`Mrs. Dalloway is one of the best-known novels of Virginia Woolf. It is a masterpiece of the

modernist literature e!ploring themes such as time and secular living mental illness

e!istential issues feminism and homose!uality. It is a novel interested in the sub"ect as

#larissa Dalloway perceives everything around her as the only source of truth. $he notions of 

consciousness and time are defined by sub"ectivity. We are going to e!plore in this essay why

can we consider Mrs. Dalloway a war novel.

$he action in Mrs. Dalloway is set in post-%irst World War &ngland. $here are

significant symbols in the novel that reveal some of the monstrous effects of the brutality of 

war. 's a character to represent the image of war there is (eptimus Warren (mith. $his

character is a counter-point for #larissa Dalloway when referring to the representation of the

world. (eptimus a %irst World War Veteran suffering from deferred traumatic stress spends

his day in the park and is visited by fre)uent and indecipherable hallucinations. #larissa

Dalloway is somehow protected by the monstrosity of the war which has "ust finished. (he is

about to plan a party thinking at her e!istential issues such as her age her past choices

regarding the man whom she married.

We have in the novel two different perspectives over the world. %irst we have the

 preoccupations of #larissa with the party she is about to attend. *er thoughts are mi!ed in a

kind of vorte! making her entrance in the past where she finds herself melancholic. (he

married the reliable +ichard Dalloway instead of the enigmatic and demanding ,eter Walsh

and she had not the option to be with (ally (eaton. (econd (eptimus is a soldier who

fought in the war and he became paranoid his main preoccupation being the thought of 

imminent death. %inally he commits suicide by "umping out of a window. #larissa/s party is

also a symbolic scene where everyone is feeling good and where artificialities of social

interaction appear. (o we have the man who suffered and he cannot do anything because he is

irremediably affected by war and we have the woman who tries to capture a glimpse of 

happiness reflecting at the past. 0oth live in a continuous present as 1ertrude (tein

remarked as #larissa thinks at her youth at 0ourton and (eptimus at his time when he was

soldier.

War is the truth and society with its appearances and ludic relations between different

 people is one of the ma"or themes of this novel. We cannot escape war but we can hide it

 behind the glamorous party which would be the only reason to live. If we cannot escape

death at least we can en"oy the present.

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*enri 0ergson ,roust (tream of consciousness free association sub"ective6interior time.