"Preserved Through Childbirth": Reading Deep in Mrs. Dalloway's Virginity

Abstract: Why is Virginia Woolf's Clarissa Dalloway, the eponymous protagonist of Mrs. Dalloway (1925), described as a virgin, despite her marriage and daughter? Direct references to virginity in the novel expose how it can be read as an expansive and somewhat humorous conceit, rather than as a superficial character detail. Virginity can elucidate intertextual allusions in Mrs. Dalloway , including the literary lineage of the name "Clarissa," and brings together themes of sexuality, development, and illness. Making virginity central to an analysis of Mrs. Dalloway both spotlights the complexity of Clarissa as a character and exemplifies Woolf's playful destabilization of linear time within the novel.