Madness of Women in Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway
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Faculty of english
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.