The Feminine Power In Mrs Dalloway,Three Guineas And Between The Acts

Virginia Woolf is one of the foremost modernist of the twentieth century. Throughout her life, she has experienced three wars, i.e. the First World War, the Spanish Civil War, and the Second World War. England in the first half of the twentieth century’s was inevitably involved in these wars. Therefore, as a female intellectual dwelling in London at that time, Woolf engages in her ways in warfare to express her views on and concerns over the human condition.Since the end of the First World War in 1918, the postwar Europe was in a situation of increasing totalitarian atmosphere. As totalitarianism originates in the broad masses and is rampant in almost every country, every political system, and every ideology, Great Britain is no exception. Thus evidences of totalitarianism can be found in works of literature by British authors like Virginia Woolf. Mrs. Dalloway. published in 1925, tells a story of one day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway in post-World War I England. Three Guineas, published in 1938, is an indictment of war and fascism and a scheme of Woolf’s resolution. Between the Acts, published in 1941, is Woolf’s swan song which explicitly shows her abomination for war and her assertion of feminism. Based on Hannah Arendt’s genealogy of totalitarianism, this thesis analyzes Virginia Woolf’s view on war in the aforementioned three works in an attempt to argue that women play a crucial role in the battle against totalitarianism. In addition to Introduction and Conclusion, this thesis consists of three chapters. Chapter One indicates that the isolation and loneliness of human beings is the prerequisite of totalitarianism, and the universal loss of belief which is reflected in Mrs. Dulloway and Between the Acts. Chapter Two argues that, under the increasingly strong totalitarian atmosphere, the mob, splitting from the masses, align themselves temporarily with the intellectual elite, and go hand in hand to the battlefield. They take terrorism as a proper outlet for frustration, resentment and hatred, and war as the ultra-effective access to violence and terror. Woolf contends that fascism as a stimulus of the Second World War is derived from patriarchy. Woolf holds that the feminine soothing power could serve as a relief from the totalitarian disaster. Chapter Three first indicates that, though the allied mob and elite finally take war as the final resolution to end everything. Woolf. obviously, does not agree with this. She unmistakably exhibits her abomination of war. As the natural differences between men and women, man is the war maker and woman is pacifist. In addition to the female function and obligation in families, women share international responsibilities to reconstruct a better world. Only via the feminine power can the world revive and restore justice, equality, and liberty.