Choose one from the following questions to write an essay. Cite texts to support your argument.
1) What’s the difference between Clarissa’s party and Lady Bruton’s?
2) What’s the function or purpose (aesthetic and ideological) of creating a morbid figure like Septimus in such a novel that seems to center on the life-affirmative dinner party?
3) Analyze any character's relationship with food in Mrs. Dalloway. How is the relationship between food and sociopolitical power linked in Woolf's depiction of different eating scenes?
4) Explicate some “connective devices” that Woolf uses to integrate the seemingly disconnected private consciousness of various individuals in Mrs. Dalloway.
23 comments:
Septimus is depicted as an image of human beings’ internal weakness. Septimus joined world war I, he tried to make himself as a real man. However, he failed. On the other side, Clarissa fights against her own doubt about her capability and her life. Clarissa decided to marry Richard because she considered the conditions of reality. Both of Clarissa and Septimus have the sensitivity toward the world and human nature. Their reactions are similar, but Septimus’ are much more intense. In another word, Septimus is like Clarissa’s double. The author creates Septimus to portray another consequence that if Clarrisa makes different decisions. Both of Septimus and Clarissa are worried and fearful. However, Virginia Woolf describes the terror in Septimus’ heart to connect to Clarissa’s. To Clarissa, her fear is the lack of sense of security. The most crucial difference of the two persons is their insistence about their own life. Septimus refuses to accept the doctor’s suggestions, and he decides to suicide. On the other hand, Clarissa awares her fear towards the impurities of her life, but she doesn’t discard her stable living.
Q: What’s the function or purpose (aesthetic and ideological) of creating a morbid figure like Septimus in such a novel that seems to center on the life-affirmative dinner party?
Septimus, though as Clarissa’s psychic double, presents a very different image and leads a distinct life from Clarissa in Mrs. Dalloway. Clarissa is evidently affirmative and love life while Septimus is a morbid, schizophrenic person who seems to have no hope in his life. These two main narrative lines in the story seems to be parallel and have no relations or intersection points, however, the two lines, through Clarissa’s party and her epiphany, gather together and suddenly make the whole story strongly complete and indestructible. Neither Clarissa nor Septimus can be taken off from the story. What’s more, Septimus deepen the depth and significance of Clarissa. Clarissa leads a very comfortable and steady life, but Septimus has fight in the WWI and survived from the edge of death. However, in the end it said: “Always her body went through it first, when she was told, suddenly, of an accident; her dress flamed, her body burnt.”(280) We can see that Clarissa is the one who can truly understand what Septimus was suffering from and know what he wanted to protect desperately. “But this young man who had killed himself—had he plunged holding his treasure?”(281) These two characters simultaneously indicate one of the important themes of the story: “the privacy of the soul.” (192) So we can see that Clarissa is not a shallow and tinsel woman, only thinking about holding party and having fun, but an intellectual and charming woman. There is something significance in her purpose of holding the party which is different from Lady Bruton’s. What’s more, in one of Clarissa’s everydayness, it is not only the people who she knew needs to be noticed. In our daily life there are more things to be concerned with or cherished. In Clarissa’s party she realizes this.
Besides, Woolf tried to achieve iconoclasm and challenge the authority. Clarissa’s fear of Sir William Bradshaw and his worship of proportion and conversion represent the terror and blindness of the authority. Woolf shows that the consequence of the abuse of authority can even make a person die. Septimus’s death strengthen this terror and no wonder Clarissa will be afraid of Bradshaw because in the story, she is Septimus’s double and can truly understand his feelings.
Julia 69704010
1) What’s the difference between Clarissa’s party and Lady Bruton’s?
Lady Bruton held herlunch for a certain purpose, as on page 155, “She had got them in false pretences, to help her out of a difficulty --- ” She had a plan, as shown on page 164 “ the project for emigrating young people both sexes born of respectable parents and setting them up with a fair prospect of doing well in Canada.” But, as she said to Miss Brush, “One letter to the Times costs her more than to organize an expedition to South Africa.” So she thought about Hugh Whitbread “who possessed the art of writing letters to the Times.” Therefore, she held the party in order to ask Richard Dalloway advised her, and Hug wrote for her, she was sure of being somehow right. After the lunch, she had these two to work for her. When the letter finished, “she stuffed all Hugh’s carnations into the front of her dress, and flinging her hands out called Hugh “My Prime Minister”. What she would have done with out them both she did not know.” In my opinion, Lady Bruton is not a sincere person, during the lunch, all she thought is to make Richard and Hugh to write a letter for her. She even judged Hugh in her mind; after the letter finished, her behavior was more artificially, which make me feel sick.
