Macht en meesterdiscours in Virginia Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway

This article examines how Virginia Woolf, the writer, shapes the problem of power in her oeuvre. Her feminist criticism on the subject of exercising power on women is briefly described and is followed by a discussion of Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway (2000). A central character of this novel is Septimus Warren Smith, a psychotic man who suffers from hallucinations and suicidal thoughts. His doctor, Dr. Bradshaw, reduces him to an object, a reduction that eventually leads to the suicide of Septimus. The author proposes that this suicide can be seen as a passage à l'acte, and that the relationship between Bradshaw and Septimus can be interpreted as a typical discourse of the master, in which power is exercised and knowledge is pivotal