Failures of Communication

“But Rezia could not understand him. Dr. Holmes was such a kind man. He was so interested in Septimus. He only wanted to help them, he said. He had four little children and he had asked her to tea, she told Septimus.

So he was deserted. The whole world was clamouring: Kill yourself, kill yourself, for our sakes.” (90)

Rezia and Septimus share the narration in these lines, but they fundamentally overlook each other’s perspectives. To Rezia, Dr. Holmes is a kind man who wants to help Septimus; Septimus evidently doesn’t feel the same way. The reporting verbs in the excerpt also keep Dr. Holmes and in the next line, Rezia, at a distance, separate from Septimus’ own thoughts and beliefs which are conveyed through free indirect discourse. In the passage, many people are talking to Septimus – Rezia, Dr. Holmes, the world – but none truly reach him.

Multiple streams of conscious

“And Lucy stopped at the drawing – room door , holding the cushion , and said , very shyly , turning a little pink , Couldn’t she help to mend that dress ?

But , said Mrs. Dalloway , she had enough on her hands already , quite enough of her own to do with . out that .”

Stream of consciousness, at least as it is utilized in Mrs. Dalloway, doesn’t include isolated ramblings. The thoughts of Mrs. Dalloway and Lucy are both exhibited in a stream of consciousness method.

Insecurity

“She was at her worst- effusive, insincere. It was a great mistake to have come. He should have stayed at home and read his book, thought Peter Walsh; should have gone to a music hall; he should have stayed at home, for he knew no one. Oh dear, it was going to be a failure; a complete failure, Clarissa felt it in her bones as dear old Lord Lexham stood there apologising for his wife who had caught cold at the Buckingham Palace garden party. She could see Peter out of the tail of her eye, criticising her, there, in that corner.”

Woolf, Virginia, Mrs. Dalloway (pg. 163)

This passage shows how two people can interpret things from one another and communicate without speaking, and how those inferences may be incorrect. By putting Peter and Clarissa’s inner thoughts back to back it shows more clearly how much they are in their own heads, and how their insecurities and fears affect their connections with others. Also, their strong connection with each other is apparent in their inner thoughts- Peter notices how Clarissa seems insincere, and Clarissa notices how Peter seems to criticize her without even speaking to one another.

Just Get Up, You’re Fine!

“Once you stumble, Septimus wrote on the back of a postcard, human nature is on you. Holmes is on you. Their only chance was to escape, without letting Holmes knowl to Italy— anywhere, anywhere, away from Dr. Holmes” (pg. 90).

This passage shows the clear difference between Septimus and Dr. Holmes in terms of mental health. Woolf wants us to see how afraid Septimus is of the world, while also showing how out of touch people can be about mental health if they haven’t experienced it themselves. You can’t make a mistake or be weak without people putting pressure on you to be better.

Continuous Thinking

“And everywhere, though it was still so early, there was a beating, a stirring of galloping ponies, tapping of cricket bats; Lords, Ascot, Ranelagh and all the rest of it; wrapped in the soft mesh of the grey-blue morning air, which, as the day wore on, would unwind them, and set down on their lawns and pitches the bouncing ponies, whose forefeet just struck the ground and up they sprung, the whirling young men, and laughing girls in their transparent muslins who, even now, after dancing all night, were taking their absurd woolly dogs for a run; and even now, at this hour, discreet old dowagers were shooting out in their motor cars on errands of mystery; and the shopkeepers were fidgeting in their windows with their paste and diamonds, their lovely old sea-green brooches in eighteenth-century settings to tempt Americans (but one must economise, not buy things rashly for Elizabeth), and she, too, loving it as she did with an absurd and faithful passion, being part of it, since her people were courtiers once in the time of the Georges, she, too, was going that very night to kindle and illuminate; to give her party. But how strange, on entering the Park, the silence; the mist; the hum; the slow-swimming happy ducks; the pouched birds waddling; and who should be coming along with his back against the Government buildings, most appropriately, carrying a despatch box stamped with the Royal Arms, who but Hugh Whitbread; her old friend Hugh—the admirable Hugh!”

Woolf, Virginia, Mrs. Dalloway (pgs. 6-7)

I found this passage interesting because of how it was written. Woolf seems to be writing in these continuous, never-ending sentences because she wants us to really get inside of the narrators mind. The thoughts of this character seem to flow into one another at a rapid and continuous pace. It feels overwhelming to read, but it gives us a sense of the character’s headspace and personality.