However, Clarissa’s party is different. Clarissa reminded everyone about her party, it is not because she is superficial or want to present that she is a perfect hostess. The reason that she held the party is pure, she wanted to gather everybody together, to show her creativity, As can be seen in the context, “They’re an offering.” “She felt quite continuously a sense of their existence; and she felt what a waste; and she felt what a pity: and she felt if only thwy could be brought together; so she did it. And it was an offering; to combine, to create. ” ”An offering for the sake of offering, perhaps.”
49502019 KENNY
What’s the function or purpose (aesthetic and ideological) of creating a morbid figure like Septimus in such a novel that seems to center on the life-affirmative dinner party?
After World War II, Woolf often showed her advocacy by her articles and speeches. She sincerely desired that people could found a kind of society without the class of hierarchy which meant that everyone had the true right of education and culture regardless of gender, or poverty and richness. In addition, she wrote in letters to express her requisition to eliminate the cultural gap between ones who had property and ones who didn’t, and to let the blue-collars become writers in order to make their life more colorful. At that time of such Britain society, the above was seemed to be “utopian matters,” but it eventually expressed this female writer’s tendency toward democracy.
As a result of Woolf’s such thought, it always showed sarcasm, uncovering and criticism against the dark side and pigheaded power of England capitalism in her works. Moreover, she also deeply gave the sympathy and pity to the bullied and oppressed “nobody.” For Example, in Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf carefully made two typical opposing characters into shapes. One was the doctor Sir William Bradshaw, who represented the high class society group and the influence of main stream. The other is a commoner Septimus Warren Smith, who was imposed by the stimulus while he was attending the Europe War, and became cynical and insane and finally committed suicide.
Septimus, as the shell-shocked war hero, operates as a pointed criticism of the treatment of mental illness and depression. Woolf lashes out at the medical discourse through Septimus' decline and suicide; his doctors make snap judgments about his condition, talk to him mainly through his wife and dismiss his urgent confessions before he can make them. Dr. Holmes remarks that Septimus was not ill. Dr Holems said there was nothing the matter with him"
In Mrs. Dalloway’s dinner party, although she didn’t know about Septimus, she somehow meditated about his suicide when she heard about that. Clarissa came through the willingness of self-death, and even felt about the satisfaction of consciousness of life and death from Septimus’s suicide. Her suspicion to other’s consciousness ultimately came back to herself, and she suddenly showed her deep consciousness of consideration.
Q2: What’s the function or purpose (aesthetic and ideological) of creating a morbid figure like Septimus in such a novel that seems to center on the life-affirmative dinner party?
“Mrs. Dalloway”is a novel concerning the details of a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway. The story opens with Clarissa walking from Westminster to Bond Street to buy flowers for she is going to host a party that evening. Therefore, we can sense that Clarissa is in a cheerful frame of mind and the atmosphere is mostly gleeful throughout the novel. On the contrary, however, the character Septimus is gloomy and dismal. As far as I’m concerned, the reason for creating a morbid figure Septimus in a novel that seems to center on the life-affirmative dinner party is that he functions as Clarissa’s double, which enables us to discover the other side of Clarissa’s personality.
In the former part of the story, it’s very likely for readers to regard Clarissa as a tinsel person because she cares so much about the external things and her party. Nevertheless, the appearance of Septimus reveals that Clarissa shares many traits with him. For example, Clarissa once fell in love with her friend, Sally Seton; similarly, Septimus is haunted by the image of Evans. Moreover, the appearance of Septimus further shows the truth that instead of being a superficial woman as we think Clarissa is, she is deep down sensitive and compassionate. Although Clarissa never meets Septimus, it says that“always her body went through it first, when she was told, suddenly, of an accident; her dress flamed, her body burnt”(280) when Septimus’ death becomes a subject that people talk about at her party.
To sum up, by creating the character Septimus in the novel, we can have a better understanding of Clarissa’s true self.
2) What’s the function or purpose (aesthetic and ideological) of creating a morbid figure like Septimus in such a novel that seems to center on the life-affirmative dinner party?
Mrs. Dalloway represents Woolf’s own response to life. She criticizes the ideological system in many aspects such as authoritarian power and patriarchal society thorough the eyes of Septimus, who is functioned as a double of Clarissa. Their stories seem to be parallel since they have never met each other and they are little in common with the tormented character. Nevertheless, under the same social institution, they are closely connected. By the shifting thought through their minds of the insight between life and death, power and weakness, sane and insane, individual and community, we can see how they identify with each other.
In the story, Septimus is created as a morbid figure. Actually, the purpose is to emphasize the dreadful authority which leads people into despair. Like Holmes and Bradshaw, they symbolize the authoritarian power. Their controlling, invasive imposition of “forcing the soul” leads Septimus commits suicide. Not only the doctors but other people regard his suicide as insane; however, he is sane. His death is defiance, a rejection not of life, but of the dehumanizing forces to life. Before he jumps down from the window, he says “I’ll give it you!” He gives his body so that he can protect his inner freedom and privacy of soul. His embrace of death makes him no longer tortured by the authority. And Clarissa understands him. After hearing the death of Septimus in her party, she accurately imagines Septimus’s suicide: “He had thrown himself from a window. Up and flashed the ground; through him, blundering, bruising, went the rusty spikes. ” Then, she asked herself “Why had he done it? “ She seems to know the answer: “Sir William had impressed him, like that, with his power, might he not have said (indeed she felt it now), Life us made intolerable; they make life intolerable, men like that.”
