Patriarchy and Gender Critique in Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway

Introduction: Clarissa as a Vehicle for Social Critique

Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs. Dalloway contains many hallmarks of the author's style and thematic concerns, including a critique of gender roles and concepts of mental illness. The protagonist Clarissa — the eponymous Mrs. Dalloway — reflects on the trajectory of her life, and self-reflection becomes the lens through which she develops a cogent critique of the entire social system in which she lives. Clarissa's reflections, catalyzed by her observations of the men and women in her social circle, comprise a fundamentally pessimistic point of view. Septimus's suicide then highlights the fact that there is no way out of the patriarchal structure; there are only ways of coping with its immutable power. In Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf employs Clarissa as a vehicle for critiquing patriarchy and all it entails: class-based social hierarchies, gender bias, and heteronormativity.

Suppressed Bisexuality and the Constraints of Heteronormativity

One of the novel's central themes is the way patriarchy constrains the organic evolution of relationships. Clarissa has long been aware of how British social conventions restrict her ability to love whomever she pleases. Specifically, those conventions prevent her from exploring her bisexuality, even though she is deeply infatuated with Sally Seton. Clarissa is cognizant of her love for Sally and also understands that there is no place in British society for the development of romantic love between women — romantic love remains confined to the dictates of heterosexual marriage. Yet Clarissa speaks of "falling in love with women," and when referring to Sally Seton asks, "Had not that, after all, been love?" (Woolf 26–27).

One of the main reasons Clarissa loves and admires Sally is her carefree attitude and indifference to social norms. Clarissa underestimates her own nonconformist tendencies and instead projects those feelings onto her friend. "Sally's power was amazing," Clarissa notes, after musing on the nature of "falling in love with women" (Woolf 26). One night, Clarissa "could not take her eyes off Sally" — a fixation she does not feel as intensely toward her husband or even Peter, whom she clearly loves as well (Woolf 27). Stricken by Sally's physical beauty, Clarissa notes she "envied" Sally's "sort of abandonment, as if she could say anything, do anything, a quality much commoner in foreigners than in Englishwomen" (Woolf 27).

Referring to Sally's bohemianism as an inherently "foreign" quality — and even suggesting Sally might be part "French" — draws attention to the primary social critique Woolf makes through her titular character. Clarissa shows readers that English society represses natural sexual and emotional desire, generating problems in relationships, problems with identity, and problems with mental health. Mrs. Dalloway demonstrates that patriarchal societies create dissatisfaction, loneliness, isolation, and even suicidal ideation. Woolf goes so far as to link patriarchy with death itself.

Death as a Motif: Patriarchy and the Soul

Death is a major motif in Mrs. Dalloway, serving several functions. One function is to evoke the way patriarchy kills the soul. The character of Septimus and his ongoing anguish over the "death of the soul" underscores this trajectory of thought throughout the novel. Another function of the death motif is to allow Clarissa to contemplate her own mortality — and thereby reveal to the reader what she thinks of her own life and her role in society. Whereas she views Sally as someone with joie de vivre, someone who lives fearlessly and to the fullest, Clarissa feels "sheltered" by comparison (Woolf 27). In one passage, Clarissa contemplates her own mortality directly and rather fearlessly, despite her self-deprecating attitude: "Did it matter then, she asked herself…that she must inevitably cease completely; all this must go on without her" (Woolf 7). Finally, death serves a symbolic function as the death of outmoded social norms.

Conclusion: Patriarchy's Harm to Men and Women Alike

A patriarchal society portrays emotions and passions as deviant, and in so doing, murders the very essence of what it means to be human. The medical establishment labels Septimus as deviant because of his emotionality — a province traditionally assigned to women. By making Septimus, a male character, the one who is diagnosed as mentally ill and prescribed separation from his loved ones and from "normal" society, Woolf demonstrates that patriarchy is as harmful to men as it is to women.

Mrs. Dalloway is a complex novel in which Clarissa's narrative becomes a vehicle for broader social critique of gender norms and sexuality. Clarissa reflects on Septimus's death in the context of her own life, likely realizing that if she too fails to discover her passions and express them fully, she may succumb to the same fate. In addition to suppressing genuine and healthy emotional experiences, patriarchy strips people of the ability to love whom they please, imposes artificial sanctions on human relationships and self-expression, and generates tremendous social inequities — including gender and class-based inequality.

Works Cited

Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. Digital edition.