2) Compose a blog response, using the comprehensive questions below as a guide in your exploration. I look forward to your responses.
"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself."
Study Questions
2. Clarissa's movements through London, along with the comings and goings of other characters, are given in some geographic detail. Do the patterns of movement and the characters' intersecting routes establish a pattern? If so, how do those physical patterns reflect important internal patterns of thought, memory, feelings, and attitudes? What is the view of London that we come away with?
3. As the day and the novel proceed, the hours and half hours are sounded by a variety of clocks (for instance, Big Ben strikes noon at the novel's exact midpoint). What is the effect of the time being constantly announced on the novel's structure and on our sense of the pace of the characters' lives? What hours in association with which events are explicitly sounded? Why? Is there significance in Big Ben being the chief announcer of time?
4. Clarissa reads lines from Shakespeare's Cymbeline (IV, ii) from an open book in a shop window: "Fear no more the heat o' the sun / Nor the furious winter's rages. / Thou thy worldly task hast done, / Home art gone and ta'en thy wages: / Golden lads and girls all must, / As chimney-sweepers, come to dust." These lines are alluded to many times. What importance do they have for Clarissa, Septimus, and the novel's principal themes? What fears do Clarissa and other characters experience?
"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself."
Based on what I’ve learned, entirely through Michael Cunningham’s “The Hours”, about the master writer Virginia Woold, I believe that each of the five main characters in “Mrs. Dalloway” represent a part of her. The beginning of the novel is slow, because it is comprised entirely of people’s thoughts as they interact with their environment. These thoughts are specifically Clarissa Dalloway’s, the main character, as she wanders through London in search of flowers. Clarissa is an optimist and enjoys being independent, a representation of Woolf’s own tendencies to wander off and seclude herself from the rest of the world. Clarissa fears death, and senses her age is getting the better of her despite the fact that she is relatively young. “She feared time itself… the dwindling of life; how year by year her share was sliced; how little the margin that remained was capable any longer of stretching, of absorbing, as in the youthful years” (30) Once again I feel this is a natural connection to Woolf’s own personality, which was somber and anxious. I think her husband, Richard, is very similar to Woolf’s real life husband Leonard, who was a strict, seemingly bland man whose relationship with his wife was rather strained. Richard is a constant reminder of Clarissa’s conformation to society, which forced her to marry a successful but rather bland gentleman over a much more interesting one: Peter. Woolf’s frustrations about her marriage can be seen in a dialogue between Septimus, a depressed young man who represents Woolf’s own mental illness, and his wife. She thinks to herself, “he never noticed: and he was happy without her. Nothing could make her happy without him! Nothing! He was selfish… It was she who suffered -- but she had nobody to tell.” (23) Septimus actually caught my eye the most out of any character because of his reaction to the plane, which was to immediately start crying. He’s a really sensitive person, and I think Woolf describes him as being separate from the other characters because in her real life she was unable to express her bipolar feelings to those around her. It was a distant, secretive subject, just like Septimus’ character is. I was most surprised about how many feminist references there were in the book. Woolf makes Clarissa seem very unhappy around men and much happier in the presence of women like Sally, who gives her hope for a better way of living. Clarissa is intrigued by men for their vast differences to women, but relates more to the women around her, and therefore speculates how it would be for her to share her life with the women that are in it. I think this novel gives lots of meaning to everyday thought, which, when recognized, can help us understand ourselves better.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of how I felt when Woolf implemented the transitions between the “life” and “dream” events as I like to call it, was much like sleeping into or awaking from a dreamlike state as the names (that I have dubbed them) suggest. The Septimus and Rezia part felt like a dream one had the previous night that lingers in the back of their head. The dream that only travels from the subconscious when someone mentions an occurrence associated with it but it is a dream that is easily forgettable. This suggests that Clarissa, Peter, Sally, and Richard’s points of view take more precedence in terms of the whole novel rather than those minor characters. The homoerotic subtext between Clarissa Dalloway and Sally Seton spans several pages and is described with the utmost detail. It somehow felt more conversational which made it more relatable than the details about the plane that spelled out (most probably) “toffee”. The romantic parts and events are written in a way that capture the reader’s attention more than the ones which go into depth about the viewpoints of the minor characters. Despite them being easily forgettable “dreams” and events that do not pertain to “real life”, they accomplish what I can only define as “world-building.” They flesh out the novel’s background and paint the little trees and stone wall behind despite the main attraction of this renaissance painting being an aristocrat clad in a cape, velvet layers, and pearls galore.
