A Cixusian Approach to Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway

This paper aims at analyzing Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs. Dalloway based on Cixous's concept of ‘lecriture feminine’ or feminine writing. According to Helene Cixous feminine writing is essentially subversive in the sense that it incorporates elements of transgression, resistance and subversion of the hierarchical structure of masculine ideological system. In her writing, both in the form and content, Cixous offers a direct challenge and alternative to the logical linearity of phallocentric writing and thought. She observes that feminine writing aims at the articulation of what cannot be expressed in the phallocentric language; “it is the language of those who are excluded, marginalized, andrepressed.”Virginia Woolf's Novel, Mrs. Dalloway, is characterized by the narrative of transgression and resistance towards the codes of masculine ideological systems that dictate the individuals to follow a definite, normal course of action. Clarrisa Dalloway and Warren Septimus Smith are two major characters in the novel who fail to conform; as a result their narrative discourse serves to undermine the hierarchical discourse of masculine representational System. The novel, therefore, in its poetic narrative which incites fluidity and multiplicity of meaning is shown to display Cixous's conceptualization of feminine writing with elements of transgression and resistance.