Memory and Modernity:  Exploring Urban Disillusionment and the Search for Meaning in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and Beyond

Dr. Priyanka Kumari

doi:10.53032/tcl.2024.9.4.07

Authors

Dr. Priyanka Kumari Assistant Professor, Department of English (SoLAM), DIT University, Dehradun (Uttarakhand), India

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.53032/tcl.2024.9.4.07

Keywords:

Alienation, Disillusionment, Marginality, Memory, Urban, Resistance, Cultural decay

Abstract

Modernist literature has left an indelible mark by delving into the profound impact of existential anxiety and disorientation that emerges when individuals find themselves ensnared in a web of disillusionment with no clear escape route. This exploration starkly delineates that alienation has been a consistent facet of human experience since the inception of modern capitalist ideas, particularly influencing minds and hearts in urban landscapes. Consequently, the examination of disillusionment remains pertinent in our contemporary society, where urban marginality, memory, and institutional influences continue to intricately shape our lives in complex and opaque ways. Against this backdrop, the present study, with the help of select text, Mrs. Dalloway (1925) written by Virginia Woolf, is an attempt to bring the alienation theme that offers the author’s views not just on a kind of “transformation” amplifying humans’ separation from the world but also on the troubles of the Modern Age. On the one hand, mirroring the fractured state of society and memories, where individuals are isolated and unable to communicate effectively symbolizes emotional emptiness, where characters or societies experience a lack of connection, meaning, or fulfilment. In other words, the present study can serve as a metaphor for the erosion of moral values, cultural decay, and the breakdown of social structures. On the other hand, it strives to provide women with the proper clues through their constant struggles and tireless resistance to have meaning in their lives.

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Author Biography

Dr. Priyanka Kumari, Assistant Professor, Department of English (SoLAM), DIT University, Dehradun (Uttarakhand), India

Dr. Priyanka Kumari, an Assistant Professor of English at DIT University, Dehradun (Uttarakhand), is an accomplished academic with MA, B.Ed, M.Phil, PhD, JKSET, and NTA NET qualifications. She specializes in Dalit Studies, Postcolonial Literature, and LGBTQ literature. Her research interests encompass a wide range of themes, including colonial constructions of gender, postcolonial feminist movements, and the intersections of caste, class, and gender in India. Dr. Priyanka has published research papers in reputed peer-reviewed journals and UGC-CARE listed journals. Her latest research explores decolonial feminism and the representations of gender in Indian literature and Mythology. She currently teaches Literature and Films, Gender and Media, integrating critical perspectives on adaptation techniques and media representations of gender and identity.

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