Virginia Woolf 
Seismic historical changes in the West
Feminism, Gender, & Sexuality
Physical & Mental Illness
Relationship between human and nonhuman worlds - Ecology
Elizabeth Outka, "On Seeing Illness: Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway": Influenza raged at the time, and Woolf wrote about this in detail. This experience propelled her forward in her writing.“After all her personal experience with influenza, and despite her initial shrug at the pandemic outbreak, by 1926, she had published two profound meditations in illness that spoke to the pandemic’s aftermath” (104).Her works are written through the lens of a widespread pandemic illness, particularly in Mrs. Dalloway
Mrs. Dalloway: The emergence of the flâneuse:a wanderer.Clear subversion of patriarchy - Peter Walsh follows Clarissa. She opens her front door and sees him as an object. Clear role reversal which women own property and operate in control. Figurative emasculation.Even still, Clarissa sees herself through her husband. Male control was still very much prevalent in society, and all the members of a society operated under this control. “...this being Mrs Dalloway; not even Clarissa any more; this being Mrs Richard Dalloway” (15).
Mrs. Dalloway: Mental illness is prevalent in Septimus, who suffers from PTSD post war. The tears would run down his cheeks, which was to her the most dreadful thing of all, to see a man like Septimus, who had fought, who was brave, crying. And he would lie listening until suddenly he would cry that he was falling down, down into the flames! (137)
To the Lighthouse: Mrs. Ramsey delights in her traditional role of womanhood, but Lily Briscoe resents this. A free thinker and artist. The men look down on the women, but still crave their praise. “Indeed, she had the whole of the other sex under her protection…” (6).
Orlando: Transformation from man to woman shows Woolf’s characterization on the arbitrary nature of gender and how gender is entirely dependent on the norms depicted in a society. Orlando embodies traditional masculine traits as a man, and in the transformation to a woman, embodies traditional femininity. “Truth! Truth! Truth! we have no choice left but confess—he was a woman” (89).
A Room of One's Own Women need a space of their own to create, but are denied this. Ideals for androgyny and materialism. Appeal to make no distinction between the different genders
Kissing a Negress in the Dark Interplay with Orlando, the essay questions the interplay between nationality and other aspects of a person’s identity. Importantly, race and gender. Woolf uses racial tropes in her work in Orlando in order to convey her points of race and sex in an overarching theme of nationality and a sense of belonging
In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: “...tolling away their lives in an era, a century, that did not acknowledge them, except as “the mule of the world”” (401-402).
Mrs. Dalloway: Shows the state of western civilization post WW2. Woolf critiques English society and the emergence of post-War conservatism. The upper English class tried to cling to old traditions and pretend the world had not changed. Septimus is a tool to explain this, as society as a whole seems to completely ignore his PTSD. “The world wavered and quivered and threatened to burst into flames. It is I who am blocking the way, he thought.” The old way of being before the war burst into flames, and it is individuals like Septimus that hold society back in the position of the war, that stand in the way of transforming fully into the new world of the West
A Room of One's Own: Made from a series of lectures Woolf gave to women at the first women’s colleges at Cambridge. The idea of an educated woman emerged, and the notion that Woolf’s generation must forcibly advocate for the changing of women’s position in literature. This, a discernible shift in society and a historic change in the West.
"Modern Fiction": Historical consciousness: Woolf’s modern fiction means that historical consciousness integrates literature with the current era. History and tradition greatly regulate literature. Correlates history and culture in a modern light to represent the mental state of humans (interplay with mental health) and the complexity of our souls in the world. “”The proper stuff of fiction” does exist; everything is the proper stuff of fiction…” (2).
"Mrs. Dalloway's Social System: “I want to criticise the social system, and to show it at work, at its most intense” (1). Governing class’s control over English society post WW1, shows the inhibition of natural expression and a tendency towards stoicism. It is in this way that rebellious members of a society are viewed as unstable and over emotional.
Kissing a Negress in the Dark “The politics of ‘race’ is fired by conceptions of national belonging and homogeneity which not only blur the distinction between ‘race’ and nation, but rely on that very ambiguity for their effect” (393).
Mrs. Dalloway: The Big Ben serves as a clock tower and marker of time in the novel. It acts as both a symbol of English tradition and conservatism (historical changes), and the desire to pretend that the war had not affected society and life, but also Big Ben is used to mark the incessant passage of time. “For having lived in Westminster – how many years now? over twenty, – one feels even in the midst of the traffic, or waking at night, Clarissa was positive, a particular hush, or solemnity; an indescribable pause; a suspense (but that might be her heart, affected, they said, by influenza) before Big Ben strikes. There! Out it boomed. First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable. The leaden circles dissolved in the air” (4).
To the Lighthouse: Symbol of the sea which shows natural worlds apathy toward human life. The sea is unchangeable, and the characters themselves grapple with their own mortality, such as Mr. Ramsey thinking his philosophizing will inevitably never go farther than he wishes it to.When Mrs. Ramsey feels well, the sound of the sea is soothing, and when she doesn’t, the waves are rough and violent. The way of the external world reflects the characters internal thoughts and feelings
A Room of One's Own Desire for a tangible space outside of oneself to express oneself fully, interplay between the human and nonhuman, to represent one’s innermost self. “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction” (7).
In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: “They forced their minds to desert their bodies and their striving spirits sought to rise, like frail whirlwinds from the hard red clay” (402). Women as artists and creatives without an ability to release their gift, Walker describes these women using physical elements.
Virginia Woolf and the Flesh of the World: “From the beginning of her career, Virginia Woolf was acutely attuned to the dynamic bodily fullness of the nonhuman world” (858). Heavy descriptions of landscapes, weather, natural events. Humans in her mind have little effect on nature. Writing to her was an act heavily tied to nature and earth. Writing was cause for great interaction between both the human and nonhuman world. This idea is reflected in To the Lighthouse, questioning the nature of reality, as well as many other works of Woolf. Woolf advocates against her cultures outright dismissal of the living world outside of human perception
The Hours Much like Mrs. Dalloway, similar elements represent ecology. Flowers and water, specifically. Both Richard's mother and Woolf experience the sensation of drowning, to reflect the way they feel on the inside.
The Hours: Richard grapples with and is dying of AIDS. He ends up committing suicide. This is clear representation of both physical and mental illness, and is based upon the novel of Mrs. Dalloway.