In every story, conflict is vital. It moves the plot forward and reveals truths about the characters involved, keeping readers engaged. It also reflects the world of its writer, who often uses conflict as a tool to illustrate personal ideas. This is especially true in the case of the early 20th century writer Virginia Woolf. In her most famous novel, Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf drags readers into several interpersonal conflicts, each involving a clash between English conventions and undeniable human conditions. Describing these conflicts with acute sensitivity to injustice, madness, and ignorance, Woolf criticizes the traditional English social system as a world in which people cannot recognize, cope with, or understand what may disturb their well-being. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Through the conflict between the half-mad World War I veteran Septimus Warren Smith and his eminent doctor, Sir William Bradshaw, Woolf highlights one of the English system's most tragic failures: its tendency to isolate "undesirables" ” at any cost for human dignity. Septimus finds himself desensitized after fighting in the Great War and entirely unable to return to everyday life, where empathy is a vital quality rather than an obstacle. Unable to recall ordinary emotions, he hallucinates and experiences attacks of melancholy and euphoria, interspersed with moments of lucidity. However, because English society wants nothing to do with abnormality, Septimus finds himself "swallowed up" in London along with the "many millions of young men called Smith" (Woolf 84). Indeed, ironically, it is in the midst of his madness that he realizes that "human beings have neither kindness, nor faith, nor charity... They abandon the fallen" (89). In tracing Septimus's visit to the famous Sir William, Woolf indicates that English doctors also pursue the sinister goal of removing all disturbing agents from public life. Believing that mentally unstable people “should drink milk in bed,” Sir William “not only prospers himself, but prospers England, by isolating her madmen… [and] making it impossible for the unfit to spread their opinions " (99). He realizes that Septimus's is "a case of extreme gravity" (95), but instead of dealing with it directly, he recommends that Septimus "lie in a beautiful country house" (97), far from all those who love him. Lacking the faculties and resources to seek further help, Septimus and other "friendless" people who see Sir William have no choice but to obey his orders (102). Even more ominously, Woolf observes that Sir William "endears himself very much to the relatives of his victims" as he "shuts people down" (102). Here, his use of the term "victims" to describe Sir William's patients, and his revelation that he is much loved by their relatives, cast an insidious shadow on doctors in England, who seek not to help the sick but to “take care…that these antisocial impulses…[are] kept under control” (102). Unfortunately, the way the English system seizes its pariahs claims more victims than those who receive care from Sir Williams; as Woolf demonstrates through the example of Lucretia Smith, Septimus's young wife, those who care for the "friendless" find themselves caught between obeying social rules and keeping everything they have loved intact (102) . Initially, not understanding Septimius' illness, Lucretia believes that her aloof husband is being "selfish" and despairs that "love makes you lonely" (23). When it finally comes to passrealizes that there is something desperately wrong with Septimus and obtains treatment for him, she finds herself more alone than ever, because Sir William tells her that the treatment is "a matter of rest... [a] distance from her" ( 96). ). Realizing that she and Septimus have been "abandoned" by those they claim to help (99), Lucretia steadfastly refuses to be separated from her husband, and readers follow her story sympathetically as she fights, in a sense, to revive Septimus before even if he dies. Later, when Septimus commits suicide to avoid yet another doctor's visit, readers also clearly see the tragedy that arises when doctors work to eliminate the strange and disturbing rather than to cure the sick. Through Lucretia's conflicts, first with Septimus, then with English doctors such as Sir William, Woolf conveys the enormous damage done by a system that tolerates neither anomalies nor connections with it. In describing several unsatisfying love stories, Woolf also criticizes marriages that perpetuate complacency rather than nurturing. mutual growth. For example, although the protagonist Clarissa Dalloway falls in love with the idealistic Peter Walsh, she becomes uncomfortable with Peter's insistence that everything in her life "is shared; everything goes in" (8). Not content to simply let her become "the perfect hostess" (7), Peter asks "impossible things" of Clarissa, challenging her to think about life beyond throwing parties and entertaining guests (63). However, Clarissa ultimately rejects Peter in favor of Richard Dalloway, a man who gives her "a little bit of license, a little bit of independence" (7). A “good fellow” who displays “an inexplicable kindness” (74), Richard nevertheless “make[s] a mere hostess” of Clarissa and “encourages her worldliness” so that in the end, she still “cares [ s] ] too much for rank, society, and advancement in the world" (76). Their marriage also falls short of passion and intimacy; Clarissa disappoints Richard sexually "again and again," unable to "dispel a virginity...that clings to her" (31), and try as he might, Richard can never bring himself to tell Clarissa that he loves her. Ironically, even the quixotic Pietro settles for a less fulfilling marriage and simply concludes that "women...don't know what passion is" (80). Both Clarissa and Peter are aware that they have failed in some way; Clarissa wonders what she has done with her life, knowing that she has remained only worldly, and the tortured Peter, still quite desperate for love, admits that he is "in a sense a failure", having done little with his humanitarian ideas to the trek starts. to "a peak in the Himalayas; read science; read philosophy" (50). Ultimately, because Clarissa and Peter marry people who don't challenge them or dare make them uncomfortable from time to time, as they would for each other, neither considers life a great success. Finally, Woolf uses the mutual resentment between Clarissa and Miss Doris Kilman to illustrate the stratified social arena of England, in which people of different classes are often too entrenched in their own prejudices to understand each other. Openly admitting that her dislike of the destitute Miss Kilman is unreasonable, Clarissa explains that "no doubt with another roll of the dice... she would have loved Miss Kilman" (12). However, as it is, he resents Miss Kilman because "she makes you feel her superiority, your inferiority; how poor she is; how rich you are; how she lives in a slum" (12); in other words, Miss Kilman makes her feel guilty about the materialism of her own life. On the other hand, unable to look down on Clarissa from a position of wealth or beauty, Miss Kilman resents Clarissa as a "condescending" woman "from, 1953.