Also, under the patriarchal society and in the hegemony of heterosexuality, a woman is supposed to marry with a man, be a perfect wife and a good mother. Homosexual is against by the society. Then, Clarissa and Septimus become the victims. Clarissa has once falling in love with Sally. When Sally kisses her on the lips, she thinks that it’s the “most exquisite moment of her whole life.” However, she marries Richard who makes Clarissa feels safe, but without any passion. As for Septimus, he loves Even. After the death of Even, he could not feel. Afterward, he marries his wife Reizia without loving her. The repressed homosexuality causes them into aloofness and isolation. Both Clarissa and Septimus reflects how their consciousness being suffered from the values of the society.
4) Explicate some “connective devices” that Woolf uses to integrate the seemingly disconnected private consciousness of various individuals in Mrs. Dalloway.
Virginia Woolf is very good at the writing skill of stream of consciousness, and she is particularly good at creating certain events that can connect the seemingly unrelated inner thoughts of certain characters which makes the stream of consciousness flow smoothly.
In Mrs. Dalloway, I identify four connective devices which all helped conjoin the inner consciousness of certain characters, and at the same time, they also possess other functions like foreshadowing, symbolizing or serving as some kind of reflection. For instance, in page 19, the big black motor car which makes an explosive sound catches everyone’s attention on the street. As the car passes by, it intriguing many people and they are all curious about who is in that car and thus, rumors begin. We can perceive certain individuals inner thoughts about the motor car like Clarissa and Lucrezia, and we know that Septimus is terrified by “this gradual drawing together of everything to one centre before his eyes”. And also we know that people think there must be some royalty sitting in that car, and it may be the Queen, the Prince, or the Prime Minister. Some men (and also Clarissa) even feel “the pale light of immortal presence fell upon them” when the car passes by and they “stood even straighter, and removed their hands, and seemed ready to attend their Sovereign, if need be, to the cannon’s mouth, as their ancestors had done before them”. This motor car symbolizes the outdated idea of imperialism and aristocracy that is still being accepted and promoted by most of the British, and it can still arouse some blindly-followed patriotism.
The second connective device is the airplane which is making letters in the sky. Woolf uses the adverb “ominously” to describe the sound of the airplane bores into the ear of the crowd as a foreshadow of the catastrophe of WWII. Some of the crowd is eagerly discussing and guessing the letters that the airplane writes, but we can see that Septimus, on the other hand, takes no interest in that airplane and begins to get some maggot inside his head, and his wife, Lucrezia does not mind that airplane much either, instead, she is thinking about her past and feeling pity for herself for marrying Septimus and trapped in this unhappy marriage. This airplane is not only a symbol of the new idea of materialism and capitalism which is extremely attractive to people, but also a devise that helps reflect certain characters’ mental states.
The third connective device is a battered woman singing at the opposite side of Regent’s Park Tube. This woman who is singing the nonsensical tune deeply attracts Peter, and he begins to imagine that this woman is singing of love “—love which has lasted a million years, she sang, love which prevails”. When Peter hears this woman’s singing, he cannot help but imagine a love story between this battered woman and her lover, and he apotheosizes her; nevertheless, when Lucrezia hears the woman’s singing, she just think that this woman is a “poor old wretch”. This connective devise also serves as a reflection of the mental states of the characters which let us perceive that Peter’s head is filled with the fantasy of love, but Lucrezia, on the other hand, is in the deep suffering.
After poor Septimus is being forced to death by the psychiatrists, the ambulance which carries his dead body becomes one of the connective devise. When the ambulance passes through the street which Peter Walsh stands, he hears the light high bell of the ambulance sounded and regards it as “one of the triumphs of cilvilisation” which “humanely” picks up some “poor devil”. However, it is quite ironic that the ambulance is actually carrying the sacrifice of the ugliness of the society, the sacrifice who is forced to death by some seemingly righteous devil.
Q2. What’s the function or purpose (aesthetic and ideological) of creating a morbid figure like Septimus in such a novel that seems to center on the life-affirmative dinner party?
It is ironic to create a figure like Septimus in the novel to contrast the life affirmative dinner party and the deranged figure. Woolf wants to show contrary scene and a sarcastic plot in the novel. Septimus is a character who has moved himself from the physical world. He lives in an internal world and isolates himself. He sees and hears things that aren’t really there and he talks to his dead friend Evans. From the novel, Woolf intents to let Clarissa play a sane figure; on the other hand, Septimus is put to play an insane figure to reflect the other side of Clarissa. In other words, Septimus is a double of Clarissa. He embodies many characteristics that Clarissa thinks in the same way she does. The doubling, which illustrates the opposite phases of the idea of life.
