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According to the traditional view, the essential artistic values of Virginia Woolf"s Mrs. Dalloway lie in "her imaginative range with a mind too subtlely responsive to life outside and within" which she depicted in her highly accomplished poetic prose style. The earlier critics such as the novelist ...

According to the traditional view, the essential artistic values of Virginia Woolf"s Mrs. Dalloway lie in "her imaginative range with a mind too subtlely responsive to life outside and within" which she depicted in her highly accomplished poetic prose style. The earlier critics such as the novelist E. M. Forster and Jean Guiquet insisted that Mrs. Dalloway is apolitical and indifferent to social issues. After "modernism", however, younger generations have denied the above-stated traditional view; they have asserted that Mrs. Dalloway has come to reflect a reassessment of English social and political life. One of the reasons why this kind of critical conflict arises is that the theme of the novel is quite ambiguous because the character of Mrs. Dalloway is "a doubtful point." But when I explore the deep structure of the novel, I have discovered that the two critical points of view, old and new, are not separated but interrelated. In fact, Clarrisa is a victim of the patriarchal society; Septimus is the scapegoat who assumes the society"s burden of guilt caused by war. Nevertheless, they have made every effort to free themselves from the oppressive weight of the rigid English society to achieve an inner freedom for the enjoyment of their disinterested pure lives. For her project of liberation Mrs. Dalloway has given a party where all the invited people enjoy their lives without any kind of social repression: Clarissa"s offering－the sense, however vague, of her party-giving－seeks a more spontaneous basis for talk as well as for other forms of social relationship. In the meantime, Septimus who had suffered "deferred war-shock" has committed suicide to defend his "private soul." When Mrs. Dalloway hears of Septimus"s death in the middle of her party, she realizes that Septimus has managed to attain in death an inner freedom that her own life is constantly forcing her to barter away. As a result, allowing herself to think about Septimus"s death with her full imaginative sympathy, she has transformed herself into the pure person who had known "the most exquisite moment of her whole life" in the old days of her youth. Then she acts as a disinterested hostess to make the people in the party enjoy their lives without any kind of social oppression. Clarrisa"s construction of life as such leads to her refinement of life; the construction of life could be made only by enjoying pure life. Under the repression of the rigid social system, life is not able to develop itself for refinement. The social system is of course necessary to maintain the order of the society. But it should not be oppressive to life. Woolf"s criticism of the social system contributes indirectly to its replacement by one less hostile to the life of feeling buried in every human being. Therefore, it could be said that Woolf discusses social issues in the novel in order to obtain an inner freedom of human life which is the basic condition for the achievement of a disinterested aesthetic life.

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