Virginia Woolf – Mrs Dalloway. A Psychoanalytical Reinterpretation of the Canon
Virginia Woolf – Mrs Dalloway. A Psychoanalytical Reinterpretation of the Canon

Summary/Abstract: The thesis of the present paper is the following: does Clarissa succeed in recreating/rebuilding herself, her identity, her life and her happiness? In order to answer this question, I will employ certain feminist psychoanalytical theories of feminist literary criticism. Firstly, Clarissa seems to be extremely feminine and heterosexual at the beginning of the novel, completely lacking (repressing) her “other” within herself. Yet this proves to be only a mask. Secondly, she unconsciously realizes that her “other” is missing in her and thirdly she recuperates this “other” by using various weapons. Her strongest weapon is writing, which I will interpret in the sense of écriture féminine. Only at this moment, after having regained her “other” can she become an ‘artist’, a creator, of her own life and destiny.

• Details
• Contents