Woolf's Characters Feel Real

In Mrs. Dalloway, I was, at first, intimidated and confused by the style of writing. It seemed impossible to understand whose mind the narrator had entered, let alone anything about this person. As I grew more comfortable with Woolf's style, however, I began to realize the appeal of the book. The characters, because you, as a reader, can enter their minds, feel more authentic, more personal. You go through life only having access to your own consciousness. There is no way to know if way you think and feel is normal because you only get the filtered, emotionally guarded thoughts that others choose to share. This allows Woolf to create characters that seem almost more human than the real people around you. Her characters have private, petty, and sometimes inexplicable thoughts and feelings that you can only experience in your own head. It is difficult to explain the appeal of this concept, but there is a strange comfort in the way it connects your conscious with those in the book, and through them, to humans in general.