Christiana Nielson 14068485
Writing Assignment #3
London – The City Behind Mrs. Dalloway
Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway only lasts the duration of a day. But it manages to delve
into important issues and themes, particularly relating to its setting – post-World War I London,
England. Woolf uses ordinary characters to bring to light the tension of the evolving city of
London after the war and how it affects the greater society. Old English values are contrasted
with newer, progressive ideas of class and status. Both the unstoppable passage of time and its
relation to social oppression in London create a novel that maximizes the use of its location in
order to tie together history and fiction. It is evident that this city fills a large role in the novel as
it impacts the characters and their relations with one another.
The work follows 52-year-old Clarissa Dalloway throughout one day in her life as she
prepares to host a party at night. She is a member of the upper class and is married to Richard
Dalloway. As she walks to buy flowers, the reader learns that her friend, Peter Walsh, once
asked her to marry him, whom she refused. Her daughter, Elizabeth, spends much of her time
with Miss Kilman, her history teacher, which troubles Clarissa because she believes Miss
Kilman to be a purveyor of oppressive English society. Woolf then introduces us to Septimus
Smith, a World War I veteran, who suffers from shell shock and worries his wife, Lucrezia, with
irrational fears brought on by the war.
When Clarissa returns home, she contemplates how she does not feel passionate toward
her husband anymore. As her servants prepare her house for the party, Peter Walsh arrives and
Clarissa wonders if she might have been happier as his wife instead of Richard’s. Richard
represented old London wealth and security, while Peter preferred to travel to India and forego a
life of high society, although he discusses how London has become more civilized. He resents
Clarissa for conforming to London’s high society staleness and unoriginality. Woolf switches
again to Septimus and Lucrezia, who arranges an appointment for him to meet with psychiatrist
Sir William Bradshaw in hopes of curing his odd behavior. Before the war, Septimus was a
romantic, but after the war he became bitter and oppressed by the atmosphere of London.
During the appointment, Bradshaw prescribes bed rest in a home separate from Lucrezia. The
doctor comes to represent old English values, as he promotes proportion and conformity.
The scene shifts to Lady Bruton, a member of high society who is eating lunch with
Richard Dalloway and Hugh Whitbread. Following lunch, Richard buys roses for Clarissa and
plans to tell her he loves her, but finds he cannot when he sees her at home, further cementing
the gap between them, which is partially caused by the changing society. Elizabeth tells her
mother she is going shopping with Miss Kilman, and Clarissa feels that Miss Kilman also acts as
an oppressor in her advocacy of religion and conservatism. When she and Elizabeth have tea,
Miss Kilman is overwhelmed with self-pity and Elizabeth eventually returns home.
As the novel does not follow a clear progression of action, it once again returns to
Septimus and Lucrezia, who enjoy a period of normalcy and happiness together. But he finds
himself alone when Lucrezia attends to a child, and despairs. When doctors arrive to take
Septimus away, he jumps out of a window and commits suicide in desperation of release from
his troubled mind. Peter Walsh hears the ambulance carrying Septimus, and he thinks of
Clarissa and his struggles over whether he would be right to marry Daisy, but decides he
ultimately will before heading to Clarissa’s party.
At the party, Clarissa wonders whether it will be a success. Her old friend, Lady
Rosseter, formerly Sally Seton, arrives as well as the prime minister. The party is well attended,
but Clarissa feels that her guests have all failed in their lives in different ways, except for
Septimus, whom she admires for taking control of his life, even through death. As a member of
oppressive London society, Clarissa feels somewhat responsible for his death, saying that
“Somehow it was her disaster – her disgrace” (185). The novel ends as she sees Peter, who feels
excitement at her presence.
The city of London appears pervasively and meaningfully throughout the plot of Mrs.
Dalloway. Although the novel is fictional, it accurately mirrors the historical London that sets
the scene for its characters, creating a realistic depiction of the city. Since post-World War I
history is closely tied to the novel, London comes to play a significant role within the work,
almost becoming a character itself. On one side, characters such as Sir William Bradshaw, Miss
Kilman, Lady Bruton and Richard Dalloway represent the old values of London that high society
cannot relinquish even after the war. On the other side, characters such as Elizabeth Dalloway,
Sally Seton, Peter Walsh and Septimus Smith embody the modernizing city, which sometimes
ends fortunately and other times brings about a negative fate. Clarissa Dalloway seems to be
caught in this tension, as she enjoys throwing parties and her place in society, but also yearns for
more freedom and respects Septimus for freeing himself. Woolf writes of London as a source of
controversy between high society and its oppression of people whose views do not fall in line.