Septimus is qualified as a conscious struggle of a working-class veteran to compare Clarissa who situates in blind opulence of the upper class. Clarissa strives to reconcile herself to life in spite of her powerful desire and confusion. She performs life-affirming actions such as buying flowers in the text. In addition, she experiences a moment of clarity and peace when she watches her old neighbor through her window. On contrast, her double, Septimus, who becomes absorbed by fear and breaks down by the society, which we can see from the quote, “No crime; love; he repeated, fumbling for his card and pencil, when a Skye terrier snuffed his trousers and he started in an agony of fear.” Besides, he always emerges an illusion that Evans appears in front of him. For example, “Evans answered from behind mangonel tree” and “A man in grey was actually walking towards them. It was Evans!”
In conclusion, I think Septimus functions as a power to strike a society which seems decent and the splendid party under it. And the morbid figure also contrasts the atmosphere of life-affirmative at the dinner party which is mould by Woolf.
49502027 蘇羿慈
3) Analyze any character's relationship with food in Mrs. Dalloway. How is the relationship between food and sociopolitical power linked in Woolf's depiction of different eating scenes?
Miss Kilman has a perplexed relationship with food. She eats not only because she is hungry but because that “food” is what she “lives for,” which means food to her has became a balm for her mentally starvation: “Sometimes lately it had seemed to her that, except for Elizabeth, her food was all she lived for; her comforts; her dinner, her tea; her hot-water bottle at night.”
The way of eating food of Miss Kilman, devouring and gorging, manifests that she has something lost so that she feels the need to fulfill it through the other object. Miss Kilman is from a German family during World War I, and because of this, she has the grudge of being stigmatized; she tastes the bitterness of life. She hates and envies Clarissa Dalloway, who “had breakfast in bed every day; Lucy carried it up.” Or to say, she hates this kind of woman – rich, prestigious, and most of all, beautiful. “But why should she have to suffer when other woman, like Clarissa Dalloway, escaped? Knowledge comes through suffering, said Mr Whittaker.” Although Miss Kilman is remarkable for her knowledge and she is sometimes triumphant for it, it still cannot make her happy.
Then she turns to food for happiness. In the scene of having their tea, Miss Kilman “eat[s] with intense” and even looks at the “pink” cake next table. Colour pink means something sweat, dreamy, pretty, and naïve. Those qualities are what Miss Kilman lacks. And eating is “the only pure pleasure left her,” however, even this only and pure happiness is too luxurious for her. So when Elizabeth is leaving her, Miss Kilman keeps eating her “last two inches of a chocolate éclair,” hopefully can cure the agony of the fact that Elizabeth wants to fly away from her.
1) What’s the difference between Clarissa’s party and Lady Bruton’s?
The party of Lady Bruton has particular purpose, she wants to ask Richard and Hugh to write a letter to the Times for her. But Clarissa’s party is seems that does not has specific purpose, just like Clarissa love holding party and maybe she thought that holding a party is one of her duties. Virginal Woolf wrote that:” she was for the party.”(266) and the comment given by Peter is “Clarissa had always been fond of society.”(272)Therefore the reasons why Clarissa holds the party maybe is because she likes to engage in social activities, and she wants to satisfy her vanity and interest.
The descriptions of two parties are different. The party of Lady Bruton is more like a miniature lunch party, just like you go to your intimate neighbor’s home to lunch together. Lady Bruton does not expressing that she just want to invite those famous people, but Clarissa does. Clarissa feels “that intoxication of the moment” when she walking down with the Prime Minister,” (265) and also, she feels unwilling to invites her “poor” relative Ellie Henderson. Clarissa’s party is more gorgeous and stately than Lady Brutons. She invites lots of guests, and most of them are famous people and celebrities, just like a grand gathering. However, I think the atmosphere in Lady Bruton’s party is more comfortable than Clarissa’s, since in Lady Bruton’s party there is no much greetings or manners, even her chow feels cosy and stretches in her house. But in Clarissa’s party, you have to put your best wardrobe on, and the atmosphere is more civilized. Clarissa’s party begins with the stream of consciousness of servants. Through Lucy’s eyes, we see guests continually come, and also let us see the affectations and false politeness of those upper class people, and makes us feel the characteristics of Clarissa is vainglorious. For Lady Bruton, she also has vanity, she employs some handmaids for the party which is actually “not of necessity, but adepts in a mystery of grand deception practiced by hostesses in Mayfair from one-thirty to two.”(158)
The hosts of two parties are extremely different, just like their parties. Lady Bruton is described as a “handsome, august” figure. Richard comments her “it was remarkable how in that family the likeness persisted in the woman. She should have been a general of dragoons herself.” (159) Lady Bruton is like man and is more practical than Clarissa, and this quality is distinguishing with Clarissa. Clarissa is charming, pale, pure, emotional, and like a bird, if we can say that Clarissa uses her heart to think, then Lady Bruton is using her brain.
