Mrs. Dalloway
The opening line of Mrs. Dalloway tells the reader a lot about the title character: "Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself." Woolf immediately wants to portray Clarissa Dalloway as an independent woman, but one who relishes participation in life. The mention of flowers in the first sentence foreshadows some kind of event or party, as buying flowers is a symbolic act. From the opening sentence, the rest of the book pans out to reveal Clarissa Dalloway's participation in parties and social events and hints at her role as a hostess.

Following the one-sentence paragraph that opens the novel is a brief paragraph illustrating Clarissa Dalloway's spirited nature and love of life. The sentences itself are abuzz with activity, as Woolf attempts to parallel her characterization with diction and tone. Phrases are brief and fast-paced, reflecting the hurried activity of preparing for a party. "Rumplemayer's men were coming,"…...

" Both Clarissa and Septimus think about the same quotes. "Fear no more the heat o' the sun / Nor the furious winter rages." This phrase first comes to Clarissa's mind when she sees it in a book. It "appears twice before it becomes a part of Septimus's thought, where it ironically reassures him just before his death."
Clarissa and Septimus are both sensitive individuals with deep emotional issues. While Clarissa is a "perfect hostess" who shows great creativity and social warmth in her parties, she is essentially a cold person. Peter recognizes this coldness as something "mortally dangerous" to Clarissa and says it is "the death of her soul"(Woolf, 77). Clarissa knows that she is cold: "She could see what she lacked. It was not beauty; it was not mind"(40). This coldness keeps her from the love and the openness with people that should otherwise come naturally to someone with…...

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References

Bell, A. (1990). Virginia Woolf; a biography. Quentin.Publication: New York .

CliffNotes. (2004). Mrs. Dalloway. Retrieved from the Internet at:  http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNote/id-81,pageNum-20.html .

Jensen, Emily. "Clarissa Dalloway's Respectable Suicide." Virginia Woolf: A Feminist Slant. Ed. Jane Marcus. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983. 162-179.

Kostkowska, Justyna: Book Reviews: Woolf & Feminism. English Literature in Transition 1880-1920 42:1 [1999] p.96-99.

Mrs. Dalloway
hen discussing Virginia oolf's fictitious character's in the novel Mrs. Dalloway, one can ultimately decide that these characters are filled with diversity and dimensional character. As the reader, I wholeheartedly disagree that the characters "are not perfect illustrations either of virtue or of vice." They are quite the contrary! These characters are perfect illustrations of virtue and high merit. Their lives are filled with commonalities that all humans can relate to. This gives oolf's characters the pizzazz that keeps readers coming back for more generation after generation.

Clarissa Dalloway, the central character, is a complex woman. Her relations with other women reveal as much about her personality as do her own rumination. By focusing at length on several characters, all of whom are in some way connected to Clarissa, oolf expertly portrays the ways females interact: sometimes drawing upon one another for things which they cannot get from men; other…...

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Works Cited

Bloom, Harold. Clarissa Dalloway. New York. Chelsea House, 1990.

Littleton, Jacob. Mrs. Dalloway: Portrait of the Artist as a Middle-Aged Woman.

Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 41, 1995.

Woolf, Virginia. The Common Reader.

Mrs. Dalloway's Release
Hard to believe it had been a whole year; the party seemed just yesterday and yet, so long ago; she was new person since then; well, not so very different; only in some ways, of course; she was less dependant than she had been, more easy with only herself to consult; when she woke in the morning the day didn't loom quite so dangerously. She did miss him, despite all the space he had given her, much more than she imagined possible; oh, she had cried at first, of course, the initial shock was so jarring and it was all so unexpected.

He was fine the night before at the party, but the next day he declared himself indisposed; how was she to know it was something serious? Sensible Richard, always so careful of his health, always so moderate in all his habits; so dull and pleasant; who would…...

Her remembrances of Peter, though, are different because they have the effect of affirming for her that she made the right decision in rejecting him. As she thinks of him, her conflict is not that she regrets not marrying him. Instead, the conflict for her is that it underscores how it is hard to actually know oneself and others. She calls him "her dear Peter" and says "he could be intolerable; he could be impossible; but adorable to walk with on a morning like this." She also remarks that "they might be parted for hundreds of years, she and Peter; she never wrote a letter and his were dry sticks; but suddenly it would come over her, If he were with me now what would he say?" (8-9). The past has a powerful effect on Clarissa Dalloway, but the effect is not the same as it is on Peter.…...

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Works Cited

Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. New York: Signet, 1980.

Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1953.

These elements of suffering and true friendship contribute to Clarissa's ultimate spiritual survival, despite her society and her own tendency towards flippancy.
Clarissa's illness brings with it a number of results. Her personality and outlook become altogether deeper than might be expected. She for example surprises the reader with her awareness of her own flawed nature. Perhaps her illness has brought her into contact with the flaws of the society around her and consequently the flaws that she has inherited.

