The author is interested by the latent content of the novel, the fantasies and unconscious desires conveyed by the work. Mrs Dalloway is a good example. Virginia Woolf stages characters to whom she gives life, body and soul. She has an extraordinary ability to put herself in the place of each of her characters and gives us their most secret and intimate thoughts and moods. Mrs Dalloway’s novel tells us about the day of a middle class woman who is going to give a party in the evening at her home. We understand that she is married but it is an unsatisfactory marriage. She remembers a lover from her youth, Peter Walsh, and he shows up at her home. Her unconscious desire is to renew with this ancient love she refused. The Lucrezia-Septimus couple is also an unsatisfactory marriage. He develops delirious symptoms. Virginia Woolf is projecting her own mental illness on Septimus with a remarkable description. Her first crisis appeared at the death of her mother, then at the death of her father and her marriage with Leonardo was followed by three crises. Her manic-depressive illness is linked to a lack of her mother, a beautiful woman who took more time to take care of poor and sick people and to the incest “half-brother and sister”. The work seems to be built like a dream with defense mechanisms to hide the unconscious desires of the novelist: the nostalgia of a youth love and unconscious death wishes for her husband.
| Published in | American Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience (Volume 10, Issue 3) |
| DOI | 10.11648/j.ajpn.20221003.12 |
| Page(s) | 89-94 |
| Creative Commons |
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Copyright |
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Science Publishing Group |
Manic-depressive State, Incest, Unconscious Fantasies, Literature Creation
| [1] | ANZIEU Daniel, The body of the work, The unconscious, Gallimard, 1981. |
| [2] | FORRESTER Viviane, Virginia Woolf, Albin Michel, 2009. |
| [3] | FREUD Sigmund, Delirium and dreams in Gradiva of W. Jensen, Gallimard, 1986. |
| [4] | GREEN André, The Unbinding, Psychoanalysis, anthropology and literature, Pluriel, Hachette, 1992. |
| [5] | LEMASSON Alexandra, Virginia Woolf, Folio biographies, Gallimard, 2005. |
| [6] | MARTY Pierre, The psychosomatic order, Payot, 1980. |
| [7] | MARTY Pierre, The individual movements of life and death, Payot, 1998. |
| [8] | MORIN Michelle, Creation in art and literature, Psychoanalytic studies, L’Harmattan, 2017. |
| [9] | PARAT Hélène, Incest, PUF, 2004. |
| [10] | THIERY Dominique, Brothers and sisters, Incests in silence, Le Bord de l’Eau, 2018. |
| [11] | WOOLF Virginia, The Walk to the Lighthouse, livre de poche, Stock, 2010. |
| [12] | WOOLF Virginia, Mrs Dalloway, GF Flammarion, 2013. |
APA Style
Michelle Morin-Bompart. (2022). Mrs. Dalloway: A Path Towards Virginia Woolf’s Unconscious. American Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, 10(3), 89-94. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajpn.20221003.12
ACS Style
Michelle Morin-Bompart. Mrs. Dalloway: A Path Towards Virginia Woolf’s Unconscious. Am. J. Psychiatry Neurosci. 2022, 10(3), 89-94. doi: 10.11648/j.ajpn.20221003.12
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Download@article{10.11648/j.ajpn.20221003.12,
author = {Michelle Morin-Bompart},
title = {Mrs. Dalloway: A Path Towards Virginia Woolf’s Unconscious},
journal = {American Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience},
volume = {10},
number = {3},
pages = {89-94},
doi = {10.11648/j.ajpn.20221003.12},
url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajpn.20221003.12},
eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ajpn.20221003.12},
abstract = {The author is interested by the latent content of the novel, the fantasies and unconscious desires conveyed by the work. Mrs Dalloway is a good example. Virginia Woolf stages characters to whom she gives life, body and soul. She has an extraordinary ability to put herself in the place of each of her characters and gives us their most secret and intimate thoughts and moods. Mrs Dalloway’s novel tells us about the day of a middle class woman who is going to give a party in the evening at her home. We understand that she is married but it is an unsatisfactory marriage. She remembers a lover from her youth, Peter Walsh, and he shows up at her home. Her unconscious desire is to renew with this ancient love she refused. The Lucrezia-Septimus couple is also an unsatisfactory marriage. He develops delirious symptoms. Virginia Woolf is projecting her own mental illness on Septimus with a remarkable description. Her first crisis appeared at the death of her mother, then at the death of her father and her marriage with Leonardo was followed by three crises. Her manic-depressive illness is linked to a lack of her mother, a beautiful woman who took more time to take care of poor and sick people and to the incest “half-brother and sister”. The work seems to be built like a dream with defense mechanisms to hide the unconscious desires of the novelist: the nostalgia of a youth love and unconscious death wishes for her husband.},
year = {2022}
}
TY - JOUR T1 - Mrs. Dalloway: A Path Towards Virginia Woolf’s Unconscious AU - Michelle Morin-Bompart Y1 - 2022/07/29 PY - 2022 N1 - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajpn.20221003.12 DO - 10.11648/j.ajpn.20221003.12 T2 - American Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience JF - American Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience JO - American Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience SP - 89 EP - 94 PB - Science Publishing Group SN - 2330-426X UR - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajpn.20221003.12 AB - The author is interested by the latent content of the novel, the fantasies and unconscious desires conveyed by the work. Mrs Dalloway is a good example. Virginia Woolf stages characters to whom she gives life, body and soul. She has an extraordinary ability to put herself in the place of each of her characters and gives us their most secret and intimate thoughts and moods. Mrs Dalloway’s novel tells us about the day of a middle class woman who is going to give a party in the evening at her home. We understand that she is married but it is an unsatisfactory marriage. She remembers a lover from her youth, Peter Walsh, and he shows up at her home. Her unconscious desire is to renew with this ancient love she refused. The Lucrezia-Septimus couple is also an unsatisfactory marriage. He develops delirious symptoms. Virginia Woolf is projecting her own mental illness on Septimus with a remarkable description. Her first crisis appeared at the death of her mother, then at the death of her father and her marriage with Leonardo was followed by three crises. Her manic-depressive illness is linked to a lack of her mother, a beautiful woman who took more time to take care of poor and sick people and to the incest “half-brother and sister”. The work seems to be built like a dream with defense mechanisms to hide the unconscious desires of the novelist: the nostalgia of a youth love and unconscious death wishes for her husband. VL - 10 IS - 3 ER -
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