Time Concept In Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway

Virginia Woolf is regarded as one of the greatest writers in modern fiction. She writes innovative pieces of fiction for she uses stream-of-consciousness technique and experiments with different point of views. Furthermore, Woolf's treatment of time is an important issue in her fiction as her narrative skill breaks away from the traditional chronological narrative mode.Virginia Woolf undermines the usual conventions of prior prose fictions by adopting an innovative approach to time. She uses time to construct a plot in the novel Mrs. Dalloway. In fact, the story is about Mrs. Dalloway several hours'preparations for a dinner party on a single June day, which covers the protagonist's 30 years'life span by Woolf's special treatment of time and stream-of-consciousness narrative skills.Stream-of-consciousness writing is usually regarded as a special form of interior monologue and is characterized by associative leaps in syntax and punctuation that can make the prose difficult to understand, tracing a character's fragmentary thoughts and sensory feelings.This paper will discuss Virginia Woolf's concept of time theoretically and in her novel Mrs. Dalloway, which is published in the year 1925.First of all, in the first chapter, Woolf's concept of time will be given in order for readers to have a brief idea about the topic in this thesis, including Woolf's perspectives in clock time as well as characters'psychological time.Then in the second chapter, it will examine how Woolf manages to present her time in this novel. In the third chapter, focus will be on the effects that the special time has made on both the structure and expression of motif in this novel, as well as its great impact on the novelist Virginia Woolf and that of novel narration.Furthermore, in the first chapter, Henri Bergson's concept of time will be presented briefly as it has been the most influential theory on time philosophy of modern novelists', especially that of Virginia Woolf's.To sum up, by observing closely Virginia Woolf's application of special time concept in this novel, this thesis is meant to display that the special time order influences the structure of this novel, which in turn lays impact on the expression of meaning in this novel.