Introduction
Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, published in 1925, was a bestseller both in Britain and the United States despite its departure from typical novelistic style. Mrs. […]
Mrs Dalloway
Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf was born in 1882 in London, England. She was the daughter of Leslie Stephen, an eminent man of letters, and Julia Prinsep Jackson […]
Plot Summary
A Section 1 Mrs. Dalloway begins with a sentence that is also its first paragraph: “Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.” The […]
Characters
A Dr. Bradshaw See Sir William Bradshaw B Sir William Bradshaw While Dr. Bradshaw, unlike Dr. Holmes, immediately grasps the gravity and nature of Septimus’s […]
Themes
A Consciousness Although it is difficult to imagine, the novel is a relatively new literary form. Poetry and drama (plays), for example, have a much […]
Construction
A Narration and Point of View From the very first sentence, Mrs. Dalloway shows the secure meshing of a third person (external) narrator’s point of […]
Historical Perspective
A The New Modern Era The 19th century ushered in developments that profoundly changed European society. Mercantilism and industrialism created a powerful new class. The […]
Compare and Contrast
1920s: In Britain, the Labour Party rises to power, women get the right to vote, and the first major wave of communication and travel technologies […]
Further Reading
To the Lighthouse (1927) was Woolf’s next novel, after the success of Mrs. Dalloway. It concerns a large family spending a summer at the seaside, […]