Realism and Stream of Consciousness in Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway

This research investigates the relation between Woolf’s ideals of realism and her inward-tending style—stream of consciousness—in Mrs. Dalloway. I argue that in Woolf’s fiction, the quality of expression is more important than the public significance of the events described. She needs her specific version of stream of consciousness to capture the reality of “character,” the most important component of all novels.