Q2. Analyze any character's relationship with food in Mrs. Dalloway. How is the relationship between food and sociopolitical power linked in Woolf's depiction of different eating scenes?
The character I am going to explain is Miss Kilman. When referred to her relationship with food, we can see from texts, it says “ Sometimes lately it had seemed to her that, except for Elizabeth, her food was all that she lived for……It was her way of eating, eating with intensity, then looking again and again, at a plate of sugared cakes on the table next them”
We could know that Miss Kilman is so concentrated in her foods because she takes foods as her life center except Elizabeth. She does not care about men so she always dresses herself in mackintosh for two reasons, cheap and not dress for pleasing men. She is jealous for what Clarissa owns but she does not own such as “Clarissa’s small pink face, her delicate body, her air of freshness and fashion”; in this way, she can only fail Clarissa with a religious victory for she had became a Christian two years and three months ago.
Miss Kilman is so cynical that she doe not like Clarissa and unhappy; she eats in a radical way to satisfy her own desire because it is the only thing comforting herself and she can do for herself, her foods would not fail her. She has the power above foods-the capability of dominating or influencing the society; that is the power a tutor lacking in society at that time and that is the reason why she acts to her foods like fighting.
4)
Woolf’s use of the connective devices is an ingenious technique to integrate private consciousness of various individuals.
Everyone is used to normal daily life. I am keeping myself occupied with my routine, while you are concentrating on your business, unless some unusual or special things happen to interfere what we are doing on hand. These little things can call everyone’s attention. It provides an opportunity to transfer the stream of other characters’ consciousness, and it even makes those seemingly disconnected various individuals revolve mainly around the same thing.
The thoughts of characters such as Mrs. Dalloway and Septimus are connected by external events in the world. Take three of them for example:
The first one is the sound of the violent explosion from a motor car. “And as she began to go with Miss Pym from jar to jar, choosing, nonsense… and it lifted her up and up when—oh! A pistol shot in the street outside! (pp. 18-19)” When Mrs. Dalloway was enjoying the feeling of being with Miss Pym, the explosion sound stopped everyone. Passers-by stopped and stared out of curiosity, and the rumor was immediately in circulation from Bond Street to Oxford Street. “The Proime Minister’s kyar,” Edgar J. Watkiss said audibly and humorously. “Septimus Warren Smith, who found himself unable to pass, heard him. (p. 20)” “Everything had come to a standstill… Mrs. Dalloway, coming to the window with her little pink face pursed in enquiry. Everyone looked at the motor car. Septimus looked. Boys on… (pp. 20-21)” The stream of consciousness is now flowing to Septimus.
The second and the third events are the sound of an airplane in the sky and the sound of the Big Ben clock as it strikes the hour. When Mrs. Dalloway was observing people around the St. James’s Street and the Mall, the airplane appeared. “Suddenly Mrs. Coates looked up into the sky. The sound of an aeroplane bored ominously into ears of the crowd. (p. 29)” Everyone was wide-eyed and speechless because they wanted to know what letters the airplane was writing. “All down the Mall people were standing and looking up into the sky… and in this extraordinary silence and peace, in this pallor, in this purity, bells struck eleven times… (pp.29-30)” Septimus looked up and thought that the letters were signaling to him, so he cried.
Woolf shows that the consciousness streams of individuals can be connected by devices that present a unity in human subsistence.
In response to question number 2.
The character Septimus is created to serve as the different side of Clarissa; the side of Clarissa which has been hidden and oppressed by society. Woolf herself also pointed out that she wanted to examine “the world of the sane and the insane side by side”. Clarissa apparently stands for the sane side while Septimus is on behalf of the insane one.
Each brain is complicated, and each of us may have many different personalities which some are shown and some are hidden. Clarissa may seem rather superficial: being a politician’s life, living in an upper class environment and is arranging for a dinner party which is not deep at all. However, we can see her also having much intimate contact with humanity itself. For example, she once is greatly inspired with Sally back at her girlhood, and she experiences some really transcendental feelings with her despite the fact that these qualities of her are later hidden. She was certainly a figure with ideas even though this side is not shown. Therefore, the role of Septimus, expresses a different side of Clarissa, her hidden side, the side of her with dreams and love for humanity. Furthermore, this role is also created for Woolf herself to points out many of her ideology and opinions on various subjects.
3) Analyze any character's relationship with food in Mrs. Dalloway. How is the relationship between food and sociopolitical power linked in Woolf's depiction of different eating scenes?
In Mrs. Dalloway, there are some important scenes about eating and food. It seems that food had a lot to do with the social world in this book. The most obvious connection between food and one of the characters is Miss Kilman thought that “expect for Elizabeth, her food was all that she lived for.”