ReplyDeleteWhile reading Mrs. Dalloway, it reminds me of how my train of thought works. They would be hard to follow if I were to ever write them out for people to read. Similar to my train of thought, it is hard to follow the storyline of this book. It mostly consists of the characters’ thoughts and, sometimes, interactions with each other. Most of the interactions are followed by an interior point of view. Woolf clearly states who is thinking, so the readers are not confused. There is also an interaction with Peter Walsh and Clarrisa Dalloway at her house. When they parted, Woolf followed Peter, merged his exterior point of view with his interior. An interesting and unique technique. Similar to what people would see in a movie. Also, that made it clear who the train of thought belonged to.
ReplyDeleteWhen Woolf switched from one character to another, she names them at the beginning of the paragraph, which made for an easier read. At least people know who is thinking these abstract thoughts. There was a point where Woolf gave all the minor characters a point of view while looking at the airplane. It was interesting since the minor characters are minors for a reason. They do not get full points of view; they add to the main character’s point of view. But they all seemed to have different opinions on what letters were made by the plane and how they feel about the situation as a whole. Though the significance of the different minor points of view is unclear, it was interesting to see all their opinions.
So far, “Mrs. Dalloway” is absolutely enthralling. Each sentence leaves me in utter awe. There is something about Woolf’s writing style that is uniquely hypnotizing, for it seems to urge you to keep on reading, to delve deeper into the minds of her characters. The more I read the more I marvelled at her genius. The way she describes the most simple aspects of life, such as a sparrow in the park, or mending clothes, just seems to fly off the page and into imagination. Her visceral understanding of human thought and relationships is astounding. Whether it be the intricacies of Clarissa, the prophetic ramblings of Septimus, or the boyish thrills of Peter Walsh, she dives into the minds of each and continues to descend. During the tearful reunion between Clarissa and Peter, I was genuinely upset. Woolf described the emotions of each so precisely that each utterance felt like a hot knife tearing into a past both wanted to avoid and change. I had to put the book down for a little while before resuming my reading. There is something about the constant flow of consciousness throughout the book that makes it feel so real, and thus makes the emotional wreckage all the more heartbreaking. Through genius humanization, Woolf’s characters transform from wet, black ink on paper to living, breathing people. This transformation is absolutely incredible.
ReplyDeleteTime is always a subliminal factor or a ruling force in the novel so far. Whether the characters care or not, there is an undertone of time being brought up. I think that two great examples of the use of time so far can be spotted in the interactions and narrations of Peter Walsh. First, there is the encounter with Peter. Clarissa and Peter are catching up and having their “battle” when it starts to get emotional. All of a sudden, Big Ben strikes and the encounter is almost just instantaneously over. Written as a supposed coincidence, I think Woolf purposefully does this as an indication that things like hours can control how much we can say and how much is allowed in a rendez vous before it is over. There is only so much time we can give to people at a moment. Then, there is the construing of Peter that displays how a character can perceive time. Peter struggles with time. He is constantly having anxious and paranoid thoughts about growing old. He is frightened by Clarissa’s aging, and he fiddled with a pocket knife like a little boy. He is constantly convincing himself of his youth and it is a major insecurity. He is clearly afraid of the hours creeping up on him, and obviously is afraid of being forgotten or growing old. I’m interested to see if there’s a huge folly character for Peter later in the book who is very ignorant and uncaring of time, even more than Mrs. Dalloway does.
