"She hated her: she loved her"

a infelicidade invade a festa de Mrs Dalloway

Abstract

This article examines the character of Miss Kilman in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway (1925) through the lens of Sara Ahmed’s (2010; 2014; 2017; 2023) conceptualization of the feminist killjoy. Arguing that Miss Kilman functions as a disruptive figure who exposes Clarissa Dalloway’s latent unhappiness, the analysis demonstrates how her presence unsettles the superficial harmony maintained by the protagonist—a harmony anchored in bourgeois social codes, the performativity of a successful marriage, and the orchestration of parties as rituals of appeasement. The study reveals how Clarissa embodies the failure of the white, heteronormative promise of happiness, whose fulfillment demands the suppression of individual desires and potential. Through Woolf’s narrative technique, which unveils unspoken thoughts, Miss Kilman emerges as a critical voice against this structural unhappiness, destabilizing the social order that Clarissa upholds. Engaging with Ahmed’s feminist historiography, the essay highlights the political insurgency inherent in challenging compulsory happiness. Ultimately, the article contends that Miss Kilman is not merely an antagonist but a literary symptom of the discontent produced by feminist refusal to comply with manufactured happiness.