An analysis of Virginia Woolf’s Essay

During the time in which she wrote Mrs Dalloway, on June 19, 1923, Virginia Woolf made a diary entry which expressed a key thought she intended to control in the novel In this book, I have al around as well as umteen ideas. I want to give life and death, sanity and insanity. I want to criticise the societal system, and show it at work, at its most intense. While some critics have insisted that Virginia Woolf did not care about kind values, her husband later said that she was profoundly interested in the fond issues of the world around her. This is borne out in Mrs.Dalloway, which does not turn outdoor(a) from the amicable and political issues of her time. Her characters turn to politics, questioning the status quo and the social fix up in which they lived. Woolf largely ad garbed these issues indirectly, showing her views in her works without the auctorial interpretation that might be found in a conventional novel she leaves final judgement to her readers. Mrs Dalloway ca me at a time when legion(predicate) social critics in England questioned the prevailing ideology. Prior to the war, England had stood at the head of a great empire, upon which the sun never set.When the war ended, England counted herself among the victorious powers, but the unconscionable losses of the war had destroyed the imperial confidence. In the wake of the war, many people sought to break out of the old thinking to invent some sensitive way of understanding the world. In the opening excoriate of the novel, Clarissa Dalloway proclaims her independence Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. (Woolf 3) She will do this because Lucy has so such(prenominal) work to do. First of all, Mrs. Dalloway and Lucy. Her maid has no last learn, and her own name appends her to her husband.Further, while she feels she is taking on a part of the work that to a greater extent properly is Lucys, her work is only a matter of buying flowers. Woolf injects quasi(prenominal) irony throughout the novel, following on the idea suggested in this genuinely first sentence, theme of social commentary. In Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf shows the abiding superficiality of the social order of which Clarissa Dalloway is a member. Early in this section, Clarissa Dalloway thinks of Miss Kilman, a communistic whom she regards as callous, because she brought out guilt feelings in ClarissaMiss Kilman would do anything for the Russians, wolfish herself for the Austrians, but in private inflicted positive torture, so insensitive was she, dressed in a green macintosh coat. Year in and course of study out she wore that cost she perspired she was never in the room five proceedings without making you feel her superiority, your inferiority how poor she was how rich you were how she lived in a slum without a cushion or a bed or a rug or whatever it might be, all her somebody rusted with that grievance sticking in it, her dismissal from school during the fight (Woolf, 12) Doris Ki lman is critical to this novel. She is an outsider, someone below the Dalloways class. In the mackintosh she wears virtually as a uniform, she hates and resents them for the ease of their social graces, their wealth, and their class standing. She has been hired to autobus Miss Elizabeth Dalloway in history. While the Dalloways sought someone who could teach this discomfit objectively, in reality, she shows the meaning of objectivity objectivity is built on objects, on the property that the rich have, and the poor do not.Miss Kilman covets what the Dalloways possess. She Clarissa Dalloways narcissism and deceit, Miss Kilman has become convinced that she deserve their money or social position more than they do. In truth, however, she herself is vain, a reverse snob whose mackintosh smelling of sweat is her ensign, proof of her poverty, proof that she belongs to the lower orders, without the cushions and rugs. But her estrangement for that life is clear. Oddly, Miss Kilman turns to religion, ostensibly for solace and peace. although she uses the religiosity as a weapon against Clarissa Dalloway.She puffs herself up, comparing her sufferings with those of Christ, who warned of those who pray loudly in the public real that they already have their reward. She is dogmatic and self-righteous, the sacred messenger of a new faith. Ironically, Clarissa fears males, and looks most fondly for the companionship of women. Miss Kilman is a greater terror than any man in her life. However, it is more the idea that Miss Kilman represents than the charwoman herself. She has brought her destructive, envious force into the Dalloway house. Her target her is Elizabeth, Clarissas daughter.Even in this campaign, Woolf shows us the sides of Miss Kilman she would want to conceal in the restaurant scene her wolfs her food, draft down the sugared cakes and chocolate eclairs, a symbol of what she would the likes of to do to the Dalloways, ready to eat their beauty, youth, money, and class. As she stuffs food into her mouth, Woolf focuses on her hands, opening and closing, like the convulsive stretching of the claws of a predatory cat. In the end, Miss Kilman finds no solace for her life, her church having turned arid on her.