Virginia Woolf Mental Illness Essay

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The Modernist Period in English Literature was marked by sudden and unexpected breaks with traditional ways of viewing and writing about the world. The writers of this period focused mainly on the life people led after the war and how it left them confused about humanity. The books are more slowly paced and heavy as compared to the books that get published in the world today. There is more of a personal connection with the author themselves within their works and gives an insight into their lives and perspective on everything they were seeing and experiencing, like the struggles they faced with their mental health. Virginia Woolf suffered from a bipolar disorder or manic depressive illness, which is a brain disorder that causes unusual shifts …show more content…

Woolf used her mental illness and the challenges she faced, and portrayed it in her novel Mrs. Dalloway. This novel Mrs. Dalloway is a reflection of Woolf’s personal struggles. The story raised issues of feminism, mental illness and homosexuality in post-World War I in England. It states the confusion of the people and how they slowly adjust to reality of the English culture after the war. She gives life and a voice to her inner world by imagining the bipolar disorders and illnesses of her characters. She uses techniques like stream of consciousness (narrative method) and indirect interior monologue (characters thoughts) to represent not only her own illusory world but also the hallucinated world of her characters. Woolf was born and raised in London, her love for her hometown is greatly shown in her novel Mrs. Dalloway. She talks about the chimes of Big Ben, the busy life that the people of London had and how the city functioned as a whole. There is a sense of class in Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway since she seems to look down on others who do not seem to have enough money. It shows the readers how little respect she showed to the less fortunate. This is also a reflection of Woolf herself, since she too led a life that was above the middle

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