Eng426 20th century english literature

Modernist Themes in Mrs Dalloway

As you were told, modernist themes are interrelated and they are also the themes that are evident in Mrs. Dalloway. Septimus Warren Smith, a war veteran who suffers from shell- shock, cannot relate with his wife and people around him. He has delusional and hallucinatory episodes and he questions the significance of life, unable to share his inner torment with others in a coherent fashion. He jumps to his death. Lucrezia finds it difficult to communicate with Septimus and cries, “I am alone; I am alone!” (Mrs. Dalloway, 20) Clarissa is glad that Richard allows her to have her freedom and she is happy to be left alone in her narrow bed. Richard finds it difficult to communicate his feelings to Clarissa. Through Clarissa and Miss Kilman we see the social barrier and conflict that modernist writing engages. This class difference generates animosity between the two women. Kilman’s inability to dress appropriately contributes to her isolation and loneliness: “people don’t ask me to parties… I’m plain, I’m unhappy”(Mrs. Dalloway112). The British upper class is represented by characters like Richard Dalloway, Hugh Whitbread, and Lady Bruton, while the likes of Rezia, Septimus and the degradingly poor Miss Kilman show the inequalities of the society.

Perhaps one of the most significant contributions of Woolf to modernist literature is the place of women in her fictive world. Mrs. Dalloway features independent-minded women who are seen and heard in the society. They are not portrayed as appendages to male characters. They make life changing decisions to be free and live their lives as they think best as shown in the decision of Clarissa to marry Richard as well as Elizabeth Dalloway’s consideration of her career as a woman. This is an important departure from

19^th century English literature where women are restricted to the home and are stripped of the ability to decide things for themselves.