She is for example deeply aware of the lack of depth in her regard for societal rank. This is awareness is partly the result of her illness and partly due to the opinions of people she cares about. Peter for example things that she is a snob, while Richard finds her and the parties she enjoys childish. Furthermore it appears to Clarissa that Richard has many worthy causes for which he…...

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Bibliography

Cunningham, Michael. The Hours. New York: Picador, 1998.

Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. London: The Hogarth Press, 1960.

He talks to his dead war buddy Evans, and fears he cannot feel anything at all (Woolf 86). In comparison, Clarissa is extremely interested in what people feel, and she is not afraid to show her own feelings toward her friends and guests, even if they are "effusive" and overly enthusiastic (Woolf 167).
Septimus enters Clarissa's life in many ways, even though she never meets him. He is in the mind of Peter when Peter first visits Clarissa, and he even thinks that Clarissa would have talked to him, while he just walked by ignoring the young, obviously distressed couple (Woolf. "A young man (that is what Sir William is telling Mr. Dalloway) had killed himself. He had been in the army.' Oh! thought Clarissa, in the middle of my party, here's death, she thought" (Woolf 183). This talk of death really makes Clarissa stop and think about her own…...

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References

Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. New York: Harvest Books, 1990.

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia olfe and Love Medicine by Louise Erdrick. The characters in both stories are similar in that the women are independent and are tied to men that they are not married to. Clarissa and Lulu have very similar personalities.
CLARISSA AND LULU

Love Medicine and Mrs. Dalloway are completely different stories, but their women are alike in many ways. Both Clarissa and Lulu are tied to men that they are not married to. They want to be recognized for who they are. Both women are independent and rule their men. Clarissa and Lulu are strong characters; yet, they are weak at times. Both stories are about women who love and survive in a difficult world. The characters found in both stories could be described as similar.

Both stories seem to revolve around one central character. "At the same time, the points-of-view are unified around the subject of one family.…...

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Works Cited

Classic Note on Mrs. Dalloway" Available Online at  http://www.gradesaver.com/ClassicNotes/Titles/dalloway/fullsumm.html 

Erdich, Louise. "Love Medicine" Reading Group Guide Available Online at  http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides/love_medicine.asp 

Guest List with Select Quotations for Mrs. Dalloway" July 22, 1997 Available Online at  http://www.uah.edu/woolf/dallowayguestlistquotes.html 

Literature Annotation Erdrich, Louise Love Medicine" Available Online at http://endeavor.med.nyu.edu/lit-med/lit-med-db/sebdocs/webdescrips/erdrick153-des-.html

ut of all this what could the most observant of friends have said except what a gardener says when he opens the conservatory door in the morning and finds a new blossom on his plant: -- it has flowered; flowered from vanity, ambition, idealism, passion, loneliness, courage, laziness, the usual seeds, which all muddled up (in a room off the Euston Road), made him shy, and stammering, made him anxious to improve himself
Flowering" as utilized in this passage pertains to society's disenchantment of life in England, which is, as enumerated by Woolf, full of "vanity, ambition, idealism, passion, loneliness, courage, laziness." Symbolic of the social change occurring in English society, Septimus, Clarissa, as well as Peter, all embodied the English individual who have come to a point wherein s/he "must...come to terms with his past, his present, and his future" (Weiss, 2005:218). In as much as the city hid…...

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Bibliography

Kostkowska, J. (2004). "Scissors and silks," "Flowers and trees," and "Geraniums Ruined by the War": Virginia Woolf's Ecological Critique of Science in "Mrs. Dalloway." Women's Studies, Vol. 33, Issue 2.

Panichas, G. (2004). "Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway": "A Well of Tears." Modern Age, Vol. 46, Issue 3.

Weiss, G. (2005). "City limits." City, Vol. 9, Issue 2.

Woolf, V.E-text of "Mrs. Dalloway." University of Adelaide Library Electronic Texts Collection. Available at http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/w/w91md/w91md.zip.

Mrs. Dalloway
The Mental Illness of Virginia oolf and Septimus Smith

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia olf explores the fragile nature of the human psyche and the effects of trauma on the human condition. First published in 1925 in England and written during the infancy of modern psychology, one of the most important themes of this novel is mental illness. One of the characters in the novel, Septimus Smith, displays mental issues and this work lays bare the way in which people with such illnesses were treated for their malaise at that time. This paper will examine a few of the parallels between the life of Virginia oolf and Septimus Smith.

Virginia was only 13 when her mother's death triggered a nervous breakdown, the first of her many bouts of mental illness. After their father died in 1904, Virginia moved to a house in Bloomsbury with her two brothers and her sister, Vanessa, who…...

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Works Cited

Alexander, Caroline. "The Shock of the War" Smithsonian Magizine. September 2010. Smithsonian.com. 29 November 2011. <  http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/The-Shock-of-War.html?c=y&page=4 >

Merrimen, C.D. "Virginia Woolf." The Literature Network.. (2007). 29 November 2011.

