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Mapping Mrs. Dalloway Assignment

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Added on  2020-05-04

Mapping Mrs. Dalloway Assignment

   Added on 2020-05-04

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Running head: ENGLISHEnglishName of the StudentName of the UniversityAuthor note
Mapping Mrs. Dalloway Assignment_1
1ENGLISHIntroductionMrs. Dalloway is a novel that was written by famous British novelist Virginia Woolf. Thenovel was published back in 1925 at the time when Britain was dealing with the trauma of WorldWar 1. The novel is depictive of the subjective experiences and the memories of the keycharacters over a duration of one day in post-World War 1 London. The novel is divided intoparts instead of chapters, which highlights the excellently interlaced texture of the character’sthoughts. The novel was not just daring in its form, but even in its content. Woolf gave life to anugly truth that was less talked about during that period - the war had already messed up theminds of people, weakening them psychologically. Critics have widely agreed that the writerfound her voice with this novel. The novel did acquire a fair share of commercial and criticalsuccess. This book, commonly focusing on the most commonplace tasks like parties, shoppingand eating dinner, presented that nothing is too small or too ordinary for any writer’s attention.Mrs. Dalloway was successful in transforming novel as an art form. The novel is widely deemedas being one of the most influential novels of the twentieth century. DiscussionMrs. Dalloway has been created as a modern novel in its true sense by Virginia Woolf.The novel has been created from two short stories, Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street and theunfinished The Prime Minister. The novel is describing a day in the life of its main character,Clarissa Dalloway on a June day in post-World War I London, England. In the character ofClarissa Dalloway, personality is one of the underlying themes of both the character and VirginiaWoolf’s fiction. The social image of the character screens the discordant features of thepersonality that could be diverted into different and opposing images. Each of the othercharacters can see just one of these features and then takes that as her actual personality. With
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2ENGLISHthe progress of the novel, the initial static image of the mirror paves the way for a series ofmoving and opposing views of Mrs. Dalloway, and her identity swells into encompassing all thedifferent images while continuing un-encompassed by them. In recording the preparations byClarissa of hosting a party, Woolf is recording all the views, impressions and remembrances ofher own as well as of other characters. There exists no plots or sub-plots, no actual story, noaction in its real sense and there is nothing actually happening in the novel, except the myriad ofimpressions that have been created by Woolf’s fresh style of writing in opposition to theconventional one (Freedman 2014; Herman 2013).The novel is depicting a swiftly changing society and the narration is reflecting thesechanges. Mrs. Dalloway presents scathing impeachment of the then British class system and atough assessment of the existing patriarchy. The social satire of the work extracts the majority ofits force from ironic patterns of mythic reference that permits the mix of dramatic models fromGreek tragedy and from the Christian liturgy. Woolf is envisioning an allegorical battle betweengood and evil – amongst Clarissa's comic merriment of life and the disastrous death-dealingforces that are driving Septimus Smith towards suicide. The repetitive use of memory andflashbacks are the methods used by Woolf for creating interior time. The depiction of Big Ben atthe start of a new chapter signifies the existence of external reality. The image of the city isneither lifeless nor static - it is full of buses, cars, and crowds of people who are simultaneouslyliving their lives. Identity, which is a continual obsession of modernists is cast in a very differentlight. In the view of Woolf, the self is dependent on the other, still, it is separated from it.Intangible, ephemeral and elusive, true identity is difficult to capture (Edmondson 2012; Latham2015).
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