“As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.”

2. “As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.”  “For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.”  Virginia Woolf

3. Virginia Woolf(January 25, 1882 – March 28, 1941) • was an English novelist and essayist regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century. • denied the formal education allowed to males • Her father, Leslie Stephen, edited the huge Dictionary of National Biography.

4. the third of their four children • 1904-Virginia's decision to write took hold • her first novel, The Voyage Out (1915) • suffers through three major mental breakdowns • In March 1941, Woolf left suicide notes for her husband and sister and drowned herself in a nearby river.

6. Most notable publications • “Night and Day” • “The Mark on the Wall” • “Jacob's Room” • “Monday or Tuesday” • “Mrs. Dalloway” • “To The Lighthouse” • “Between the Acts”

7. “Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.”

8. Mrs Dalloway InMrs. Dalloway, published in 1925, Woolf discovered a new literary form capable of expressing the new realities of postwar England. The novel depicts the subjective experiences and memories of its central characters over a single day in post–World War I London. Divided into parts, rather than chapters, the novel's structure highlights the finely interwoven texture of the characters' thoughts.

10. Major characters: • Clarissa Dalloway • Richard Dalloway • Elizabeth Dalloway • Peter Walsh • Sally Seton • Septimus Warren Smith • Lucrezia Warren Smith

11. Summary

12. Major Themes • The sea as symbol of life • Doubling • The intersection of time and timelessness • Social commentary • Disillusionment with the British Empire • The Fear of Death

13. Motifs & Symbols • Time • Shakespeare • Trees and Flowers • The Prime Minister • Peter Walsh's Pocketknife and Other Weapons • The Old Woman in the Window