Miss Kilman’s love to food reflected her anti-socialism because of her family background. She was very poor and was becoming a jealous and acrid person. In p.188, we can see her hatred toward rich people through her thought that “she should have been in a factory; behind a counter; Mrs. Dalloway and all the other fine ladies!” In addition, Miss Kilman as the teacher of Clarissa’s daughter, Elizabeth, she felt more competitive with Clarissa. Besides, comparing with Clarissa, she was ugly and poor, so she had to comfort herself with the “religious victory” and moral victory. But this fake comfort didn’t seem to work well. While she was depressed by her “unlovable body,” she put her concentration on food. In p. 197, “the pleasure of eating was almost the only pure pleasure left her,” she thought. Moreover, through the eating scene of her, we can also analyze her other personalities. While Miss Kilman and Elizabeth had the tea in p.197, Elizabeth described her teacher’s way of eating as “eating with intensity, then looking, again and again, at a plate of sugared cakes on the table next them.” This behavior shows Miss Kilman was a greedy and pretentious person. She wanted everything she didn’t have, but she pretended to be indifferent and morally superior then others to disguise her true feelings.
3) Analyze any character's relationship with food in Mrs. Dalloway. How is the relationship between food and sociopolitical power linked in Woolf's depiction of different eating scenes?
For Miss Kilman, food was what she lived for except for Elizabeth. When she had afternoon tea with Elizabeth, Woolf describes that “it was her way of eating, eating with intensity…” She gobbled down her cake as a fight. And Miss Kilman “then looking, again and again, at a plate of sugared cakes on the table next them…she had wanted that cake—the pink one.” She wanted to eat the cake on the next table even if finished hers. Also when Elizabeth wanted to leave, Miss Kilman wondered that she could not let Elizabeth go and still focused on eating that “fingering the last two inches of a chocolate éclair” then she “opened her mouth…and swallowed down the last inches of the chocolate éclair.” Woolf’s depiction of Miss Kilman’s eating scene is gorging on food, a disgraceful way of eating, unlike the ladies.
Miss Kilman was poor for she wore cheap mackintosh. She was also alone. Being a German, she wasn’t accepted. Although she hated the ladies like Mrs. Dalloway and thought them were superficial women, she in fact envied them. Even if she thought that she was superior than Clarissa, one of the rich people on morality, she still could not be happy, and with grudges.
As Woolf writes, “the pleasure of eating was almost the only pure pleasure left her,” Miss Kilman only can be satisfied and happy by food. She concentrated on eating that it could give her comforts; therefore she ate food by gobbling down them. The way she ate could show her hungers for companionship and acceptance. Besides, for Miss Kilman who had grudges, her desire of the pink cake represented childishness which was what she lacked.
1)What’s the difference between Clarissa’s party and Lady Bruton’s?
I think there are two difference between Lady Bruton’s party and Clarissa’s. Lady Bruton has aobvious purpose to invite Richard and Hugh to lunch party, not for communication. In contrast, she wants to ask them to write a letter to Times about encouraging the younger to emigrate to Canada. “There was nobody else coming, she said.” “She had got them there on false pretences, to help her out of a difficulty.”(157) Although Lady Bruton seems to talk to Richard and Hugh happily, she just wants to finish their meal quickly and ask them write the letter. In 164, she thinks that Hugh eats too slowly, so “ she was getting impatient; the whole of her being was setting positively, undeniably, domineeringly brushing aside all this unnecessary trifling upon that subject which engaged her attention…” What’s more, Woolf describes everything fair excessively in the party, including food (158) and people (Lady Bruton and Hugh) Through Woolf’s description, it shows that Lady Bruton and Hugh seem to be a hypocrite and a flatter. She doesn’t treat Richard and Hugh sincerely. Besides, she always estimates Hugh badly in her mind, but she does not show directly.
As for Clarissa’s party, what she likes is simply life, but both Peter and Richard criticize her unfairly and laugh at her unjustly. “They’re an offering.” (184) “She felt quite continuously a sense of their existence; and she felt what a waste; and she felt what a pity; and she felt if only they could be brought together; so she did it. And it was an offering; to combine, to create. ” (185) Clarissa views her party as an offering. Although she is thought to be a snob, she doesn’t expect other people realize her. I think that her party is a stage for Clarissa. In 259, Clarissa doesn’t enjoy her party, and she thinks that every one is unreal in one way in the party. Contrary to Lady Bruton’s party, communication in clarissa’s party also makes Clarissa has epiphany. Septimus’ death reminds Clarissa that inner freedom is more important than anything. Although she always feels oppressive force in life, she decides to endure life and keep her inner world free.
In “Mrs. Dalloway”, some connective devices are used to integrate different people’s consciousness, such as the royal family’s black car, an airplane, and the Big Ben. Furthermore, those devices are symbols associated with time or the U.K.
