The Individual vs. Society in Mrs. Dalloway and The Hours, Carlisle, Megan
School of Humanities
Professor: Dr. Doni Wilson
This essay follows Virginia Woolf’s stylistic stream of consciousness in her novel Mrs. Dalloway as she expertly weaves between the intellectual threads of connection which stretch like a web from one common relation, Clarissa Dalloway. She is the independent mind which sets the others as links in the chain of a reductionist society, psychologically standing against the oppressive conformity which radiates from her peers. This paper both attempts to map out this elusive formation and to understand this singular independent mind within it. It also addresses Michael Cunningham’s contemporary novel, entitled The Hours in honor of Woolf’s original title, in which he derives from Woolf’s heroine Clarissa Dalloway distinct facets of her character from which he constructs a day in the life three women. Though they are separated by time, all share in this single joint cause, taking the stance of the individual against society.
