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1. Introduction

1.1 Introduction to the Author

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was born on 5^th January at 22 Hyde Park Gate in Kensington, London, regarded as one of the foremost feminists of the twentieth century. During the interwar period, she was a key figure in English literary field and a member of the famous Bloomsbury Group. She was educated informally by her parents at home. Throughout her whole life, she has published the following novels: The Voyage Out (1915), Night and Day (1919), Jacob’s Room(1922), Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), Orlando (1928),The Waves (1931), The Years (1937), Between the Acts (1941). Because of her experience that she was always plagued by mental disorder and association, in her works she experimented with stream of consciousness and the underlying psychological as well as emotional motives of characters. Woolf tended to disregard the confiscated appearances of materials in the world and reveal the philosophy of life in the process of exploration of nature and human life. In her works, she kept engaging in the exploration on the innovation of writing in literature and jumped from the traditional form of writing and blazed new trails in stream of consciousness to emphasize the reality though delving into mental world and depiction of the characters.

1.2 Introduction to Mrs. Dalloway

Mrs.Dalloway is one of the most famous novels of Virginia Woolf. It describes the experiences and memories of its main characters after World War I.

It is a sunshiny morning in June in 1923 in London, Clarissa, the wife of Richard Dalloway, goes out to buy flowers for her party to be held in evening. On her way to the florist’s shop, some scenes come in her mind, especially the memories with her past lover Peter Walsh, who would be back from India. They have not met for five years hitherto. In Bond Street, an abrupt explosion that came from a motor car attracts the attention of passersby, among them there is a man, Septimus Warren Smith, a veteran suffering from traumatic pressure and hallucination, walking in the street in the company of his Italian-born wife Lucrezia. Septimus is always visited by his dear dead friend Evans in mind. Later that day, after he is prescribed involuntary commitment to a psychiatric hospital, he commits suicide by jumping out of a window.

Woolf completely abandons the concrete description of objective reality and emphasizing the human being’s subjective feelings. The author peeled off the inner inhibition, the depression towards life and all kinds of morbid psychology of the characters layer upon layer.

1.3 Introduction for the Relevant Social Background

After World War I, the western society has ushering into the era of urbanization and industrialization. Dramatic changes can be seen in people’s material and mental life, traditional sense of value has been shaken, and the central status of religion has also been undermined, the relationship between people has become complex and not as close as they used to be. The individual feels isolated and helpless as if living in the ethereal air. With materialism soaring, the gospel of mammon guilds people’s life, extravagant material life has gradually usurped the sublime mental world. People are intruded by fear, despair, agony and agitation on the desert of soul. The emotion of suspicion and rebellion emerged in the capitalist society after the havoc of war, which aggravates people’s sense of grief and loss.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Literature Review

Woolf is one of the greatest female writers in the 20^th century, whose works are mainly concerned about seeking the truth of life. Mrs. Dalloway is considered a magnum opus of Woolf. Regarding the theme in Mrs. Dalloway, theme discussion always focuses on life, war, social system and self-transcendence. Li Maoxiu (2008)has once mentioned that Virginia Woolf showed us how Mrs. Dalloway’s life was between struggle and compromise by depicting her life experience. Wang Qian (2015)claims that Virginia Woolf uncovered the past filthy medical system as a representative and penetrated into the odious social system. Hu Xinmei (2005)notes that war is doomed to be criticized and peace should be advocated for the happiness of human. Li Wei and Zhao Juan (2011)also states that the author’s eager to pursue gender equality and harmonious world. Yang Yu and Zhu Jie (2007)deems that Clarissa finally realized self-transcendence from split personality through meditation on death and life. Li Man (2011)maintains that life is full of paradoxes, for instance, joy and agony always go hand in hand, as well as beauty and ugliness. Life should always be continued. In a nutshell, the theme can be revealed through writing techniques.

As for the writing techniques, Li Wei and Zhao Juan (2011) connect natural symbols with characters by symbolism to delve into loneliness within Clarissa, fear of Lucrezia and war-torn environment.