ReplyDeleteWhile beginning “Mrs. Dalloway” I’ve noted that reading has become a calming force in a very chaotic portion of my life. I’ve come to realize that reading is somewhat cathartic, and even though I feel like a large portion of the text goes right over my head I still find the analysis enjoyable. That being said I found myself drawn to the poem that Mrs. Dalloway reads in the bookstore window. Specifically, I found the lines “Golden lads and girls all must, / As chimney-sweepers, come to dust” quite intriguing. As was mentioned in the prompt, many allusions are made to these lines. In one of my favorite scenes thus far a car with, as Mrs. Dalloway describes it, “greatness sealed within” passes through the square but simultaneously it is noted that all that lies in the packed square amounts to a bunch of dust some teeth and a few wedding rings. This is drawing heavily from the Shakespeare poem, for Mrs. Dalloway notes that no matter how rich you are, you could own a car, death is still inevitable. In the same scene, an airplane flies overhead, attracting the attention of the onlookers “and the car went in at the gates and nobody looked at it.” The scene with the car not only alludes to a literal death, but it also references a figurative death. When all attention is drawn away from the car and toward the airplane the car, and by extension, those within it, are removed from the realm of public scrutiny and thus have undergone a practical death, for they are no longer thought about. Additionally, the scene about Septimus seems to reference the same line from the poem. Since returning from the war Septimus has developed what today would be called post-traumatic stress disorder. Much to the chagrin of his wife, Lucrezia, who feels that Septimus is a different person. This change in Lucrezia’s perception of Septimus marks the death of the old Septimus, for, at least in the mind of Lucrezia the old Septimus is gone, murdered by the postwar Septimus.
ReplyDeleteSince the novel only takes place in the span of one day, time is of great importance. When Elizabeth is being introduced to Peter Walsh by Clarissa Dalloway, the Big Ben rings. The noise of the clock causes a great disruption, and Peter Walsh leaves Clarissa’s house. Time presents an opportunity for Walsh to excuses himself, as it presents the idea that one has to be somewhere, and this follows for Walsh began to feel rejected by Clarissa, as he dwells in the past. This is hypocritical, for Walsh to worry so about love, as he condemns Clarissa for being very empty, for living the good things in life.
ReplyDeleteVirginia Woolf merges character and setting in a very fluid way. She bounces from discussing the scenery to describing the interactions between various civilians. Its very interesting how she follows the lives of the people for several paragraphs, for they seem to be unrelated to what’s happening to Clarissa, and it confuses me how the story is supposed to be from Clarissa’s perspective but it shifts so frequently to others. This could be because the feelings of outlining characters are reflected in Clarissa, like the confusion over what the airplane was spelling in the sky.
I noticed that there is a parallel between the who is in the car in “Mrs. Dalloway” and “The Hours.” In “Mrs. Dalloway,” people don’t know whether or not it was the Queen, or some other royal in the car, and in “The Hours,” the characters can’t decide what famous actress is present. This could have no larger meaning beyond basic observations of everyday life, where people see things and then draw hasty conclusions. This is also seen when the characters are observing the plane, as the people watching just try and piece together was is being wrote as it’s being wrote instead of observing all the letters and then forming the word.
Virginia Woolf does a fantastic job to start off the book in such a powerful way. The way the book starts off slow by just going through the city and meeting new people is a bit annoying but, the imagery and the detail she presents in her writing is so exquisite that it makes the book so much better to read. I believe that time is of the essence in the beginning of the novel because if you really think about it no more than two hours have passed since the start of the book even though the detail has made it seem that so much time has passed. The way she used time is through the interactions of the people that she met and talked to. As you can see in the first section she has conversations about Peter and you get more information about him as well as Septimus and Lucrezia when the car scene happens. When Big Ben strikes it indicated that it has reached noon or the end of an hour where one setting, conversation, or scenario and then the time will immediately after and something new begins. Time is very important because this book is slow played and with the time being so important it gives us time to meet and understand what is going on and what people we may be meeting throughout the book.
ReplyDeleteThe style of Mrs. Dalloway is unique to any book I have ever read before. The fluidity of the writing is a product how Woolf has written the novel. By using the thought processes of the characters as a medium for the story, Woolf has created a book that completely surrounds the reader. This effect is seen most clearly in the description of London. While there is no one time where London is described to the reader, Clarissa is seen performing actions such as stepping off a curb, or walking through a park. Whenever Clarissa goes to a new place there is not much to describe where this place is relative to her last location. This paints London as a maze of streets and houses. This maze is reflective of the human thought process. Woolf never stays on a single memory for too long, which further creates the perception of living in a maze of thoughts and memories. In addition, the other characters in the book act as landmarks in the swirl of thoughts. For example, when Clarissa runs into Hugh in the park, Hugh’s presence triggers memories for Clarissa. When Peter meets with Clarissa, Clarissa is reminded of their past memories together. This further perpetuates the image of a maze with doors. Through the thoughts of her characters, Woolf has painted London to be a maze of thoughts, and each person to be a door full of memories and emotions. While this might appear confusing, Woolf’s writing style is the perfect remedy. Because Woolf is writing each character’s ‘train of thought’, the confusion of the maze makes sense to the reader. This is because we are human, and Woolf’s writing is just like our own thought process.
