Madness of Women in Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway

Abstract

Abstract Virginia Woolf'sMrs. Dallowayis a novel which portraysthe female suffocation in the patriarchal society. Due to such suffocation, females have to face many difficulties, such as mental breakdown or madness that sometimes leads even to suicide. In the novel, Clarissa's doppelganger Septimus Smith has to undergo mental breakdown due to the suffocation of patriarchal domination and treatment system. Females are dominated on social, physical, economical, political, and also in the name of treatment which can be clearly noticed in the novel. The middle-aged female protagonist Clarissa Dalloway is forced to stay in the attic by her husband, M.P Richard Dalloway as he thinks that she has gone insane or mad. Though she gets confused in her life because of the alluring patriarchal discourse, she realizes the deceptiveand destructive potential in it after hearing the suicide news of her doppelganger, Septimus Smith. Moreover, she finds herself not as an independent individual but the wife of Richard. i.e. merely Mrs. Dalloway.