First, from page 19 to 20, the royal family’s car attracts people’s attention and becomes the connection of people’s consciousness- Mrs. Dalloway’s prologue is interrupted by the violent explosion of the car, the passers-by wander the identity of the passenger, Edgar J. Wakiss humorously says “The Proime Minister’s kyar”, And Septimus hears what Wakiss says. When Septimus looks at “the tree pattern on the blinds” of the car, he sees some illusions and feels uneasy in the crowd.
Moreover, when the car passes by Pimlico, Sarah Bletchley, Emily Coates, and Mr. Bowley turn their attention from the royal family’s car to the airplane (p.28~p.29). The airplane is a foreshadow of World War II and the symbol that the adoration of capitalism replaces the decaying loyalty to the royalty.
Third, the Big Ben, as a symbol of the official time and the public, shows in the story and integrate lots of people’s consciousness. For example, in page 142, “Dr. Holmes looking not quit so kind. It was 12o’clock; 12 by the Big Ben……12 o’clock struck Clarissa Dalloway laid her green dress on her bed, and the Warren Smiths walked down Harley Street. Twelve was the hour of their appointment. Probably, Rezia thought that was Sir William Bradshaw’s house with the grey motor car in front of it.” Furthermore, in page154, page 178, and page 193, characters’ consciousness changes as the Big Ben is mentioned.
1) What’s the difference between Clarissa’s party and Lady Bruton’s?
Their purpose is different. For Clarissa, having a party is just for fun. It’s a common activity for being a society hostess to hold a party for society. However, for Lady Bruton, party is a way to help her scheme to be procured.
In page 155 to page 168, we can discover that the purpose of Lady Bruton’s party is not simple; instead, it’s about herself- classic imperialism. In page165, “A being so differently constituted from herself, with such a command of language; able to put things as editors like them put; had passions which one could not call simply greed. Lady Bruton often suspended judgment upon men in deference to the mysterious accord in which they, but no woman, stood to the laws of the universe; knew how to put things; knew what was said; so that if Richard advised her, and Hugh wrote for her, she was sure of being somehow right.” She is not wholehearted to hold the party. She invites Richard and Hugh to lunch for their advising on the letter that she wants to write to the Editor of the Times for her scheme to encourage the emigration of young people to Canada.
From the difference between Clarissa’s party and Lady Bruton’s, we can find out that their personality is also different. For example, in page 159,” Clarissa always said that Lady Bruton did not like her. Indeed, Lady Bruton had the reputation of being more interested in politics than people; of talking like a man; of having had a finger in some notorious intrigue of the eighties, which was now beginning to be mentioned in memoirs.” Under Woolf‘s description, the characters of each people in the novel always show up naturally.
2.What’s the function or purpose (aesthetic and ideological) of creating a morbid figure like Septimus in such a novel that seems to center on the life-affirmative dinner party?
In Mrs. Dalloway, Clarissa and Septimus play the major role of the novel. Even though they have their stories separately, they are somehow connected. They are like one soul being put into a different position. I think the function of creating this character Septimus is to lead out Clarissa’s deeper feelings about her upper class life and make the readers see a different fate or the image that is contrary to the parties which are seemly positive in Clarissa’s life.
The two characters have the same thoughts or experiences in some way. They had homosexual love for their own gender. They are both afraid of breaking some social value, for instance, after the war, Septimus was panic at being numb, and so he married Rezia, hoping to be a normal person. Similarly, Clarissa also became a wife and wished she could care more about politics. Although Clarissa had led a privileged life while Septimus was in a lower position, she was sometimes eager for freedom and meaningful life in her consciousness. Septimus, suffered by the mental disease, was more sensitive in seeing things than Clarissa. His gloomy side came from the restraining earthly opinion and doctor’s authority in such a modern society. He desired freedom because he couldn’t be himself, just like Clarissa sometimes flashed back as a girl, running on the open field. Septimus and Clarissa both wanted to keep their private safe, but Septimus used an intense way to protect it -death. When Clarissa learned that Septimus killed himself, she thought “death was defiance”, and he had preserved his sanctity of his soul. Even though she never knew him, she felt like she knew him well.
4) Explicate some “connective devices” that Woolf uses to integrate the seemingly disconnected private consciousness of various individuals in Mrs. Dalloway.
Although one’s stream of consciousness is very private and individual, Woolf finds that one’s stream of consciousness is also easily influenced by something unusual, especially the sounds. I think Woolf uses three main connective devices to integrate the seemingly disconnected private consciousness of various individuals in Mrs. Dalloway.
The first connective device is the violent explosion of a motor car. When Mrs. Dalloway was choosing flowers and thinking nonsense, the explosion of car broke off her thinking. Everyone stopped and stared. And rumors spread. As seeing the car, people knew that people in it must be somebody. The car symbolizes authority of the country, patriotism and the loyalty to royalty. Some one saluted the car. Some one did not care. For example, Septimus just thought it was terrible when this gradual drawing together of everything to one centre. And Rezia was afraid that people must see Septimus’ weird behavior. However, that strangers looked at each other and thought of the dead, of the flag and of empire makes the agitation of the passing car profound.
