Self And Gender in Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

 Self and gender in mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

 

The study ‘Mrs. Dalloway’ demonstrates how patriarchal society degraded women in different fields and under question their gender and identity. Virginia Woolf as a feminist writer constitutes a climate in which how women faces with this discrimination.

It is mentioned in the novel that characters struggle to preserve their soul . for example Septimus's commits suicide. By this action, he wants to protect his soul through killing himself. if he submitted to go to asylum his body will be preserved but his soul will be injured. so, he preferred to die with honour instead of living with disgrace. On the other hand, Clarissa's soul has been injured because of his marriage with Richard. Due to male-dominated society and her own social position as a lower class citizen she has to endure this harsh humiliation. By marriage, she became Mrs Dalloway. change of a name can be considered as a change of one’s identity. so marriage depicts her dependence on male sex . in this story women through marriage change their family name to their husband’s name, it depicts that’s they don’t have an identity by themselves. The bitter fact expresses one characteristic of the male-dominated community.

In a community when women can’t have a little fixed family name for herself how can have freedom of speech and freedom of action ? it depicts a kind of dominance both physically and mentally impose on women since the beginning of the creation it views as a weakness deficiency for women and superiority for men, for example, sally changed to lady Rosseter after marriage.

 

There is a fact about ‘self’ within Clarissa’. She wants to be free from her own husband and prefers to have her own room and stay there alone. she looks for her ‘self’ in loneliness because she can’t find it during her lifelong. at some time. she remembers peter and sally in her loneliness. In the story. the narrator refers to Clarissa both of them suppresses worldly pleasure in them.

The word ‘tree’ is a kind of symbol in this novel. the universal symbol of ‘tree’ is growing and being alive but here trees are destroyed through cutting. Peter’s and sally’s memory is alive in Clarissa's mind. Clarissa's memory is always in peter’s mind. When Clarissa saw peter she told him “remembers my party tonight “. It displays that she isn’t disappointed with peter’s love.

This is an undeniable connection between “self” and “identity”. When a person doesn’t have self can’t have an identity too. This self suffers and can’t show something from itself as an identity. For example, Clarissa ambivalent action toward peter and sally. she can’t have a stable feeling towards male sex or female sex, she can’t choose man or woman even after having a heterosexual marriage with Richard . this relationship disconnected by separating her room. 

Clarissa ascends to an imagination space an ‘attic’ room still contained within her symbolic house. Mrs Killman as another example is a woman but behaves and dresses in mannish form. Her ‘self’ as a man by manly feature with her womanly body cause her to have a vague identity in a society where she lives in, in this way, every member of the community look down on her manner and appearance. 

Furthermore, ‘death’ is another important concept which is repeated through the novel. also, ‘love’ along with “death” are inseparable parts of life. Virginia Woolf was aware of this fact and these two concepts happen several time in ‘Mrs. Dalloway’  one part of the story speaks about an old woman that singing a song about ‘love’ and ‘death’. in a window shop, it was written “ fear no more than heat o the sun/nor the furious winter” both Septimus and Clarissa consider death as a release in a difficult time, especially in wartime human, lose their faith to god and things in the world. 

It is mentioned in the novel that peter has a dream. In his dream he is a solitary traveller image of women surrounded him. According to Freud, dreams are a representation of our appressed desires. he was not successful about his love with Clarissa so he can’t fulfil Clarissa's memory even by his marriage with daisy. that’s why all of them are collected in his unconsciousness and show itself in the forms of women’s image in the dream. Peter remained dependent on women. Although he divorced daisy he thinks about Clarissa. women give a kind of security to peeter and his dream justifies this matter. As if these women give peter security, protection and forgive him like a mother.

Gender   

Dependency among the character of this novel is noticeable .they are dependent to each other physically or emotionally or emotionally, for example, clarissa is dependent to Richard physically to protect her and materialistically to distort her social position. And at the same time is dependent on peter and sally emotionally. Lady Bruton asked Richard and hug to write her a letter and called Richard as a prime minister. There is a contrast between lady Bruton and Richard, Richard is so powerful not only write a letter for her but also write a history of her family.

Before the mid 19th century, women were considered weak intellectually and physically. such a concept was consolidated by social conventions. According to that and the public world. The sole vocation for women was marriage.

As we see in the novel, Clarissa has to marry Richard because of two reasons.First, she was from middle-class and in order to change her class married Richard to be an upper class because his money gives her power and position . second is because of male-dominated a society that considered marriage as a means that brings social and physical security and honour to a woman and believes that homosexual relationship as taboo so she submitted to marry in a traditional way.

The mentioned society can’t influence and penetrate their ideas. norms a convention of society  can’t distort Elizabeth's thought because she believed herself and determined in her way and her relationship with Killman. Mrs Killman despite her homosexuality and her social position as a history teacher she Is the victim of the patriarchal society as it is told in the story she is dressed, acted and behaved like a man.

According to the story, sally is the symbol of wild women that has a brutal disposition, smoking cigar and has black hair, male-dominated society pin an etiquette to such women as a rebel . in the traditional classification, they classified activities based on the individual’s genders. Smoking cigar is harmful to both of them and it has a mal effect on their health. so there must be no difference between man and women.

Virginia Woolf was one of the feminist writers whose attitude influence her writing her literacy work is about women’s right and position in male-dominated community. She is the victim of such society that undergone father dominance and society dominance and brother rape her concerns about feminine issues are depicted in a novel like ‘Mrs. Dalloway ‘ in this work she directly shows that women should have equal rights as men. Woolf indicates that men and women can have the same negative and opposite feeling such as patriotism and having social activity. In this novel pessimistic and critical view of a made advancement disabled.

Marriage is like a tree, children are the fruits of this tree. If the tree is not a healful tree, and the fruit of the tree Is not healthful too for sure those men that have such an unhealthy opinion about women . they will grow up in the poisoned family that polluted the society which is called the patriarchal society. Mrs Dalloway encourages women to get an identity and become educated one in this society.