20th Annual Student Research Conference
Language & Literature
Questioning Gender Politics: An Examination of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway
Amelia K. Hemenway
Dr. Hena Ahmad, Faculty Mentor
Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway (1925) describes a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, who nominally embodies the main elements of the Victorian feminine ideal: she is a loving, devoted mother and a submissive wife. Through a stream-of-consciousness style of narration, we see Clarissa Dalloway in an unusually personal light, and learn that she is not simply an "angel in the house," but a character with depth and complexity. She indeed fills the traditional feminine roles of the time period, but also privately subverts them. By examining Clarissa Dalloway's meandering thoughts, social position, and interactions I plan to show how Woolf uses Mrs. Dalloway to make a pointed statement about the sexual, economic, and social repression of women in patriarchal British society.
Keywords: Woolf, Dalloway, gender, woman's role, feminism, patriarchal society
Topic(s):English
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 9-1
Location: VH 1428
Time: 8:15 am