION TO MRS. DALLOWAY AND THE GREAT GATSBY

Abstract

This essay presents a comparative analysis of Virginia Woolf’s critical essays Mr. Bennet and Mrs. Brown (1923) and Modern Fiction (1919) by examining their theoretical application to two major modernist novels of the early twentieth century: Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925). The reflective essay explores how Woolf’s essays mark a decisive break from traditional Edwardian literary conventions, calling for a new artistic form that captures the inner life of characters and the fluidity of time. Through Woolf’s argument that fiction should represent consciousness rather than external reality, the essay highlights the transition from traditional narrative structures to modernist experimentation, reflecting the intellectual, social, and emotional transformations of the post–World War I era. By applying Woolf’s theoretical principles to Mrs. Dalloway, the essay illustrates how the novel’s stream-of-consciousness technique, psychological depth, and nonlinear temporality portray the complexity of human identity and memory. In parallel, Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is analyzed as a complementary modernist text, which, while grounded in the American context, expresses similar concerns with time, disillusionment, and alienation. Both novels depict societies in transition, British and American, in which characters grapple with the collapse of traditional values and the search for meaning in a fragmented modern world. By connecting Woolf’s modernist vision to Fitzgerald’s portrayal of the American Dream, the research underscores how modern literature moves from tradition to contemporary sensibility, emphasizing individual perception over collective convention. The comparative perspective demonstrates that modernist fiction, whether in England or the United States, serves as a universal language that articulates human consciousness, social decay, and the persistent struggle for authenticity.