Connected Pieces

 

“a little independence there must be between people living together day in day out in the same house; which Richard gave her, and she him…But with Peter everything had to be shared; everything gone into. …And it was intolerable and when it came to that scene in the little garden by the fountain, she had to break with him or they would have been destroyed, both of them ruined, she was convinced; though she had borne about with her for years like an arrow sticking in her heart the grief, the anguish; and then the horror of the movement when some one told her at a concert that he had married a woman met on the boat going to India!” (Woolf 10).

Woolf, Virginia, Mrs. Dalloway (pp. 10) (passage  originally selected by tangled_yarn)

I found the considerable amount of semi colons in this passage interesting as they do not divide two complete sentences, but instead connect various pieces of Clarissa Dalloway’s memories. As a result, the audience experiences a version of her memories that is more personal and authentic than a simple retelling of events.

Old Uncle William

“And her old Uncle William used to say a lady is known by her shoes and her gloves. He had turned on his bed one morning in the middle of the War. He had said, “I have had enough.” Gloves and shoes; she had a passion for gloves; but her own daughter, her Elizabeth, cared not a straw for either of them.”

– Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway, 8 (from a Feedbooks scan)

This shows the way Clarissa thinks while with herself, thinking back to her old Uncle while looking at gloves in a store. There’s also a link to her daughter, who gets introduced through this memory, which shows how the people she thinks about may be important.

Mrs. Dalloways memories

“But this question of love ( she thought , putting her coat away ) , this falling in love with women . Take Sally Seton ; her relation in the old days with Sally Seton . Had not that , after all , been love ?(Woolf, 46)”

Woolf seamlessly weaves memories of the past into the present narrative to explore Mrs. Dalloway’s feelings on the things happening around her. In this quote, Mrs. Dalloway sinks into a memory while dwelling on the nature of love after her husband leaves to attend a party without her.

memories, not movie scenes

“Though she had borne about with her for years like an arrow sticking in her heart the grief, the anguish; and then the horror of the moment when some one told her at a concert that he had married a woman met on the boat going to India! Never should she forget all that! Cold, heartless, a prude, he called her. Never could she understand how he cared”

p. 10, Woolf, Virginia. Mrs Dalloway. Penguin Classics, 2020.


I love the fact that Woolf uses feelings, emotions and paraphrased fractions of speech to describe memories instead of the typical use of sensory descriptors. It really gives better insight into the characters themselves and humanizing them, while keeping the narrative more personal.

Memory Triggered

“And it was awfully strange, he thought, how she still had the power, as she came tinkling, rustling, still had the power as she came across the room, to make the moon, which he detested, rise at Bourton on the terrace in the summer sky.”

Woolf, “Mrs. Dalloway,” 47.

Woolf captures the human experience of being swept up in memory by sensory triggers. The experience of hearing Clarissa’s “tinkling” and “rustling,” sounds bring Walsh back to the days of his youth, when he spent time with Clarissa on the terrace in Bourton.

Mrs. Dalloway’s Stream of Consciousness

“For Hugh always made her feel, as he bustled on, raising his hat rather extravagantly and assuring her that she might be a girl of eighteen,”

This quote leads to Mrs. Dalloway’s stream of consciousness leading to a past memory of Peter. I think it shows how human she is in the fact that sometimes throughout our day we see things that remind us of a past event and lead our minds to wander back into the past.

Buying Wild

“MRS DALLOWAY SAID she would buy the flowers for herself.”(3)

“There were flowers: delphiniums, sweet peas, bunches of lilac; and carnations, masses of carnations. There were roses; there were irises. Ah yes– so she breathed in the earthy garden smell as she stood talking to Miss Pym…”(12)

Mrs. Dalloway’s Question of Identity

“She had the oddest sense of being herself invisible, unseen; unknown; there being no more marrying, no more having of children now. . . this being Mrs. Dalloway; not even Clarissa any more; this being Mrs. Richard Dalloway.” Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf, p. 10

We can see Mrs. Dalloway/Clarissa’s internal narration show her struggles with identity. Specifically, she questions her identity in relation to her marriage. Who is she now that she is married to Richard? What parts of her identity survived marriage? What makes her Clarissa, as opposed to Mrs. Dalloway? I hope to see more tug-of-war between those two identities as the book progresses.

