The Changing Society of Mrs. Dalloway

What is the novel about? "Mrs Dalloway" is a novel so rich and complex in its imagery, and the issues to which it gives rise are so many and so varied, that to assign one distinctly defined meaning to it, as one might for a Victorian or Edwardian novel, is to miss the point of Woolf's style. Woolf was adamant that the literary conventions of her Edwardian predecessors, such as reliance on material evidence and …

…methodically, and for control over one's life. This is represented throughout the novel by Woolf's use of water imagery, such as the fountain in the scene where Clarissa rejects Peter: water is never quite under control; always there is a hint of danger, of unpredictability. It is unrelenting, and can be channelled, but not confined . Above all, it is always changing, never keeping the same form or appearance from moment to moment: such is life.