ReplyDeleteThis sea of confusion is also remedied by the method of telling time. By using Big Ben to tell the time, Woolf creates a sort of anchor that holds the whole novel together. Big Ben is symbolic of an outside power, almost like a god. While Clarissa may be in a complex maze of her thoughts, there is one thing that is constant, but is also experienced by everyone else: Big Ben. Woolf uses Big Ben to ground her story in reality. This shows the significance of telling the time through Big Ben: without it, the writing would be too confusing. Woolf uses it to keep the story readable and understandable.
There is such a heavy emphasis on the personal and time throughout the first pages of the novel. In giving almost each introduced character a stream of thoughts, it immerses the reader into their minds and gives an omnipotent point of view. We know how both Peter Walsh and Clarissa Dalloway feel after their meeting in her house. Woolf uses events in the present to switch back and forth between characters. During an important event, she explores how one character feels and then switches to the others after the event occurred, allowing us to see all of the sides but from different viewpoints. The way someone feels during a conversation is bound to change once they walk away as they reconsider their actions and the subject matter. As they ponder this, their walk through London is tracked by Woolf. As Clarissa had walked through London, Peter Walsh followed her same path backward. At different hours, they walk almost identical paths and experience conflicting feelings. In using time, the story becomes very linear. Everything is outlined for the reader, and we are always looking to the future, where “that very night [Clarissa was] to give a party”. Even optimistic, she looks to the past, how “she was not old yet. She had just broken her fifty-second year. Months and months of it were still untouched. June, July, August!” (36). The timing of the present is so emphasized, yet the characters focus on times other than their own. Even Clarissa, who loved “life; London; this moment of June” still struggled with focusing on the present (4).
ReplyDeleteWoolf uses memory and perspective to reveal characters true personality throughout Mrs. Dalloway. Throughout the first bit of the story, we are only viewing everything through Mrs. Dalloway’s perspective, which seems optimistic for the most part, such as when she's wandering around London and viewing the shops, but there seems to be something in her memory to always pull her back, whether it be Peter, her daughter, or her husband. This is similar to Septimus, who intensely is being pulled back to his memories with, what I’m assuming, is PTSD. Though they are living in the current moment, their memories appear vivid in their minds. The quote that Woolf inserts into the story speaks true to both of the characters we see in the first little section where Mrs. Dalloway wanders through London, “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun, Nor the furious winter’s rages” these characters, very different in personalities, both share an underlying fear of what they know from their memory, haunting them. Though she promised herself and Peter that she would marry a ‘political’ man, and it is clear that Peter’s feelings for Clarissa are still true. She even imagines life with Sally Seton, maybe in hopes to escape from her current situation. Mrs. Dalloway has servants, as clearly seen throughout her house, but she chooses to retrieve them herself.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that the time is constantly announced is a frequent reminder of how quickly things are happening in the novel. It is a helpful addition to the story; the style of the book is very unique, as it doesn’t include chapters. Getting notified of the time makes up for this. The ringing of Big Ben also seems to always interrupt whatever event is taking place at the moment. This reminder of time also has a bit of a tie-in with another recurring theme of the novel, death. The character Clarissa has anxiety and an evident fear of death. The fact that time is constantly ticking only reminds her that she is getting ever closer to ultimately perishing. Her fear is evidenced by the quotes “For having lived in Westminster – how many years now? over twenty, – one feels even in the midst of the traffic, or waking at night, Clarissa was positive, a particular hush, or solemnity; an indescribable pause; a suspense (but that might be her heart, affected, they said, by influenza) before Big Ben strikes. There! Out it boomed. First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable. The leaden circles dissolved in the air,” and “but she feared time itself, and read on Lady Bruton's face, as if it had been a dial cut in impassive stone, the dwindling of life; how year by year her share was sliced”.
ReplyDeleteI am enjoying Mrs. Dalloway far more than I expected. Before we began reading I was expecting stale “archaic” English where every word is meant to be analyzed to death. However, just as I said in the last class, when I get into the right mindset, the story is quite refreshing. Simply by understanding Woolf’s writing style for this story, namely her revolutionary use of stream of consciousness, I am better able to appreciate just how well she has replicated and transcribed the way our minds both focus and wander onto the page.
