Struggling for Identity: The Representation of Bipolar Disorder in Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway

Abstract

Virginia Woolf struggled with bipolar disorder throughout her life which also affected her literary work. Among some significant symptoms of Woolf’s bipolarity in her literary output were her struggle to create a coherent self for herself and the problematization of relatedness. This struggle was thematised in her novels, such as Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), or The Waves (1931). In Mrs. Dalloway, these themes appear most significantly through the character of Clarissa Dalloway, whose respective deficiency is reflected upon by her relationship to the people surrounding her as well as to the spaces of London.