Liu Xia (2015) analyzed Mrs. Dalloway from some respects: interior monologue, montage, free association and view description, and also cited some examples from the novel to anatomize the mental world of the characters, for example Septimus’s psychological twist and Mrs. Dalloway’s pent-up flounce when facing the reality. Furthermore, permeating through the conflicted moral action, the author revealed individual life, the meaning of life and the western countries’ spiritual world after World WarⅠ.

Similarly, scholars Wang Lei(2013) and Wen Hongjia(2002)also presented the application of stream of consciousness such as free association, interior monologue and view description, but almost all these researchers tend to explore writing skills by merely focusing on the common examples: Clarissa’s reverie on her way to buy flowers in the opening chapters, Toffee’s advertisement by planes, a myriad of thoughts running though Septimus’s head when he sits on the park bench, Clarissa’s appearances in the eyes of others and Mrs. Dalloway’s dismay on her senility and delight on her youth and beauty. From the above analysis, in terms of the quantity and types of the examples cited in articles, the argumentation has its limitation, devoid of diversity and ingenuity, thus leading to incomprehensible understanding of this novel and unthorough insight of writing techniques. More detailed descriptions that pertain to characters and surroundings remain to be dug for discussion in the section of writing features.

In the aspect of writing technique in character portrayal in Mrs. Dalloway, Zhai Like(2013) dissects the narrative technique, character juxtaposition the author adopted involved in this novel. Besides, Wang Rui (2014)also delves into character juxtaposition to elicit the motif that Clarissa was enlightened from Septimus’s death and brought herself back to life. They all concentrate on the two clues of Clarissa and Septimus to unveil the two extremes of characters’ personality. They all mention that there is no connection between Clarissa and Septimus in life, but the portrayals of two characters is juxtaposed in function and are linked by same utterance( “Don’t be afraid of sun” ) and outside events like bell ringing, car bombs and gossip between acquaintances. Septimus can be deemed as another side of Mrs. Dalloway, they both encountered the death of souls and are sternly cold and unmoved, at last Septimus chose physical death and Clarissa mental death. The death of Septimus makes Clarissa more appreciative of life than before and think of the true essence of life in depth. In addition, there are other various hidden lines linking Clarissa and Septimus like war and marriage that deserve to be discussed. However, these authors just grasp the superficial links like the outer objects (trees and waves) to connect the two characters and neglect key circumstances, in which they stay, like unhappy marriage and post-war Britain society. All in all, the juxtaposition adds richness to the theme of this novel to some degree and causes the character images more plentiful.

2.2 Purpose of Writing

My thesis is to attempt to interpret Mrs. Dalloway from the perspective of writing technique. And the study will cover montage, free association, interior monologue, psychological twist, poeticization, musicization and character juxtaposition. Hopefully, the thesis will help people have a further understanding of Mrs. Dalloway and the author’s attitude towards life and society.

3. The Use of Writing Techniques in Mrs. Dalloway3.1 Montage in Mrs. Dalloway

3.1.1 Brief Introduction to Montage

Montage belongs to the loan word from France, originally architecture term, meaning composition and assembly. It is a kind of artificial collage clip gimmicks that have implications of space and time. Montage has its first practical application in film field, then extending into arts and literature. It features explaining plots and demonstrating events. At the same time, it can splice two or several geographically different plots together quickly and frequently, one of the clues often influence the development of other clues, various clues being interdependent, finally join together.

3.1.2 Exploration of montage through detailed textual analysis

In this novel, Woolf describes a scene that an aeroplane makes an advertisement for Toffee through letting out white smoke to form the letters. In such a section, the author shows various pictures in London streets by montage, all people are gazing straight up. The curled and wreathed white smoke looks like “Glaxo” for Mrs. Coates, “Kreemo” for Mrs. Bletchley, and “It is Toffee” for Mr. Bowley. At the same time, Lucrezia keeps her husband in mind and follows Dr. Holmes’s advice to distract Septimus’s attention. However, Septimus deems that they are signaling to him. Then the plane keeps shooting and the lens transfer to Mrs. Dempster, who is a little frightened by the plane, Mr. Bentley rolling his strip of turf in Greenwich and a seedy-looking nondescript man at the doorway of St. Paul’s Cathedral, finally ending in the question of Clarissa, “what are they looking at?”

