Virginia Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway - A Modern Tragedy Essay

Mrs. Dalloway - A Modern Tragedy The narrative of Mrs. Dalloway may be viewed by some as random congealing of various character experience. Although it appears to be a fragmented assortment of images and thought, there is a psychological coherence to the deeply layered novel. Part of this coherence can be found in Mrs. Dalloways psychological tone which is tragic in nature. In her forward to Mrs. Dalloway, Maureen Howard informs us that Woolf was reading both Sophocles and Euripides for her essays in The Common Reader while writing Mrs. Dalloway (viii). According to Pamela Transue, Woolf appears to have envisioned Mrs. Dalloway as a kind of modern tragedy based on the classic Greek model (92). Mrs. Dalloway can be†¦show more content†¦While Aristotles notion of unity is concerned with the causal ordering of events, Woolfs modern transformation of unity exists on the plane of character consciousness. Woolfs characters are presented in the act of reflection. Their streams of thought serve to link external rea lity with antecedent thought and mental imagery throughout the novel. This patterning of thought serves to connect characters and allows the reader to understand their similarities and differences. A sort of dialectic is presented in the comparison and contrast of Septimus and Clarissa. It involves Peter as well. This dialectic works as an underlying movement among these characters emotional responses to life. This serves to promote the sense of unity in the text. Although they never meet, Septimus is the silent partner of Clarissa. They are linked in a variety of ways. They share beaked noses, a tendency towards melancholia countered by difficulties feeling anything at all, and the loss of a significant other (Septimus has lost his best friend Evans in the war; Clarissa lost her sister to a falling tree). This dialectic promotes the novels interconnectedness through both the similarity and the variation of Clarissas and Septimuss thoughts, feelings, and imagery. Clarissa sees death as nothingness; Septimus sees it as everything. These positions are actually quite similar. In earlier days, Clarissa had toyed with Transcendental theory ofShow MoreRelatedMrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf1696 Words   |  7 PagesIn the novel Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf, the author uses narrative techniques of stream of consciousness and interior monologue in order to depict the workings of an â€Å"ordinary† or normal mind in narrative form. She also rejects the conventional structure of ‘chapters’ in order to give an â€Å"ordinary† portrayal of the mind. This essay will firstly contextualise the extract for analysis, namely the opening scene in the novel. 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