Mrs. Dalloway Eight

"Every one has friends who were killed in the War. Every one gives up something when they marry" (Woolf 66)

This quote suggests that everyone must suffer personal losses in order to grow and change in life. During the World Wars, most men went off to fight so it was very common for people to know others who'd died while off fighting. In Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf also suggests that everyone must give up something when they marry, whether it be freedom or flings with other people or bad habits that their spouses do not approve of. In a sense, this quote could possibly suggest that Woolf believes that marriage is a war, that the battlefield is what one must cross every day in a married life. Woolf herself married what she quoted to be a "penniless Jew," so in the 1930's, life was obviously a struggle.

Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. New York: Harcourt, Brace and, 1925. Print.