Freedom and Alienation: Existential Dilemmas in the Novels of Virginia Woolf
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31305/rrijm2025.v05.n01.025Keywords:
Virginia Woolf, existentialism, freedom, alienation, modernism, identity, emotional isolationAbstract
This essay looks at how Virginia Woolf’s books show how freedom and alienation interact with each other as existential problems. It focuses on how her characters deal with their own thoughts, social norms, and the passing of time. The way Woolf tells stories, especially the way she uses “stream of consciousness,” shows how complicated and broken people’s minds are when they try to find their own way in today’s confusing world. This study looks at how Woolf writes about the conflicts between personal freedom and societal expectations, which often lead to emotional isolation, identity crises, and psychological angst, through important works like Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and The Waves. The paper puts Woolf’s modernist style in a larger philosophical framework by using existentialist thinkers like Sartre and Heidegger as examples. It says that her books not only show loneliness as a part of modern life, but they also hint at short-lived escape and meaning through art, memory, and relationships.
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