ReplyDeleteThe way Woolf portrays the city is also very immersive and it is certainly reflective of her own preference for urban life. The sheer amount of names and characters introduced so far would otherwise be overwhelming if not for Woolf’s elegant choice on which characters to highlight amongst many other minor figures. In effect, this constant introduction of new people parallels the interconnected nature of any city circle in real life. Similarly, the frequent usage of clocks establishes a subtle undertone of healthy urgency, putting the “hustle” into the hustle and bustle of metropolitan activity.
As is typical of a writer, Mrs. Dalloway often contemplates about death. These inner thoughts often are intertwined amongst her other thoughts in a casual way, perhaps emphasizing her frequent philosophical reflections. While Clarissa does not fear death, I believe she fears what she may not do in life. One benefit of Woolf writing through a stream of consciousness is that readers are able to see Mrs. Dalloway and other characters’ insecurities. For example, it is very evident that Clarissa is trying to impress Peter and is constantly hoping to meet his expectations despite their supposed independence from one another.
I’m looking forward to seeing these relationships develop through the rest of the book.
This quote made me laugh: ‘“The Proime Minister’s kyar”’
"Fear no more the heat o' the sun / Nor the furious winter's rages. / Thou thy worldly task hast done, / Home art gone and ta'en thy wages: / Golden lads and girls all must, / As chimney-sweepers, come to dust." I thought it was very interesting that Woolf decided to include this quote from Cymbeline in this scene. There are quite a few ideas that this passage describes, but I think that the most important are the following: The first two lines essentially express that the good part about being dead is that you no longer need to face the hardships of life. The last two lines mean to say that whether you are a person of wealth or are a poor chimney-sweep, you will still end up dead, dust. We all die in the end. Perhaps this foreshadows a death in the novel… I suspect Clarissa, who seems to struggle with her identity. She asks herself: Is she simply a wife? Just “Ms. Richard Dalloway”? Is that all? If so, is that enough? After reading the passage in the window front, she reflects: “She had the oddest sense of being herself invisible; unseen; unknown; there being no more marrying, no more having of children now, but only this astonishing and rather solemn progress with the rest of them, up Bond Street, this being Mrs Dalloway; not even Clarissa any more; this being Mrs Richard Dalloway. (1.18)” I think one of the main reasons for these thoughts is her close friend and ex. lover Peter. Yes, there is a comfort in financial stability, and high social status, which is what her husband Richard provides. However, It’s apparent Clarissa isn’t in love with Richard in the same way she was with Peter. She still cares about what Peter thinks of her- if she were truly happy, she would not reflect on her actions through Peter’s eyes even half as much as she does. Even the way she describes him, the little things she remembers, give her true feelings away. “He would be back from India one of these days, June or July, she forgot which for his letters were awfully dull; it was his sayings one remembered; his eyes, his pocket-knife, his smile, his grumpiness . . .” I absolutely love the way Woolf writes Clarissa’s mind. We feel Clarissa’s shame, sadness. Her response to others externally and her contrasting inner turmoil are laid out for us to dissect and reflect upon.
ReplyDeleteWhile reading Mrs. Dalloway I feel like the way Woolf transitions from character to character is quite interesting but it flows quite nicely. It doesn't feel abrupt or confusing and I like how she mentions the name of the person who is thinking at the beginning of their point of view. I also like how we get to see events play out from multiple different perspectives. For example, I thought that it was really insightful to see Septimus’s twisted and ‘shell shocked’ visions of reality and triggers while we also see his wife Lucrezia struggle in that same moment as she misses her ‘old’ husband and is embarrassed by Septimus and in a way feels as though she has failed him. I also enjoyed the moment when woolf jumps from character to character as they all look up in the sky to see the advertisement for TOFFEE in the sky and how everyone thinks of different things and reminders when they see it.
ReplyDeleteI also just wanted to add that I thought it was quite interesting how Woolf introduces themes and topics of mental illness in her writing. It is evident that all of the characters are going through personal struggles like how Clarissa battles with herself as she tackles the idea of “settling” and being attracted to women. We also learn about Septimus’s PTSD and i think most interestingly Peter’s kind of mid-life crisis where he always struggles with altering thoughts like, “He was not old; his life was not over” (43) and then a contrasting thought just a few sentences later, “he was a failure, compared with all this” (43). I think it is very insightful to see Peter argue with himself in his head.
