Mrs Dalloway Themes Essay Plans

Themes in Mrs Dalloway

• Time

• Inner vs Outer-World

• Repression

• Liberation

• Death

• Ageing and memory

• Trauma

• Class

• Love and romantic relationships

• Privacy, loneliness and communication

TIME (THE PAST) - For all of its tradition, England also has something timeless to it. Clarissa imagines that at night, all of London’s busy streets disappear and the city looks like it did way back during the Roman Empire.

“… perhaps at midnight, when all boundaries are lost, the country reverts to its ancient shape, as the Romans saw it, lying cloudy, when they landed…”

TIME (BIG BEN + THE PRESENT )- Part of Clarissa’s everyday life is the sound of Big Ben. She has come to anticipate (and be comforted while also disturbed by) the chiming of the bells.

“There! Out it boomed. First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable. The leaden circles dissolved in the air.”

TIME (THE PAST) - Though Clarissa has a general fear of time, she cherishes individual moments. She feels that pleasure isn’t free: one must appreciate and "pay back" those who help provide such things.

"[…] one must pay back from this secret deposit of exquisite moments”

TIME (THE FUTURE) - To Clarissa, Lady Bruton represents the British past, customs, and tradition. Her face wears time in a frightening way though, as her aging reminds Clarissa of her own inevitable death.

“but she feared time itself, and read on Lady Bruton's face, as if it had been a dial cut in impassive stone, the dwindling of life; how year by year her share was sliced…”

TIME (BIG BEN + THE PRESENT) - Big Ben has such a prominent role in the novel that the clock is almost a character. Big Ben disrupts, reminds, and comforts those who hear its hourly reminders.

“The sound of Big Ben striking the half-hour struck out between them with extraordinary vigour, as if a young man, strong, indifferent, inconsiderate, were swinging dumb-bells this way and that.”

TIME (THE PAST) - In this moment, the mere sound of a squeaky hinge transports Clarissa back in time. It makes her recall her youth at Bourton, her family’s country home.

“What a lark! What a plunge! For so it had always seemed to her, when, with a little squeak of the hinges, which she could hear now, she had burst open the French windows and plunged at Bourton into the open air.”

Inner vs Outer-World - The components of Clarissa’s identity, the outer existence which conforms vs the inner-existence which questions

"That was herself when some effort, some call on her to be herself, drew the part together, she alone knew how different, how incompatible”

Inner vs Outer-World - The outer world simplifies while the inner world remains complex, fluid, nuanced and resistant to such generalisation

“Women live so much more in the past than we do”

Inner vs Outer-World - An outer-world identity which can be quickly comprehended by others

“Light, tall, very upright”

Inner vs Outer-world - Outward suffering vs Inward suffering

“But her poor dog was howling”

Inner vs Outer world in Mrs Dalloway

Individuals (especially those repressed by society, like women) may navigate a world which demands public performance and conformity meanwhile their inner lives remain fragmented, complex and often inaccessible at times

Repression - Repression vs Expression, through Septimus’s lens self knowledge can be confronting

“He would shut his eyes he would see no more”

Repression - Entrapment/Repression and the uncontrollable release it brings

“But- But- why did she suddenly feel, for no reason that she could discover, desperately unhappy?”

Repression - Unspoken desires and feelings often remain inside, suppressed by societal norms or personal fears. Repression from a male lens

“Happiness is this he thought”

“He had not said ‘I love you’ But he held her hand. Happiness is this he thought”

Repression - Repression of sexuality and desire. Self repression from a female lens

“The bed narrow”

“Like a nun withdrawing, or a child exploring a tower”

Repression in Mrs Dalloway

Societal expectations, personal fears and emotional trauma leads to self repression (whether of desire, emotions, memories). Repression is a form of control which leads to alienation, emotional fragmentation or a powerful outburst

Liberation - Liberation presented as incomplete, conditional, and perhaps illusionary

“Every profession is open to the women of your generation”

Liberation - Liberation vs Victimhood, it is internal and momentary

“It seemed to her […] that she was opening long windows”

Liberation - When society restricts genuine freedom, even an act as extreme as death can be reimagined as the ultimate assertion of self

“Death was defiance”

Liberation in Mrs Dalloway

Internal, form of taking agency, temporary and often symbolic. True liberation is expansive and incomplete, it comes in many forms whether from society, life, or limits.

Death (septimus’s suicide) - Death not as a rejection of life but a rejection of society

“He did not want to die. Life was good. The sun was hot. Only Human beings?”