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Mrs Dalloway is a novel that features two main characters and two different worldviews. On the one hand, there is Clarissa Dalloway, who being labelled as Mrs, symbolises her marital and social confinement.
About the author
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) is widely regarded as the most prominent modernist female author. She received a home education and was writing from a very young age. A series of untimely deaths in her family had a long-term impact on the author’s creative psyche as well as her mental state in general. She tried to commit suicide multiple times and was sent to sanatoriums which she dreaded. Her novel Mrs Dalloway is often read autobiographically as it evolves around the duality of a sane person and a shell shocked war veteran – the work is also commonly seen as the writer’s magnum opus. Among her other renowned titles are To the Lighthouse, Orlando and landmark feminist essay A Room of One’s Own. Woolf committed suicide shortly after World War II erupted as she fell into depression yet again – the chaotic political climate in Europe coincided with Woolf’s mental turmoil and conscious unwillingness to be a millstone around her husband’s neck.
