3 Review(s)

A highly introspective story in two parts about the eponymous Mrs. Dalloway, Mrs Dalloway is an intriguing tale about the life of the British woman in the early 20th Century. Summary Of The Book Mrs Dalloway is highly introspective book about a single day in the life of the eponymous Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway. It follows her thoughts and actions through from the morning and through the day, as she prepares for a party in the evening. It begins with a nostalgic revisiting of her youthful days, which leads her to question her choice of husband. She had married Richard Dalloway instead of her more enigmatic option, Peter Walsh, and remembers her dearest friend, Sally Seton. While this reflection is going on, another drama unfolds as Septimus Warren Smith, a World War I hero, has hallucinations of his friend Evans, who was killed in the war. Smith commits suicide, and Clarissa comes to know of this suicide during her party. The events which led up to her party and her own thoughts forge an exceptionally candid portrait of the mind of a woman in pursuit of her happiness. Mrs Dalloway, which is a compilation of two separate short stories, is one of Woolf’s most renowned works. It is written in Stream of Consciousness style and has often been compared to the other great novel of this style, James Joyce’s Ulysses. Added to this, the liberal and highly inventive use of voice and narrative techniques makes Mrs Dalloway a masterpiece of twentieth century modernist literature. About Virginia Woolf Virginia Woolf was one of the foremost feminists of her day and one of the most celebrated female writers. Woolf produced several works including Orlando, To The Lighthouse, A Room of One’s Own, Three Guineas, Women and Writing, and The London Scene. Virginia Woolf was born in Kensington, London, and spent most of her life in England. From the age of 13, when her mother died, she was mentally delicate and suffered from several nervous breakdowns, together with mood swings, which indicated mental illness. She was a prolific and very outspoken writer. She experimented with various styles and was a strong advocate of feminism.