Personal Meaning and Landscape in Mrs. Dalloway: An Ecocritical Study

  • Jawad Khan Niazi Lecturer, Department of English, Government College University, Lahore
  • Muhammad Ali Lecturer, Department of English, Government College University, Lahore
Keywords: England, industrialization, nature, personal meaning, World War

Abstract

This research paper applies an ecocritical perspective to Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway and studies how nature has been used to describe the personal feelings of the characters, both major and minor, in the context of industrialization and post-World War 1 era in London. Through the ecocritical lens, this paper explores how Woolf links natural elements i.e., flowers, trees and sky with her writing techniques of the stream of consciousness and inner monologue to reflect the psychological self of different characters. The ideas presented by the theorist Richard Kerridge, that of a possible ‘poetic engagement’ of literature with the natural world in an industrialized era, and Britain’s nature as a common self-referent have been taken as the framework for this research. The paper closely  analyses the text  of the novel, focusing on the statements that link nature with the characters’ emotions, and draws to a conclusion claiming that this recurrence of nature in Mrs. Dalloway is a deliberate act on the author’s part to at least figuratively preserve nature in a time period that has destroyed as well as pushed nature into the background.

Author Biographies

Jawad Khan Niazi, Lecturer, Department of English, Government College University, Lahore

Jawad Khan Niazi is a lecturer in English at Government College University, Lahore and UOL. As a teacher, he tends to focus on Communication Skills while his research areas include Cinematic Literature, Postcolonialism, Decoloniality, Ecocriticism, Hydrocriticism and Blue Humanities.

Muhammad Ali, Lecturer, Department of English, Government College University, Lahore

 

Muhammad Ali is a lecturer in English at Government College University, Lahore. His interest areas include Blue Humanities, Partition Novel and Classic and Contemporary Pakistani Television Drama. As a researcher, he focuses on the placement of the subcontinental ecosystem within frameworks rooted in environmentalism, such as Ecocriticism, Hydrocriticism, Geocriticism and Animal Theory.

Published
2024-09-29
How to Cite
Jawad Khan Niazi, & Muhammad Ali. (2024). Personal Meaning and Landscape in Mrs. Dalloway: An Ecocritical Study. Journal of English Language, Literature and Education, 6(3), 19-33. https://doi.org/10.54692/jelle.2024.0603231
Section
Articles