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Mrs. Dalloway is one of her famous stream-of-consciousness novels, which was published in 1925. This book depicts one normal day of the heroine -- Mrs. Dalloway. In this work, Virginia tried a new writing style. She wanted to write in a way of pergent thinking instead of the traditional way of line. She held the idea that people’s logic was irregular and emanative, so writers should try to put those fragments in order and write in an authentic way. In her diary, Virginia insisted that she would represent life and death, sanity and insanity, and express her concept about the true dynamic of regime at that time. After doing research about mental disorder and suicide, she showed us the world through both healthy and psychotic people’s eye in this work. She once said: “If life has a base, it is memory” (Gordon, 1984, p.3). Mrs. Dalloway which was fully influenced by her experience is more like a collection of her memory. The protagonists -- Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Warren Smith are the epitomes of her identity as a woman and as a person suffering from mental disease. The unique style of narration and the crisscross of time make this novel an enduring work.
Reading Virginia’s works, the audience would unconsciously remind of Freud, because they sometimes share the same idea. And in this thesis, Freud’s psychoanalysis will be a key to lead readers to a higher stage of understanding Mrs.Dalloway.
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was an Austrian neurologist, now known as the father of psychoanalysis. The Interpretation of Dreams published in 1899 was considered as the formal formation of psychoanalytic psychology. In the early days, Freud purposed the theory of “psycho-topography” which is combined by preconscious, conscious and unconscious. Later, he brought forward the theory of “tripartite personality structure” in which he defined the meaning of id, ego and super-ego. His instinct theory (libido and Thanatos) is an important fundamental. The concept of libido gives later generations a broader perspective to continue the study of philosophy.
1.2 Literature Review
Some scholars study this novel from the perspective of the idea Virginia holds. Emily Blair talks about the Virginia’s views of feminism in Virginia Woolf and the Nineteenth-Century Domestic Novel. Wang Xiaohang analyses Virginia’s opposite view of the heterosexual marriage system in Compulsory heterosexuality and repressed lesbianism: feminist approach to V. Woolf’s“Mrs. Dalloway”. Hu Xinmei attempts to analyze the incurable trauma of human being, especially that of women which caused by the Great War from female’s perspective and demonstrates Virginia’s special salvation schemes from the angle of female to give a scathing indictment of the war and a strong critique of patriarchy in War: Trauma and Woman.
Some previous studies about Mrs. Dalloway focus on theme, theory of fiction and writing style or the author. Tidwell Joanne Campbell indicates “Moment of Being” theory in both Mrs. Dalloway and Virginia’s diary in the book Politics and Aesthetics in The Diary of Virginia Woolf. Yu Caixia analyses the theme of life and death by the virtue of Freudian Psychoanalysis in Life and Death: A Psyehoanalytic InterPretation of Mrs.Dalloway. In the biography of Virginia Woolf, Yi Xiaoming analyzes the writing style of stream of consciousness in Mrs.Dalloway and finds the connection between her experience and her works. Wu Houkai observes the montage using in this novel and mentions the various and coherent way of writing through the first person and the third person’s view in Moments of Being. Jane Goldman looks through Virginia’s works with the new concept which is changing from time to time. The new and up-to-date interpretation of Mrs.Dalloway discovered more symbolic meaning in the book The Cambridge Introduction to Virginia Woolf.
There are many studies about Virginia Woolf and Freud respectively. Only a few studies mention the connections between them. Many of them did not provide a precise analysis about the Thanatos concept they share due to the lack of detailed and deeper interpretation. This essay will focus on the experience and the works of Virginia which can give readers a cogent evidence of her being influenced by Freud, and will attempt to analyze the inner link.