The second connective device is the sound of an airplane. Everyone looked up and did not notice the car. Everyone saw the airplane but thought individually. Septimus thought it provided him for looking more beauty. Rezia felt she was alone. Mrs. Dempster who was asking for pity thought the pilot must be handsome. Mr. Bentley thought it was a symbol of man’s soul and of his determination. Woolf thinks this sound is ominous. The airplane and its advertisement of toffee stand for the rising of the new power－capitalism. The airplane seems unguided and it speeds with its own free will. At the same time, the airplane suggests the war, so people see it with fear.
The third connective device is the ancient song of the old woman. This ancient song soothes Peter and Rezia. When Peter was depressed because he thought Clarissa must see him as a fool, he heard the song which interrupted his thinking. On the other hand, Rezia also heard the song when she felt that she was unhappy. Both Peter and Rezua got some consolation because they were worried about others’ views. And this song told them “and if some one should see, what matter they?” that made them believe everything was going to be right. I think the sounds of car and airplane are so cold that Rezia who was uneasy did not notice. Rezia noticed the ancient song and felt warm. These connective devices that Woolf uses connect not only individuals’ consciousness but also individuals’ unconsciousness－ souls.
The difficulty of reconciling her inner self with her exterior balances constantly on Clarissa’s mind. Even as Clarissa rejoices in life, she struggles to deal with aging and death. She reads two lines about death from an open book in a shop window: “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun / Nor the furious winter’s rages.” The words are from one of Shakespeare’s later plays, Cymbeline. The lines suggests death is a comfort after life’s struggles. Both Clarissa and Septimus repeat these lines throughout the day. Clarissa speak the sane truth and Septimus the insane truth, and indeed Septimus’s detachment enables him to judge other people more harshly. Septimus sees that world offers little hope.
In fact, Septimus seems quite dissimilar to Clarissa, but he embraces many characteristics that Clarissa shares and thinks in much the same way she does. He could almost be her double in the novel. Septimus and Clarissa both love Shakespeare and fear oppression. More important, as Clarissa’s double, Septimus offers a contrast between the conscious struggle of a working-class veteran and the blind protest of the upper class. His troubles question the legitimacy of the English society he fought to preserve during the war. Clarissa feels that Septimus’s death is her own disgrace, and she is ashamed that she is an upper-class society wife who has schemed and desired social success. His death is also her disgrace because she compromised her passion and her soul when she married Richard, while Septimus preserved his soul by choosing death.
Q: What’s the function or purpose (aesthetic and ideological) of creating a morbid figure like Septimus in such a novel that seems to center on the life-affirmative dinner party?
The difficulty of reconciling her inner self with her exterior balances constantly on Clarissa’s mind. Even as Clarissa rejoices in life, she struggles to deal with aging and death. She reads two lines about death from an open book in a shop window: “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun / Nor the furious winter’s rages.” The words are from one of Shakespeare’s later plays, Cymbeline. The lines suggests death is a comfort after life’s struggles. Both Clarissa and Septimus repeat these lines throughout the day. Clarissa speak the sane truth and Septimus the insane truth, and indeed Septimus’s detachment enables him to judge other people more harshly. Septimus sees that world offers little hope.
In fact, Septimus seems quite dissimilar to Clarissa, but he embraces many characteristics that Clarissa shares and thinks in much the same way she does. He could almost be her double in the novel. Septimus and Clarissa both love Shakespeare and fear oppression. More important, as Clarissa’s double, Septimus offers a contrast between the conscious struggle of a working-class veteran and the blind protest of the upper class. His troubles question the legitimacy of the English society he fought to preserve during the war. Clarissa feels that Septimus’s death is her own disgrace, and she is ashamed that she is an upper-class society wife who has schemed and desired social success. His death is also her disgrace because she compromised her passion and her soul when she married Richard, while Septimus preserved his soul by choosing death.
Dear folks,
Below is an English translation of a song called “Allerseelen” by Richard Strauss, with words by Hermann von Gilm. This translation is done by J. Hillis Miller, and you can find the translation in Miller’s article “Repetition as the Raising of the Dead,” selected in the book Virginia Woolf’ Mrs. Dalloway: Modern Critical Interpretations.
Does the song remind you of a strange song in the novel?
“Allerseelen”
Place on the table the perfuming heather,
Bring here the last red asters,
And let us speak again of love,
As once in May.
Give me your hand, that I may secretly press it,
And if someone sees, it’s all the same to me;
Give me but one of your sweet glances,
As once in May,
It is blooming and breathing perfume today on every grave,
One day in the year is free to the dead,
Come to my heart that I may have you again,
As once in May.
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