Queen Victoria's reign

Orlando: Themes and Symbolism

Main themes explored

The novel explores the dimension where it is impossible to define our identity, represented through the image of androgyny. The individual doesn't have an appearance similar to the real sex. Fluidity of gender is another key theme, where homosexuality and bisexuality are explored naturally.

Symbol of the sea

The sea symbolizes both life and death:

• Life: The body is immersed in amniotic fluid before birth, and water is the main element of our body and cells.
• Death: We can drown in the sea, an unknown place.

Time, thoughts, and personality

The tyranny of time contrasts clock time with our intimate perceptions. The flux of thoughts involves subjectivity and moments of acute awareness. The aim is to give voice to the complex inner world of feeling and memory, with the human personality being a continuous shift of impressions and emotions.

Narrative style

The narrator's point of view transitions from omniscient to inside the character's mind through flashbacks and associations of ideas. Virginia Woolf and James Joyce both describe moments of being and epiphanies, where characters gain sudden insight during daily life.

Stream of consciousness

Woolf's style mixes fluidity and fragmentariness with interior monologues, flashbacks, and an impressionistic narrative style. Characters' thoughts flow logically and grammatically organized, unlike Joyce’s more syntactically unorthodox way.

Mrs Dalloway: Plot Summary and Characters

Plot

The events in Mrs Dalloway take place in London over one day in June 1923. Clarissa Dalloway walks up Bond Street to buy flowers for her evening party. She receives a visit from Peter Walsh, whose proposal she had rejected. Meanwhile, Septimus Warren Smith, a shell-shocked veteran, struggles with mental distress. Later, after a moment with his wife Lucrezia, Septimus takes his own life. Clarissa learns of this at her party.

Characters

• Clarissa Dalloway: A middle-aged woman defined by her marital status and motherhood. She struggles with her identity and memories, seeking stability with her husband Richard Dalloway but remaining unsatisfied.
• Septimus Warren Smith: A 29-year-old veteran with shell shock, haunted by his past and considering suicide as liberation. His story contrasts with Clarissa's acceptance of life.

Modernist elements

Woolf focuses on one character in one day, marking a shift from Victorian literature. The novel’s coherence comes from the mind's impressions and reactions rather than a logical plot chain.

War Poetry

Characteristics

During this period, poetry written at the front reflected on life and demonstrated two types:

• Positive, heroic representations (Brooke, Sassoon, Owen).
• Realist portrayals of war’s horrors.

War poets were soldiers themselves, depicting torments contrary to patriotic rhetoric. War was seen as a source of horror and not heroism, as shown in the character of Septimus.

Rupert Brooke: The Soldier

Brooke's perspective

• Brooke died of disease in 1915, with a romantic vision of war.
• His poems were used as propaganda, glorifying dying for one's country.

Wilfred Owen: Dulce et Decorum Est

Owen's perspective

Owen’s poems depicted the brutality of war, challenging the lie of noble sacrifice. His poem "Dulce et Decorum Est" is a critique of the romanticized view of war, expressed through personal experiences and innovative poetic techniques.