At the beginning of the book, a violent explosion from those tyres of a motor car happened, Mrs. Dalloway jumps, Miss Pym comes to check, passers-by stare and buzz about the disarray, Edgar J. Watkiss also joins in fun, guessing that it’s “The Proime Minister’s kyar”, Septimus focuses on the odd pattern upon blinds, terror engendering in his mind, boys spring off bicycles. Pictures are constantly switching in this process. Time remains unchanged, and spatial factors are changing, realizing the unity of space and time. From all above, London citizens are very susceptible to the external stimulis.

3.2 Free Association in Mrs. Dalloway

3.2.1 Brief Introduction to Free Association

Free association is one of the most important methods to limn the inner world of characters, which refers to gossamer-like thoughts revolving around what one sees and hears, sometimes soaking oneself in past, looking forward to future and abruptly cut off by reality.

3.2.2 Exploration of Free Association through Detailed Textual Analysis

The freshness of morning in June takes Clarissa back to the glory days of calf love with Peter and looks (“she felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged”). Hatchards’ shop window reminds her of Evelyn Whitbread’s ailments, Lady Bexborough, the ideal appearance she wants to take on and inner loneliness of being invisible and lack of passion in life. Then she steers her train of thoughts upon her daughter Elizabeth, embittered and unfortunate creature Miss Kilman. As an atheist Clarissa thinks that Kilman is overwhelmed by religious zealot, ugly and awkward and she wants to grab her Elizabeth from her cantankerously.

When crossing the side of Septimus and his wife in Regent’s Park, Peter exclaims over changes during five years: the softness of the distances, the richness, the greenness, the civilization, women become more fashionable and dignified, the topics on newspaper are fresher and people tend to make up in public. Then his mind concentrates on Sally Seton who is a wild, daring and romantic girl, and obsequious and snobbish Hugh who harbors the most extraordinary, natural and subliming respect for the British aristocracy, obscure and negligible Mrs. Hugh, and limited but kind and patient Dalloway. Under such a circumstance, he compares himself with them, lamenting that he has even no jobs to eke out the barest living at the middle age. In the meanwhile, Mrs. Dalloway keeps coming back and back like a sleeper jolting against him in a railway Carriage, after seeing how she lives, he feels that Mrs. Dalloway presumably, in some degree, looks down her nose at the lifestyle of him in fiddling with slouching and she has been brainwashed by the temporary tariff reform, deep-rooted hierarchy and the public-spirited ideas, thus being reduced to be worldly and worthless married woman without individuality.

3.3 Interior Monologue in Mrs. Dalloway

3.3.1 Brief Introduction to Interior Monologue

Interior monologue is a literary genre that presents a fictional character's sequence of thoughts in the form of a monologue, one of the techniques that manifest characters’ conscious activities. It is a silent language, in which no listeners and author as participants, the consciousness is displayed in the presences of readers fluently and naturally, unfolding the qualities and thinking of characters fully to spur readers’ comprehension to new heights.

3.3.2 Exploration of Interior Monologue through Detailed Textual Analysis

Clarissa is informed by her maid Lucy that Lady Bruton invited Mr. Dalloway to her party but not including her, which makes her shiver, disappointed and jealous. Be discarded by a party, she regards the daylight in June just as an appalling night. Opposition to bustling street, she is shroud by her senility, failed brain and absence of the extraordinarily amusing party. Mrs. Dalloway always seeks for sense of existence through gathering and fills the inner nihility.

When Peter meets her at her residence, he tells her that he was in love with a married woman with two children who is the wife of a Major in the Indian Army. At that time Mrs. Dalloway feels so grateful not to marry Peter when she was young and derides what Peter has been experiencing all his life. A wave of anger pours into Mrs. Dalloway’s mind while Peter paring his nails in chatting, she thinks that his silly unconventionality, lack of consideration of others’ feeling, and weakness get infinite enlargement. However, Peter weeps suddenly without a least shame, she hurries to console him by holding his hand and kissing, clapping his knee, she also reverses to think of the gaiety within her if she marries Peter. “Take me with you, Clarissa thought impulsively, as if he were starting directly upon some great voyage” In a flash, she also wants to follow Peter to pursue for spiritual freedom and zeal. Woolf realizes the transition of Clarissa’s mind between Clarissa and Mrs. Dalloway by a series of interior monologues, revealing the frail and sentimental heart.