Time is a key aspect of the book Mrs. Dalloway because the course of the novel takes place over a single day. Despite a day only being 24 hours, we learn about things that have taken place over several years and several months. Since the novel is written as a stream of consciousness, things go from one thing to the next rather quickly. One sentence Clarissa is deciding whether or not to get the flowers herself and soon thereafter Clarissa is reminiscing about when she was 18 and the ominous feeling “that something awful was about to happen” after looking at the flowers in her garden. If the reader does not pay close attention and understand how a stream of consciousness works they might believe Clarissa is 18 on the day of the party instead of 52. The use of the ringing of the clocks serves as a way to bring the audience as well as the characters back to the present. When the clock strikes, the characters are reminded of their current endeavors and are able to focus back in on the tasks ahead of them. This helps to propel the novel forward because it helps to keep the novel grounded. The continuous reminder to go back to the present serves as a way to keep the novel from being just a stream of consciousness with no direction. The significance of Big Ben being the chief announcer of time is that Big Ben is central to London and can be heard by all. The novel does not simply focus on the stream of consciousness of Clarissa but also the other characters around her. It would not make sense for Septimus to hear the clock strike in Clarissa’s house because they are not related to each other in anyway and do not know each other. In using Big Ben, Virginia Woolf is able to switch from one character to the next effortlessly.
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ReplyDeleteThis is the first stream of consciousness novel that I have read, and although it can be hard to follow, I enjoy reading about people’s day to day thoughts compared to an intense plot line. What struck me the most when reading was how Woolf fluidly transitions from omniscient descriptions to characters’ streams of consciousness through her use of questions and exclamation points. Narrators are typically emotionless and they only tell the facts, so readers are able to identify a stream of consciousness when they see questions or exclamatory statements. Woolf also uses phrases like, “she thought,” “she felt” and “it seemed to her that,” as indicators of a stream, as opposed to, “she stood,” “she walked” and “she said,” which are more commonly used by the narrator. While reading, I noticed that the narrator does not make frequent appearances in the novel. Nonetheless, readers are able to visualize each character because they are described in the internal thoughts of other characters. This can be seen in Mrs. Dalloway’s stream when she sees Hugh Whitbread and describes him as “manly” and “extremely handsome.” Woolf not only transitions between interior and exterior, but she also transitions between interior and interior. She achieves this by first using a line of dialogue to introduce another character and then entering into their stream of consciousness. During Clarissa and Peter’s conversation at Clarissa’s house, the point of view changes after each line of dialogue which occurs every few lines. I think Clarissa and Peter’s relationship is the most interesting and humorous because since they know each other so well, they like and hate one another at the same time.
ReplyDeletehttps://docs.google.com/document/d/18ARUax8u8Cgm7jI8ft-RQ8J0RjcbIZ3opIt-CBsMzyM/edit?usp=sharing
ReplyDeleteso... there's a word limit on the blog post
Woolf uses the image of the motor car and the aeroplane as a way to transition from the various points of view. Clarrissas focus is quickly shifted to the loud motor car while the point of view of the text is shifted to the exterior. Woolf creates transitions through the shared mystery of the passenger in the motor car and the letters the aeroplane is spelling. She is able to move through the interpretations of the different characters because, “for thirty seconds all heads were inclined the same way- to the window,” (Woolf, 17) and this causes them to raise the same question. Through the exposure into the way the characters that surround Clarrissa think and interact with each other we are able to explore the truth behind relationships in her society. Mrs. Dalloway is given a note that her husband will be going to lunch with another woman, which gives an insight into the unattached relationship she feels is slipping away and how, “the gentry love.” (Woolf, 30)
ReplyDeleteThe internal perspective allows the audience to see that Septimus studies and questions the world around him. Septimus’s wife Lucrezia and the young girl Maise’s view of Septimus act as the interpretation of his deep thinking from the outside. “She could not sit beside him when he started so and did not see her and made everything terrible.” (Woolf, 23) Lucrezia does not work to understand her husband, but instead is constantly worrying about the reactions of the world passing and seeing her husband’s odd behavior. While Septimus is too absorbed in his own mind, his wife is too worried about the outside world.
