Virginia Woolf's Style of Writing

Virginia Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and her most famous works include Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and Orlando. She suffered immensely as a child from losing both her father and mother at an early age, which led to the beginning of her several nervous breakdowns and subsequent recurring depression. Despite her tumultuous childhood, she is one of the most extraordinary and influential female writers throughout history. Her unique style of writing, incorporations of symbolism and use of similes and metaphors in her work makes her distinctive from other writers.

Her works include a unique structure, characterization and themes which gives the readers a strong impression in her literary pieces. From the beginning of our reading assignment, we’ve noticed that her sentences extremely vary in length. Some sentences can be short and simple while some can be as long as an entire paragraph. When I first read one of her long sentences, I had to re-read it out loud because it was just that confusing. To describe the different aspects of the superficial society in which she felt lacked human relationships, she uses certain characters symbolically. Mrs. Kilman represents possessive love and corrupt religious values as it says ‘love destroyed too. Everything that was fine, everything that was true went… Degrading passion! she thought, thinking of Kilman and her Elizabeth walking to the Army and Navy Stores’ (112). 

To be honest, Mrs. Dalloway was quite a challenging novel to read and understand because of Woolf’s writing techniques. It was confusing when she switched narrators from one paragraph to the next and to obtain what she was saying in her long sentences. But it is because of this that she is significant and important for in the history of literature.