Although the inner monologue about Mrs. Dalloway occupies many pages, we can also extract the monologue concerning Mr. Dalloway, the husband of Clarissa. After stepping out of Lady Bruton’s home, Hugh is considering if he can buy a necklace for Evelyn, Dalloway immerses himself in inner monologue. He feels buying necklace for Evelyn like the worthlessness of this life and arrogation of Hugh towards the salesclerk in a shop strike him heavily, in fact he gives Clarissa nothing except a bracelet. On the way home, he buys the roses for Clarissa and plans how to express his love to his wife. By passing the road, corps, vendors and prostitutes evoke his condemnation about the detestable social system. He loves Clarissa, but not good at conveying his love, he cherishes the subtle and mediocre happiness besides him. He also owns the sympathy with the poor life of the lower class.

3.4 Psychological Twist in Mrs. Dalloway

3.4.1 Brief Introduction to Psychological Twist

Psychological twist is deviating from the norm of the person's psychology and behavior, is the morbid psychology. Psychological distortion is that the information from the outside world is distorted in the autistic brain, forming the wrong understanding, thus affecting a person's behavior, have a tendency to split personality or depression. For example, there will be "why do I live?" "Why don't die from the start? This kind of mental state, someone have been bullied that tends to have an impulse to kill each other. A person who is psychological distortion is reverse psychology. Psychological twist features with severe resistance, hostility and imagination.

3.4.2 Exploration of Psychological Twist through Detailed Textual Analysis

Psychological twist finds the perfect embodiment on Septimus Warren Smith incisively and vividly. Insane Smith sits on the chair in the park with a myriad of thoughts and ideas. His thinking transfers from the reality and illusion, between the past and future. First, he is suddenly ware of the fact that human beings should not cut down trees (controlled by the rational logic at that time), and thinks of God somewhere to dominate the world of (he regards God with awe despite insanity); then he sees Evans standing behind the railings, a dead comrade-in-arms in the World War I and imagines that some faces from the walls are speaking and laughing at him and that a woman’s head in the middle of a fern. Everything in his eyes seems very odd. His argument about killing themselves often leads to fear and agony of Lucrezia, who has difficulty in seek for safety and happiness in marriage with Septimus and admires every person that lives a common and easy life. Then he emphasizes that love and innocence are the eternal truth that seems the most important for him after suffering from the brutal war. He desires that humans should live in peace together, stop killing, away from the war. Finally the birds bring his consciousness back to reality. Psychological activities of Smith are not limited by time and space, with a great leap and variability. In addition, he have an illusion that he is drown in sea, lying on the cliff and Lucrezia is a tree in blossom and there is a face of legislator among her twigs as if he can seek a shelter from Lucrezia, Holmes and Bradshaw are on her. Holmes and Bradshaw play the role of evil who aims to deprive him of his humanity and freedom, confining him in a cocoon of so-called sanatorium. Septimus who undergoes shell-shock and psychological twist finally chooses death to realize the soul emancipation and safeguard the independence of personality.

3.5 Poeticization in Mrs. Dalloway

3.5.1 Brief Introduction to Poeticization

Poeticization has the aesthetic standard of poetry, shows that the overall design belongs to the feeling of poetry or poetic descriptions can be found in parts. It is a writer that carefully refines and creates a unique image, details and specific atmosphere, scene description, full of flavor of lyrics and of condensed philosophical meaning. Such novels do not focus on the narrative function, not on plot conflict to highlight character, but attach great importance to the creation of artistic conception. With its poetic metaphor, symbol and the main affection, time and psychology blend completely, embodying poetry beauty.

With a limited picture, Novels with poetic beauty are equipped with features that can get sublimation to the infinite thoughts from an image and an increase from the concrete plot to recapitulate common implication. It has specific feelings of life, aesthetics, and thinking of a rich connotation, broad mind.

3.5.2 Exploration of Poeticization through Specific Textual Analysis

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