Mortality (Actual)
The actual mortality of living things is the key theme of the movie. Virginia Woolf dies by suicide but has been preoccupied with issues of mortality for decades. She toys with the idea of suicide for her fictional characters but is also preoccupied over the dead bird that her sister's kids find in the backyard and is fascinated to watch its post kitten decline and diminishing. Richard is almost a study in living death as he declines more every day until he is almost more dead than alive. His mortality has also been a preoccupation since his AIDS diagnosis because at the time this was a death sentence and therefore confronted him with his own mortality every day. This is also something that Clarissa is forced to confront even though she does everything possible not to.
Mortality (Emotional)
Emotional mortality is also a key theme in this film. Living in the suburbs has caused an emotional decline in Virginia and she realizes that she will die emotionally if she does not return to London. Laura is also confronting her own emotional mortality as she dies a little bit more inside every day that she is trapped in a life that does not stimulate her or make her happy. Another consequence of emotional mortality is evident in both Richard and Virginia who both commit suicide.
Suicide
There is a great deal of suicide in the film and the primary one is Virginia Woolf whose suicide is known by the audience from the start of the movie. She also vacillates between creating a suicidal heroine in her novel or allowing her heroine to have some happiness and introducing another sensitive and suicidal character instead. This indecision reflects Virginia's own indecision about her own suicide. Richard commits suicide not because he is actually a depressed person but because his mental state can no longer ignore his physical one. For him suicide is an escape from the physical rather than an escape from the emotional. Laura wants to be a person who is capable of suicide so that she can escape her life but finds she wants to escape it rather than vacate it all together.
Women Trapped By Society
All of the women want to define their own lives and roles but Don's themselves constrained by what society wants of them rather than by what they want for themselves. Virginia is successful which brings with it the gift of greater autonomy but is nonetheless bound to live where her husband chooses and not where she would choose for herself. The control she lacks herself she gives vicariously to her characters. Clarissa, as the most contemporaneous character also has the most self-driven life, living within a romantic relationship with another woman, but this hides the fact that she has fallen into an overly domesticated routine that makes her vaguely uncomfortable. The most trapped character is Laura who married out of duty and expectation rather than because of love or desire to be a wife and mother. She finds both roles unsatisfactory and feels trapped by the lack of opportunities out there for her.
Same Sex Relationships
The theme of same sex relationships is evident through all of the characters. When Virginia kisses Vanessa she is prompted to create a life-altering same sex kiss for Clarissa Dalloway. Clarissa Vaughn is a bi-sexual woman living with a female lover; she used to be in a relationship with a man who is angst and whose ex-lovers remain on good terms with her. Richard's affairs and unsafe sexual encounters have resulted in his HIV positive diagnosis which is now ravaging his body as AIDS. The theme is not dressed up or prettied at all and adds to the complicated personal relationships that Clarissa in particular is experiencing.
