Modernist Strategies of Character Representation in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and To The Lighthouse

Following and exploring the concept of character in modernist fiction essentially takes one to the complex and turbulent world of literary modernism , a world which entails a highly problematic issues and extremely sophisticated literary , critical , philosophical and psychological issues and concerns. This paper explores the world of modernist fiction in an attempt to concretize the transformations and innovations that modernism has brought about to the representation of character as represented in the fiction of Virginia Woolf (1882 – 1941). The main premise upon which the study is based is that this seeming failure and patent weakness of Woolf’s characterization is the outcome of the lack of understanding the nature of Woolf’s modernist art and the inability to comprehend Woolf’s philosophy and the modernist strategies applied in her representation of characters. The paper, therefore, embraces the belief that Woolf means her characters to be astonishingly insignificant. The search, then, is for the philosophy that makes this seeming failure a part of the complexity and force of Woolf’s fiction and a manifestation of the modernist strategies she applies in the representation of character. To prove the reliability of this core premise of the study, the researcher is expected to answer some important questions related to Woolf’s art and vision; Through a critical reading and analysis of Woolf’s  Mrs. Dalloway (1925), the researcher endeavors to prove the authenticity and reliability of the core premise of the study.