The Unyielding Pursuit Of Her Real Self:

Virginia Woolf is the most important and eminent female writer in the20thcentury in Britain. Her poetic novel Mrs. Dalloway depicts one single day’s life of ahousewife called Mrs. Dalloway before she hosted her party. By depicting differentcharacter’s memories, imaginations, hopes and disillusions, the writer surpasses theboundary of time and space limitations and goes into the character’s inner hearts.Mixing with memories and realties, Mrs. Dalloway finishes a journey of self-quest.Orientated by the methods of close reading, along with the relevant theories ofexistentialism, I attempt to explore the survival crisis of the women at that time.Andtheir efforts to pursue the true meaning of life by a close reading of Mrs. Dalloway.The thesis includes five parts: the introduction part introduces the novel Mrs.Dalloway briefly, and the critical receptions about this novel at home and aboard,together with some theories of Heidegger’ existentialism which would be used in thisthesis.The first chapter reveals that the upper-class housewives, typically representedby Mrs. Dalloway, loses their real selves in the process of portraying the specific rolesgiven by the society. Mrs. Dalloway tries so hard to be the perfect upper-classhousewife as everyone expects her to be. However, she loses her real self while beingthe role of “Angel in the House” in the process. She could not feel any sense ofbelonging in her real life and has a strong sense of identity crisis.The second chapter mainly discusses the crisis Mrs. Dalloway encounters in herlife. This chapter mainly illustrates Mrs. Dalloway’s suppressed state of being fromthe following three aspects:” the suppressed lesbian tendency”,” the suppressed arttalents”,”the suppressed suicide tendency”.The third chapter mainly discusses Clarissa’s unyielding effort and struggle inthe process of self-quest. In the journey of finding her real self, Mrs. Dallowayreshapes her worldview and has a new recognition towards life and death. After all theattempts and fights, she is determined to face her life bravely. Whether she chooses life or death, she must be absolutely honest to herself. Death is only one of thesolutions to make it.The conclusion part further developes the main argument of this thesis, it pointsout the “Angle in the House” should make great efforts and go through toughstruggles in the process of pursuing their real selves. And this chapter discusses therevelations and impact towards modern people.