The Women in Mrs. Dalloway
I Am Wo-Man: The Mimicry of Womankind in Mrs. Dalloway
If there is one thing the social commentary surrounding Virginia Woolf’s novel agrees upon, it is the undeniable multiplicity of interpretations and meanings filled within the pages of Mrs. Dalloway. While most criticisms focuses on analyzing Woolf’s critique of a woman’s social status in early British 20th century society, most critics fail to question what causes womankind to act as they do. Of course, it is easy to conclude social boundaries force women to cohere to certain traditional standards, but this assertion disregards the most important characteristic that influences women in society: The perceptions of men. Although Woolf does not give one direct or pointed stance of her personal critique of the female role, one natural conclusion can be made: Women want to become the embodiment of men. In Alex Zwerdling’s book Virginia Woolf and the Real World, this idea can be further explained by exploring his proposal about Mrs. Dalloway: “The novel in large [is] an examination of a single class [the governing class] and its control over English society” (120). The ruling class of Virginia Woolf’s world is one that relies on the traditions of the past. One holding patriarchy as the central pillar for ideology (one’s ethos of worldview), and where domestic, institutional, and state politics coverage to uphold and maintain male domination. It is a world in which society values men for possessing the traits equating them to being perceived as possessing manliness—having masculinity, power, independence, and dominance over others. Therefore, the social pressures resulting from this system, honoring and facilitating to the worship of virility, mandated certain behaviors determining the classification of individuals in Mrs. Dalloway. In consequence, a system obsessed with manliness was constructed, confining its inhabitants to rules dictating how one should live and act in life. The novel, Mrs. Dalloway, captures,
If there is one thing the social commentary surrounding Virginia Woolf’s novel agrees upon, it is the undeniable multiplicity of interpretations and meanings filled within the pages of Mrs. Dalloway. While most criticisms focuses on analyzing Woolf’s critique of a woman’s social status in early British 20th century society, most critics fail to question what causes womankind to act as they do. Of course, it is easy to conclude social boundaries force women to cohere to certain traditional standards, but this assertion disregards the most important characteristic that influences women in society: The perceptions of men. Although Woolf does not give one direct or pointed stance of her personal critique of the female role, one natural conclusion can be made: Women want to become the embodiment of men. In Alex Zwerdling’s book Virginia Woolf and the Real World, this idea can be further explained by exploring his proposal about Mrs. Dalloway: “The novel in large [is] an examination of a single class [the governing class] and its control over English society” (120). The ruling class of Virginia Woolf’s world is one that relies on the traditions of the past. One holding patriarchy as the central pillar for ideology (one’s ethos of worldview), and where domestic, institutional, and state politics coverage to uphold and maintain male domination. It is a world in which society values men for possessing the traits equating them to being perceived as possessing manliness—having masculinity, power, independence, and dominance over others. Therefore, the social pressures resulting from this system, honoring and facilitating to the worship of virility, mandated certain behaviors determining the classification of individuals in Mrs. Dalloway. In consequence, a system obsessed with manliness was constructed, confining its inhabitants to rules dictating how one should live and act in life. The novel, Mrs. Dalloway, captures,