In a book filled with complex characters, memorable sequences, and elaborate relationships, one of my favorite aspects of Mrs. Dalloway is Virginia Woolf’s subtle and ironic criticisms of English society following World War I. All the discussions we had about Woolf satirizing the ineffective therapy during this period and expectations of masculinity stuck with me, but one of the more underrated symbols in the novel to me is the Prime Minister.
In Mrs. Dalloway, all the hype surrounding the Prime Minister contrasted with his ultimately disappointing presence seems to be a broader metaphor for a lack of hope for the English government and nation following World War I.
Throughout the book, the ordinary citizens of London assign an almost godlike status to the Prime Minister. When a car in the street first backfires while Clarissa is buying flowers, onlookers excitedly speculate that the person in the vehicle is the “Queen, Prince, or Prime Minister” (Woolf 10). The fact that even being in proximity with the Prime Minister is exhilarating for so many regular people is a commentary on how much hope such a large political figure instills in the English people, still recovering from the atrocities of the first World War. The most prominent example of this is Septimus Smith. Smith, irreversibly damaged by his experiences in the war and his PTSD, holds speaking to the Prime Minister as his ultimate goal. Septimus, a man who feels alienated and misunderstood everyday thinks that espousing his personal philosophy to the Prime Minister will salvage his life: “‘To the Prime Minister,’ the voices which rustled above his head replied. The supreme secret must be told to the Cabinet; first that trees are alive; next there is no crime; next love, universal love” (Woolf 48).
The novel’s portions about Septimus’s goal of speaking to the prime minister serve as cruel irony in critique of how ineffective politicians truly are. When we finally meet the Prime Minister at Clarissa’s party near the end of the novel, he is nothing close to the grandiose figure that the English people hope that he is: “He looked so ordinary. You might have stood him behind a counter and bought biscuits—poor chap, all rigged up in gold lace” (Woolf 123). Furthermore, the servants in Clarissa’s house are neither optimistic nor mesmerized by the Prime Minister in the way we see other residents of London. This could perhaps be due to their experience with politicians, such as Richard Dalloway and Hugh Whitbread, and a decisive understanding of how ineffectual these men really are. There is an extremely sad contrast between Septimus’s views of the Prime Minister, and how the Prime Minister truly is. This juxtaposition is a way in which Virginia Woolf criticizes multiple aspects of the world around her: blind faith that the English people placed in politicians following the war, and the ineffective conservatism that failed to provide solutions for veterans like Septimus Smith. Further, the timid appearance and demeanor of the Prime Minister could serve as a metaphor for England’s wounded national identity following the brutality of the first World War. Through shedding light on the reality of English life, Virginia Woolf could be insisting that the only path of recovery for England after the war would come not from politicians, but the people themselves.
