Accumulation of Self in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway

Abstract

This critical engagement analyses the journey of self-completion that Clarissa and Septimus went through. The study focuses on two aspects: Firstly, the identity crisis these characters went through in the process of individuation—secondly, the inner workings of their minds and their implications on routine activities that they perform. Virginia Wolf's characters are complex and mind-boggling. They can be seen in a constant struggle between their desire for identity formation and longing to escape from the unforgiving substances of regular day-to-day existence. In the novel Mrs Dalloway, the two protagonists, Mrs Clarissa Dalloway and Mr Septimus Warren Smith are incessantly involved in outer fights and inner struggles. According to Mikhael Bakhtin, there are no fixed boundaries within which individuals interact with each other. Their exterior world shapes the inner world of individuals and thus connects the inner hidden self with everyone and everything that an individual comes across in his/her life. The effect of ‘others’ on a unique individual self is timeless and manifests itself in everything that an individual does throughout his/her life. The researchers used the theory of dialogical self by Mikhael Bakhtin as a research methodology and critically interpreted the text of Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway.