How does Woolf handle plot and narrative in “Mrs. Dalloway” and why does she do this? A frequent criticism of Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway” I’ve seen is that “nothing happens” in the novel which I disagree with, but I do understand why some people would think this way. This is a frequent criticism of literature that I enjoy, for example, I have seen the same criticism put forth about Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” and Franz Kafka’s “Metamorphosis”. In “Mrs. Dalloway”, Woolf uses a stream of conscious type of narrative style to move fluidly from character to character and explore each one in-depth. Woolf employs this type of narrative technique to portray her characters’ interior where they engage with personal complexes in conjunction with cultural issues ranging from World War 1 to the precursor form of feminism that existed when Woolf was working on the novel.