Stream of Conscious

“…pausing for a moment at the window of a glove shop where, before the War, you could buy almost perfect gloves. And her old Uncle William used to say a lady is known by her shoes and gloves. He turned on his bed one morning in the middle of the War. He had said, ‘I have had enough.’ Gloves and shoes; she had a passion for gloves;”

Woolf, Virginia, Mrs. Dalloway (pp. 11)

Woolf seems to narrate memory as a stream of thought; with the thoughts not necessarily relating to one another directly. But are linked and make sense in Mrs. Dalloway’s conscious

Commonplacing Woolf, 10/1/23

“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 and, when millions of things had utterly vanished-how strange it was!- a few sayings like this about cabbages.”

-Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

A Little Squeak of the Hinges and We’re plunged into the Past

“What a lark! What a plunge! For so it had always seemed to her, when, with a little squeak of the hinges, which she could hear now, she had burst open the French windows and plunged at Bourton into the open air. How fresh, how calm, stiller than this of course, the air was in the early morning: like the flap of a wave, chill and sharp and yet (for a girl of eighteen as she then was) solemn, feeling as she did, standing there at the open window, that something awful was about to happen: looking at the flowers, at the trees with the smoke winding off them and the rooks rising, falling: standing and looking until Peter Walsh said, “Musing among the vegetables?”–‘”I prefer men to cauliflowers”–was that it…”
Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (p.1 ).
In the previous paragraph Clarissa Dalloway, thinks about the men taking the doors off their hinges (indirect discourse) during the present. The only segway into her past is “a little squeak of the hinges” she remembers from the summer of her 18th year at Bourton, a childhood country home where she has a failed relationship with Peter Walsh, who in this same paragraph makes his first annoying remark about her preferring men to cauliflowers. And we are introduced to a key relationship in this novel and a place we will visit many times, Bourton. The transitions from different characters thoughts and switch in time are done sometimes mid sentence.
Valeri Drach Weidmann/September 30, 2023/Mrs. Dalloway

Stephen’s uncertainty toward his mother

“A dim antagonism gathered force within him and darkened his mind as a cloud against her disloyalty: and when it passed, cloudlike, leaving his mine serene and dutiful towards her again…” (p. 178).

The beginning of chapter 4 consists of Stephen guiding himself through the church and his beliefs.  As he starts to think more about his potential involvement in university, his thoughts rapidly shift to anger towards his mother.  But as soon as the thought starts, it ends right at the end of the sentence and there is nothing more towards that in this passage. 

Lust of Wandering

“He started up nervously from the stoneblock for he could no longer quench the flame in his blood. He felt his cheeks aflame and his throat throbbing with song. There was a lust of wandering in his feet that burned to set out for the ends of the earth. On! On! his heart seemed to cry.”

James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (143)

The beginning of this chapter was focused around Stephen’s religious routines and new found devotion.  However, that section was devoid of Stephen’s trademark creative flair and dramatics. This passage is where I noticed a dramatic change in tone, and the language becomes more passionate and dramatic. Stephen’s language had very little passion in the beginning section, but after this passage, the chapter becomes filled with passion and descriptive imagery. Stephen seems to break free from his stale religious routine and embraces his love of life and creativity.

The loving power of God

“The world for all its solid substance and complexity no longer existed for his soul save as a theorem of divine power and love and universality. So entire and unquestionable was this sense of the divine meaning in all nature granted to his soul that he could scarcely understand why is anyway necessary that he should continue to live. Yet that was part of the divine purpose and he dared not to question its use, he above all others who had sinned so deeply and so foully against the divine purpose.”

James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (150)

In the last chapter, Stephen is troubled with guilt and resentment, facing nightmares and fears not based on reality. In Chapter 4, Stephen turns to God and prayer to atone for his sins that he deeply resents. This quote represents the tone shift of existentialism into the passage as Stephen’s devotion emerges.  The text references a “divine” power that harbors love and meaning, a concept related to God. Stephen is shown questioning the divine and his purpose in living. However, Stephen halts his existential thought after being reminded of his sin and returns to the importance of the divine purpose.