Throughout the book the lines from Shakespeare’s Cymbeline are repeated in order to emphasize the fact that Clarissa and Septimus alongside other characters have this sense of looming tragedy in their thoughts as they constantly think about their own mortality. Clarissa is demonstrated as a very positive person as she walks through London but is reminded of her age by certain objects. Septimus shares some traits with Clarissa but he seems a lot more troubled that Clarissa is. He is described as wanting to commit suicide and as constantly talking to himself indicating the effects of the war. He reacts differently to the passing car than Clarissa and other characters do as he views it as something bursting into flames thus conveying his loss of belief in the government which Clarissa seems to tightly hold onto.
ReplyDeleteThis reading really really perplexed me as Woolf switches to different perspectives but writes in a third person narrative. Although this is a confusing way of writing, it captivates the reader and makes them revisit the sentences in order to truly understand what Virginia Woolf is saying.
In Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf’s, time is a very important aspect of the novel. By reading the novel we are emerged into the character’s thoughts. Due to such reasons, the overall pace of the novel is slow. What may feel like days at a time is essentially just a span of a few minutes or hours. Because time runs at a slow pace in the novel, we are allowed to truly analyze the situation at hand, and allows us to fully delve into and get to know the characters we are meeting. This is why it becomes important to remember that the whole content of the novel happens in a span of a day. The Big Ben allows us to see the passing of time in the novel and the amount of time we have left. It allows us to see the end of an hour and the end of a character’s perspective. The Big Ben is the announcer of time because it is visible to all the characters and is something that cannot be missed.
ReplyDelete- Lizaida Paulino
For me the way the book bounces between narration and the characters is slow. I wouldn’t call it good or bad, just slow, punctuated by the clock. The clock keeps the story moving, like punctuation in long sentences. The transitions are smooth, and to me, tend to feel like they could be part of both the character perspective or the narrator description on either side. Nothing feels missed in narration, keeping the realtime feel. The character perspective sections move over people whom to me seem irrelevant to the main plot, as well a thoughts equally frivolous, although the plot at the moment seems secondary to the characters. Speaking of the characters. They feel self conscious, maybe lonely. They feel almost too concerned with other people to me, but that might just be because I lack perspective. I am given what feels like too much information about the characters. I know more about Clarissa through this section of 50 pages than I would care to know about most people. I get the feeling that I am supposed to be on someone’s side, and judge the characters and their relations in some way.
ReplyDeleteI liked the way that Woolf switched between differents characters perspectives in “Mrs. Dalloway”. The way that Woolf switched between perspectives seemed very smooth, I almost didn’t notice at first when he transitioned. I thought that the way he showed different perspectives helped to create a more accurate representation of Clarissa as a person. The way other characters, such as Peter describe her seems to allign with the things she is self-conscius about. As she is thinking about her daughter it can be inferred that she thinks her life has been shallow, and when Peter would describe her as a shallow person is shows that she is correct to be self- conscious about that. I thought that Peter’s hypocrisy was incredibly evident, he thinks very poorly about everybody around him, yet he he himself shows many of the quallity’s he looks down upon. The character’s pespective that interested me the most was Septimus. I thought the fact that they didn’t dignose Septimus as somebody who is mentally ill was emblematic of the way they treated people in that time.
ReplyDeleteFrom the first page of the novel, Virginia Woolf’s writing is unlike other authors, and this novel is written differently than anything I have ever read. Woolf’s writing follows a stream of consciousness, that changes depending which character she is using the voice of. The storyline abruptly changes, just as one’s thoughts do in real life. For example, Clarissa is thinking about her party, and then her thoughts change to who might be in the car she sees as she’s walking to purchase items for her party in the morning. Her thoughts create a world in her mind in which she believes that it is the Queen The reader also gets to examine other people’s thoughts in the city about people in the car. Clarissa’s thoughts quickly change to her reflecting on her relationship with her husband, Richard, and its contrast to her previous relationship with Peter.
ReplyDeleteWoolf’s writing allows real-life scenarios to occur, when we read about a character’s stream of consciousness and then they never return in the novel. For example, some of the people who have thoughts about who is in the car, we read about once and never again. Woolf is modeling this after real life interactions that we have each day with random people throughout our day that we don’t think about. Woolf’s style of writing creates a novel in which the reader can become the character by knowing their thoughts and their past.