London life
Compared to the suburban hell that Virginia finds herself in during the novel, her memories of London are like a muse to her. She remembers the vibrant life she used to lead in the crazy, unpredictable city. She longs for the adventures and night life, and she misses the city for its characters. The imagery of London provides the source of much of her inspiration, so in this novel, the imagery is seen through nostalgia and melancholy, because she longs for the life she used to lead.
Suburban life
This is the setting that makes Virginia Woolf contemplate suicide. She hates the way suburban life is. She hates the imagery of it, the uniformness of its characters, the daily habits deep in their umpteenth repitition, all grinding mindlessly toward death. The suburbs are defined by the strong normalcy that rules over the neighborhoods. The characters are predictable and lifeless, and Virginia resents her husband for choosing this simple life over the meaningful life in the big city. She struggles to forgive him for removing her from the source of her artistic inspiration.
The artistic mechanism
The imagery that shapes Woolf's creative process is this: she is honest, and then uses her genuine emotions to form a plot for characters that must suffer as she does. They are artistic renderings of her private thought life, and the reader, by encountering her characters in their plot, will inadvertently encounter Virginia herself. The mechanism is depicted from start to finish, from Virginia's life to the life her one of her audience members.
Death and depression
Virginia Woolf is not shy about including depression and agony into her art. Her art is a ventilation system by which she creates meaning from her suffering, so she isn't going to lie about that. The novel depicts her feelings of hopelessness and anger, and she herself includes that in her novel. The depression is a crisis to be solved though, and she struggles to put the right words together. Which character should die? This is a way of her accepting life for herself and for the people who identify with her character, but it is complex and demands complex interpretation.