Thomas, Jean. "Virginia Woolf and the Case of Septimus Smith." The San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal, Vol.23, No.3 August 2004: 55-71. 29 November 2011.

Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway contains many of the hallmarks of the author’s style and thematic concerns, including a critique of gender roles and concepts of mental illness. Protagonist Clarissa, the eponymous Mrs. Dalloway, reflects on the trajectory of her life. Self-reflection is a lens through which she develops a cogent critique of the entire social system in which she lives. Clarissa’s reflections, catalyzed by her observations of men and women in her social circle, comprise a pessimistic point of view. Septimus’s suicide then highlights the fact that there is no way out of the patriarchal structure; there are only ways of coping with its immutable power. In Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf employs Clarissa as a vehicle for critiquing patriarchy and all it entails: including class-based social hierarchies, gender bias, and heteronormativity.
In Mrs. Dalloway, one of the themes is the way patriarchy constrains the organic evolution of relationships. Clarissa has been…...

Clarissa in "Mrs. Dalloway" by Virginia Woolf
Mrs. Dalloway" by Virginia Woolf is a novel that chronicles the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a woman torn between preserving her own identity and maintaining the image that she wants to present to the public. Through different characters in the novel, particularly Peter Walsh's character, Clarissa's character is given depth, and as the novel progresses, the readers' perception of Clarissa changes, from being an irresolute woman to being a determined one as the novel ends. The following texts discuss Clarissa Dalloway's transition from her dual self-perception and concept of herself as a woman and the woman and individual she has become upon learning of Septimus Smith.

In the initial phase of Clarissa Dalloway's character presentation in the novel, she is characterized as a woman confused of what she really is, what she stands for in the midst of a high-class English society. At the…...

Ultimately, Mrs. Dalloway's opinion of herself is highest when she is giving parties. Woolf writes, "Every time she gave a party she had this feeling of being something not herself, and that every one was unreal in one way; much more real in another" (Woolf 171). She knows she has a gift for bringing people together, and it is this gift that makes her life worthwhile. It is odd, because the entire reason for her being (at least to her) is superficial and another jab at English society by Woolf. The parties are the grounds for the wealthy to socialize and show off, while they are attended by the low-paid servants, the poor who form the backbone of English society. Ultimately, the novel condemns this society, and Clarissa Dalloway's simple character is at the forefront of this condemnation. Her simplicity and reliance on pleasing others represents all that is wrong…...

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References

Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. New York: Harvest Books, 1990.

Hours
In her novel "Mrs. Dalloway," Virginia Woolf demonstrated a distinctly modern style as she revealed the dynamics of perception rather than simply writing another "conventional" story, like many other writers of her time. Michael Cunningham, in a tribute to Wolff, took her story and modified her modern style with his own unique writing in "The Hours."

Cunningham played with Woolf's writing styles in his novel, intensifying her clever style. For example, Woolf had an unusual method of making her characters experience backward launches of memories, which were usually sparked by some type of image. In addition, she would jumble time and place to show her readers the reality of human consciousness and experience. Cunningham mimicked her style in "The Hours" yet added to the excitement with his postmodern styles. Therefore, while Woolf's plot was simple, Cunningham's was decidedly complex.

In his introductory statement, Cunningham discusses Woolf, hinting that she killed herself…...

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Bibliography

Cunningham, Michael. (1998). The Hours. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Dee, Jonathan. (June, 1999). The Hours: A Review. Harper's Magazine.

Guthmann, T. (September 15, 1998). Dancing with Woolf: An Interview with Author Michael Cunningham. The Advocate.

Harrison, Eric. (January 17, 2003). Timeless Tribute to Woolf Nearly Perfect. The Houston Chronicle.

Authentic Representations of Self universal theme of transitional literature is the sacrifice of self. Many characters, within some of the greatest works of literature express longing as a main theme, as if they are living a life that is not quite what they had in mind. DH Lawrence, Virginia oolf, Beryl Bainbridge and Doris Lessing, all develop characters within their works that establish the idea of a denial of authenticity of self. The four works and the four characters which best describe this sort of sacrifice of self are: Lawrence's Paul Morel in Sons and Lovers, oolf's Clarissa Dalloway in Mrs. Dalloway, Lessing's Susan Rawlings in To Room Nineteen and Charlie from Bainbridge's Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie.
Even from the start Paul Morel from Sons and Lovers was different. More delicate than other children and the expression of grief through depression that brought on tears is a foreshadowing of…...

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Works Cited

Bainbridge, Beryl. "Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie." In Collected Stories. London, UK

Penguin Books, 1994. Pgs. 81-88.

Lawrence, DH Sons and Lovers. Ed. Trotter, David. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Lessing, Doris. "To Room Nineteen." In The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 1985, pgs. 2026-2054.