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Themes

Feminism

As a commentary on inter-war society, Clarissa's character highlights the role of women as the proverbial "Angel in the House" and embodies both sexual and economic repression. She keeps up with and even embraces the social expectations of the wife of a patrician politician, but she is still able to express herself and find distinction in the parties she throws^[2].

Her old friend Sally Seton, whom Clarissa admires dearly, is remembered as a great independent woman^[2]: she smoked cigars, once ran down a corridor naked to fetch her sponge-bag, and made bold, unladylike statements to get a reaction from people. When Clarissa meets her in the present day, she turns out to be a perfect housewife, having married a self-made rich man and had five sons.

Homosexuality

Clarissa Dalloway is strongly attracted to Sally at Bourton -- 34 years later, she still considers the kiss they shared to be the happiest moment of her life. She feels about women "as men feel" (from "Mrs Dalloway", Penguin Popular Classics 1996, page 36 OR Harcourt, Inc. (2005), Page 35), but she does not recognize these feelings as signs of homosexuality.

She and Sally fell a little behind. Then came the most exquisite moment of her whole life passing a stone urn with flowers in it Sally stopped; picked a flower; kissed her on the lips. The whole world might have turned upside down! The others disappeared; there she was alone with Sally. And she felt that she had been given a present, wrapped up, and told just to keep it, not to look at it - a diamond, something infinitely precious, wrapped up, which, as they walked (up and down, up and down), she uncovered, or the radiance burnt through, the revelation, the religious feeling! (Woolf, 36)

The relationship between Doris Kilman and Elizabeth Dalloway demonstrates that the older may have certain lesbian feelings towards Clarissa's daughter.

Similarly, Septimus is haunted by the image of his dear friend Evans. Evans, his commanding officer is described as being "undemonstrative in the company of women." Woolf describes Septimus and Evans behaved together like "two dogs playing on a hearth-rug" who, inseparable, "had to be together, share with each other, fight with each other, quarrel with each other..." Jean E. Kennard notes that the word "share" could easily be read in a Forsteran manner, perhaps as in Forster's Maurice which testifies as to the word's use in this period to describe homosexual relations. Furthermore, Kennard is one to note Septimus' "increasing revulsion at the idea of heterosexual sex", abstaining from sex with Rezia and feels "the business of copulation was filth to him before the end."^[3] Other critics contend that Septimus and Evans are intended as parallels for T.S. Eliot and his dear friend Jean Verdenal, whom Eliot mourned greatly.^[4]

Mental illness

Septimus, as the shell-shocked war hero, operates as a pointed criticism of the treatment of mental illness and depression^[2]. Woolf lashes out at the medical discourse through Septimus' decline and ultimate suicide: his doctors make snap judgments about his condition, talk to him mainly through his wife, and dismiss his urgent confessions before he can make them.

There are similarities in Septimus' condition to Woolf's own struggles with bipolar disorder (they both hallucinate that birds sing in Greek, and Woolf once attempted to throw herself out of a window as Septimus finally does)^[2]. Woolf eventually committed suicide by drowning.

Existential issues

When Peter Walsh sees a girl in the street and stalks her for half an hour, he notes that his relationship to the girl was "made up, as one makes up the better part of life." By focusing on character's thoughts and perceptions, Woolf emphasizes the significance of private thoughts, rather than concrete events, in a person's life. Most of the plot points in Mrs Dalloway are realizations that the characters make in their own heads^[2].

Fueled by her bout of ill health, Clarissa Dalloway is emphasized as a woman who appreciates life. Her love of party-throwing comes from a desire to bring people together and create happy moments. Her charm, according to Peter Walsh who loves her, is a sense of joie de vivre, always summarized by the sentence, "There she was." She interprets Septimus Smith's death as an act of embracing life, and her mood remains light even when she figures out her marriage is a farce.