Writing In A Woman's Literary Tradition

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) is widely recognized as the foremost woman writer of the twentieth century and one of the chief architects of literary modernism. Her modernistic narrative techniques and her experimental practice of a woman's literary tradition have attracted large bodies of criticism. Combining the two major trends of criticism, this thesis is an attempt to study Woolf's narrative art in Mrs. Dalloway and to probe into the construction of the female character, hoping to prove that Woolf attempts to establish a female literary tradition by depicting a female character with disruptive experience and fragmented identities in a double-layered narration.This study consists of six chapters. Chapter One is a brief introduction to Woolf and literature reviews of Mrs. Dalloway. Chapter Two covers the basic definitions of women's literary tradition and different theories proposed by three feminist critics. Chapter Three analyzes the chronological structure and the social character in the superficial level of narration. In Chapter Four, the disruptive narration and the heroine's fragmented identities in the deep level narration are studied. Chapter Five looks back to Woolf's personal experience as referential backup and Chapter Six is the conclusion.