Analysing the Modernist Approach of “the New Dress” by Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolfs short story The New Dress is often overshadowed by her more popular stories, such as The Duchess and the Jeweller, The set up on the Wall, and Kew Gardens. The New Dress, written in 1924, may originally have been a chapter of the novel Mrs. Dalloway, beca practice the equivalent characters and events appear in both works. The New Dress compulsively worries about the suitability of her new p artificey frock, a cleaning ladys projection of self (Koppen 660). The protagonist Mabel, an insecure and self-conscious guest at a party, is convinced that she, together with her discolour dress, is ridiculed by others at a party. She is unable to take an just judgement or receive a flattering compliment. Her soul is filled with pitiful illusion of being the target of mockery. At last, she gets up to leave the party, assuring the hostess Mrs. Dalloway that she has enjoyed herself.
In the story, the modernism elements ambiguity, irony and paradox are related through the date of stream of consciousness and symbolism. Woolf is commonly regarded, together with Edouard Dujardin and James Joyce, as one of the creators and early practitioners of stream-of-consciousness narrative. The thoughts and feelings of Mabel are central to the narrative.



Woolf spends more than 3 thousand words on the half hour plosive speech sound of Mabel at the party. The focus is more on character than spell; actually, the plot is revealed as the reader learns about the protagonist. T. S. Eliot puts symbolism as the only way of expressing emotions in the form of art. symbolisation hence can be defined as the art of expressing ideas and emotions not by describing them directly, but by recreating them through the use of unexplained symbols or images. Woolf uses the symbols of Mrs Dalloways mirror, toiling flies, the canarys cage, chattering magpies, dressmakers dummy and so on to represent the feeling of alienation and inner conflicts of Mabel.
According the explanation by W. Empson, ambiguity refers to the...If you want to get a full moon essay, order it on our website: Orderessay



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