Septimus was the only character brave enough to act on this wrong, although it meant death was
a necessary escape. The regret that both Clarissa and Peter feel about the other also
demonstrates the push and pull of a city that seems to be frozen in time, with Clarissa unable to
make a meaningful change even though she might long for such a transformation. London’s role
as the setting for Mrs. Dalloway serves to make sense of the characters and why they act as they
do. Woolf contrasts its grand, luxurious nature with its dark side, which is the oppression of new
values and endless cycle of time that seems to carry the characters forward without their consent.
This image of Big Ben truly reflects the inevitable passage of time that London grows to
represent, furthering the helplessness that Clarissa Dalloway feels in her personal struggle.
In this regard, London itself becomes an actor in the novel because it conveys the both inviting
and menacing personality of the post-war society it created.
Because the city of London is portrayed quite significantly within the novel, it
consequently impacts the work’s themes, the events that take place and the characters that
intertwine throughout Mrs. Dalloway. Even the way Woolf wrote the novel – jumping between
scenes without a singular plot line – reflects the tension between the different types of characters.
One of the novel’s themes is itself the struggle between old England and new, post-war England.
Without the setting of London, this theme would not be remotely as relevant. As characters such
as Bradshaw represent highbrow traditions and characters such as Septimus represent
disenchantment with this society, the environment of London contributes to this theme by simply
providing the necessary knowledge of history and current problems. Another of the work’s
meanings, oppression, fits perfectly with the setting. Septimus is most affected by the oppressive
aspect of London and finds suicide to be his only solution. While Clarissa is troubled by the
patriarchal society of London, she too is partially to blame for his death. But Woolf implies that
the actual city is also responsible for this death because it has not yet transformed into a modern
and welcoming environment. A final meaning of the work that is affected by its setting is the
concept of time and its relentless continuation. That image of Big Ben serves to encompass all
the tensions between characters: Peter wishes he could go back in time and marry Clarissa,
Richard and Clarissa marvel at how time has lessened their relationship, and Septimus feels he is
out of time to salvage his life. The fact that Mrs. Dalloway was written about one particular day
confirms that time moves too quickly for Clarissa and it becomes almost a fluid notion.
Furthermore, the city of London greatly shapes the characters and their relationships with others.
Clarissa constantly and internally battles her place in society, which she tries to overcome by
throwing a party in hopes of gaining self-fulfillment. Lady Bruton and Richard Dalloway are
products of their environment, as they showcase traditional British values of formality and
routine. Peter Walsh is shaped by the city because he longs for the change that so eludes him in
Clarissa. And Septimus is completely altered by the war and cannot function in post-war
London either in his mental life or his relationship with Lucrezia. Woolf uses London to create a
sort of triangle between Clarissa, Richard and Peter in order to better demonstrate the societal
tensions of London. Clarissa ultimately fails to overcome this tension, although slight hope is
given in the final scene that she will choose to relinquish her traditional way of life. The London
of Mrs. Dalloway clearly has far-reaching implications for both the work itself and the characters
within the novel.
The way that Virginia Woolf creatively and intricately weaves London as both setting
and actor into her work made reading Mrs. Dalloway very enjoyable and provided a valuable
lesson about historical cities in the context of fiction. The work was interesting to read and write
about because every aspect of it could be connected in a certain way. The style of the novel, the
plot of the novel, the characters in the novel, and the meanings and themes of the novel all
pointed to London and its post-war realities. The events may have been fictional, but they
seemed realistic in that setting. Woolf used internal and inter-relational struggles to manifest
greater societal dilemmas, which pulled me in as a reader and kept me intrigued. I learned that
urban life, particularly in London after World War I, can be extremely instrumental in
determining people’s actions and relationships to others, both in an architectural sense and a
social sense. The way in which Woolf used London to express her characters’ beliefs and
emotions proved that an urban setting does more than facilitate its characters – the city itself
becomes a character.