Comparative essay (incomplete)
“An examination of a pair of texts reveals similarities in their concerns and their contexts”

The last hundred years have been characterised by wide scale and extremely rapid change: both Modernism and early 21st century United States were shaped by extraordinary social, cultural and political upheaval. Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway (1925) and Daldry’s “The Hours” (2002) show overlapping and interwoven ideas that reveal their contextual concerns – decay of faith in authority (such as God, politicians and doctors), changing ideas about gender equality and sexuality, and how our perception of time shapes our lives. Both the novel and film convey these ideas through the appropriate techniques of the Modernist and Post Modern contexts.

In Britain during the early 20th Century, and again in the USA late in the century, a declining belief in authority figures and religion was expressed in the work of many creative composers, as well as in Mrs Dalloway. Woolf expresses this shared belief through Septimus, and the conflicting values of Miss Kilman and Mrs Dalloway. In the introduction, the motor car with its unknown entity inside symbolising authority and upper class privilege slowly drives through the crowd of working and middle class. Woolf establishes the tendency of the upper class to float over the middle and working class, and their tendency to not connect with anyone of lower class which implies that they never really gain a clear understanding of those that are not of equal class. This is further explored in the victimization of Septimus, who aspired to become a poet before the war. However, Septimus becomes the victim of shell-shock as the results of the war and is revictimized by medical power – Dr. Holmes connotes Septimus to a “coward” and a “devil” and Sir Bradshaw ironically says to “Trust everything to me” then immediately