CONSCIOUSNESS REPRESENTATION IN MRS DALLOWAY
CONSCIOUSNESS REPRESENTATION IN MRS DALLOWAY

Summary/Abstract: Virginia Woolf’s legacy frames a rich collection of essays which reveal convictions and problematisations of issues concerning different aspects of life. The role of the novelist and the representation of characters are part of her approach, revealing consciousness as a key preoccupation of the writer. Mrs Dalloway, who represents the image of an upper-middle-class woman succeeding in preserving an independent spirit while living in a society with shifting values, reflects a quest designed by Virginia Woolf to express both a social critique of the postwar British mentality and a model of psychological survival through a critical acknowledgement of the changes that take place in the world. Focusing on the topic of identity formation in the novel Mrs Dalloway, this article aims to identify sources and devices used by the writer to create a character that represents a process of becoming. Inspired by the vitalist perspective of Omri Moses, the present approach considers modernist characters as transcending the label of fictional in the sense that they are instances of consciousness responding to and being changed by their internalisation of experiences.

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