Gender Roles In Mrs Dalloway

Question 4: The Subsuming of the Female Identity Under the Performance of Gender Roles

In Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and Lu Xun’s Mourning the Dead, Mrs Dalloway and Zijun are central female characters who must navigate the tensions between their personal identities and their identities as their spouses’ partners. Despite the different cultural contexts of the texts’ respective Western and Eastern setitngs, both characters find themselves bound by largely similar patriarchal expectations which demand the sacrifice of their private identities in order to perform their societal roles. This essay will thus argue that despite these female characters’ strong sense of self, the persistence of patriarchal norms inevitably causes their identities

They are no longer perceived as individuals in their own right, but as an extension of their spouse. Mrs Dalloway resigns herself to the fact that “Richard her husband…was the foundation of” her “daily life” (Woolf, p. 25). For her to make such a claim would mean that she is well aware that her identity and life revolves around his, and that she would lose her purpose should he cease to exist. Her emphasis on Richard being “her husband” also implies a keen recognition of the fact that her identity is inextricably linked with her position as his wife; she no longer possesses a concrete identity outside of this relationship. Her personal desires and feelings are also secondary to her husband’s. She does not wish to invite Ellie Henderson to her party because she is not fond of her, but since Richard “did not see the reasons against asking Ellie Henderson”, Mrs Dalloway had to do so “as he wished it” (Woolf, p. 102). This is a pertinent example of how Mrs Dalloway is reduced to a mere vessel for her husband’s desires; she is not allowed to act on her own terms. Likewise, Zijun finds herself trapped in an unhappy relationship with Juansheng because her reputation has been irrevocably tainted by the illicit nature of their relationship. Juansheng is aware that their separation would harm Zijun because she would be thrust into “an atmosphere of

It is significant that both characters experience such similar pressures on their identities despite coming from starkly different backgrounds; it would be worth exploring the changing landscapes of a post-WWI England and a Chinese society in the throes of revolution and how they both have managed to retain parallel patriarchal norms in their societies despite being in such turbulent states. In addition, Woolf and Lu Xun’s intentions in providing brief glimpses into who Mrs Dalloway and Zijun once were should be further analysed for insight on what these authors felt constituted a distinct female identity – what would Mrs Dalloway’s latent homosexuality and Zijun’s radical feminist views mean in their respective periods? Ultimately, the loss of their identities cannot be studied in a vacuum, and one must further consider their individuality and relationship to their societies in explaining this