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“...this being Mrs Dalloway; not even Clarissa anymore...” - a study of gender and Victorian social codes in Virginia Woolfs Mrs Dalloway
2002 (English)Independent thesis Basic level (degree of Bachelor)Student thesis
Abstract [en]

“In this book I have almost too many ideas. I want to give life and death, sanity and insanity; I want to criticise the social system and to show it at work, in it’s most intense” (Woolf 57). Those words are uttered by Virginia Woolf, one of the ancestors of modern feminism, in her timeless feminist book: A Room Of One´s Own. However, the book she is referring to is Mrs. Dalloway, a novel where her underlying thoughts and opinion’s are possible to distinguish. Reflecting Victorian values, society was divided into two worlds: men ruled over the public world and women dominated the private sphere. My aim of this essay will be to investigate weather the main character of the novel, Clarissa Dalloway, functions as a protest against the Victorian society’s rigid definition of gender roles. By taking a closer look at Clarissa Dalloway and her reflections over life, I will try to illustrate the inequities between men and women; the dislocation of women in their own society, seen from a feminist perspective. I will also discuss the role of the other characters in the novel but this essay will mainly focus on Clarissa Dalloway’s actions and inner thoughts and her feminine role as the perfect hostess. I hope to have highlighted the various examples of the oppression of women in the text and their inferior role against the male dominated society.

Abstract [en]

“In this book I have almost too many ideas. I want to give life and death, sanity and insanity; I want to criticise the social system and to show it at work, in it’s most intense” (Woolf 57). Those words are uttered by Virginia Woolf, one of the ancestors of modern feminism, in her timeless feminist book: A Room Of One´s Own. However, the book she is referring to is Mrs. Dalloway, a novel where her underlying thoughts and opinion’s are possible to distinguish. Reflecting Victorian values, society was divided into two worlds: men ruled over the public world and women dominated the private sphere. My aim of this essay will be to investigate weather the main character of the novel, Clarissa Dalloway, functions as a protest against the Victorian society’s rigid definition of gender roles. By taking a closer look at Clarissa Dalloway and her reflections over life, I will try to illustrate the inequities between men and women; the dislocation of women in their own society, seen from a feminist perspective. I will also discuss the role of the other characters in the novel but this essay will mainly focus on Clarissa Dalloway’s actions and inner thoughts and her feminine role as the perfect hostess. I hope to have highlighted the various examples of the oppression of women in the text and their inferior role against the male dominated society.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2002. , p. 21
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-53678Local ID: ENG C-13OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kau-53678DiVA, id: diva2:1102238
Subject / course
English
Available from: 2017-05-29 Created: 2017-05-29 Last updated: 2023-08-25

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Citation style
  • apa
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  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
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  • apa.csl
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Language
  • de-DE
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  • en-US
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  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
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Output format
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