Mrs Dalloway - Book Review

Virginia Woolf in her novel Mrs. Dalloway, creates a magic by employing a large number of modernist techniques to depict -the post-war London, the analysis of Mrs. Dalloway’s marriage in free indirect discourse something that is post Pride and Prejudice (by Jane Austen), the intricacies of the Human character, the failures of life and the themes of communication, privacy and death. As in the class, I would first like to analyze the modernistic tools used by Woolf in this novel followed by the analysis of the story on the above mentioned major themes.

The first main trait of a modernist novel is, but of course the extensive usage of free indirect discourse and stream of consciousness. The title of the novel Mrs. Dalloway itself refers to a woman not known by her rather known by her husband’s name. The novel is written with an assumption of women’s character being constrained and inherently smaller than men. The use of Clarissa when referring to her past memories and Mrs. Dalloway otherwise clearly depicts the narrator being colored by the consciousness of the person being talked about.

In her Novel she has made a brilliant use of flashbacks and fragments from childhood experience, images that have stayed in a character’s consciousness, preserved and frozen like photographs or snapshots, and that come up in unexpected contexts. This makes the narrative technique highly cinematic. Her use of Flashbacks- Clarissa remembering her childhood at Bourton while mending her dress, snapshots- the use of imagery by describing the scenes pretty well as in the streets of London and use of rapid cuts- by starting the story of a new person instantaneously as she did in the morning hours by telling stories of various people connected by common space, makes it highly cinematic.

Woolf has appreciably implored the use of “Time and Duree by Henri Bergson”. In the novel while an exterior incident or perception may only be a brief flash of chronological time, its impact on the individual consciousness may have a much greater duration and meaning. There is also an extensive use of fragmentation in the novel by rapidly changing characters (space) and time (past and present) .

The book is about a day in London of June- 1923, five years from World War 1 (which is one of the major themes). In the morning hours as Mrs. Dalloway goes to pick some flowers for her party, Virginia Woolf describes a much freer and changed London after the War. The Airplane writing the word TOFFEE in the sky, perhaps an advertisement, is symbolic to the post war period where airplanes are used not for bombing but for advertising. Peter constantly mentions about the change after the war as he says newspapers have become freer. However broadly speaking, Woolf has sarcastically used the war to depict the party attitude of the upper middle class society in general. She is holding up a mirror to the upper middle classes in the guise of Septimus and asking whether they can carry on attending the same old frivolous parties and social functions when the whole fabric of existence has shifted so radically. Peter and Sally appear in the novel to remind us that Clarissa once cared for things other than dinner dates and lunch parties – that she too once had a social conscience. Clarissa’s rejection of the values of her youth is exemplified by her refusal to let the story of Septimus’ suicide ruin her party: "What business had the Bradshaws to talk of death at her party? A young man had killed himself. And they talked of it at her party – the Bradshaws talked of death."

The novel very intelligently describes the human nature. Virtually all the characters have failed to live up to their early dreams and ambitions. Clarissa fears that her life has become superficial and passionless. Richard Dalloway has not succeeded in politics. Peter Walsh, a socialite and a writer has not fulfilled his dreams owing to the war. The daring character of Sally Seton ends up marrying a bald manufacturer from Manchester. Doris Kilman suffers because of her closeness to Germans. Septimus Smith suffers the extreme case of inability to love. However among all those people only those people remember the War who have been affected, the rest being as the book calls them the honorable upper middle class have resettled in their routine of parties forgetting about the war that actually changed the lives of many.

Mrs. Dalloway is convinced since the beginning that the Drama of her life has come to an end; “the five acts of the play… were now over”. She analyses in her thoughts what has she done with her life to the contrary of what she wanted. However her perception continuously changes. She feels in the morning that she had done wrong by marrying Richard and that she could have married Peter, after meeting Peter she infers that it was nice she didn’t marry him as his life has been in mess. This is an important human character described through Clarissa. 

In front of Peter Mrs. Dalloway says ‘here comes my Elizabeth’. Peter rethinks the use of ‘my’ by Mrs. Dalloway. Woolf uses this notion that the women relive their lives vicariously through their daughters, men have a chance to renew their lives through action. In the end also Clarissa finally starts believing that Elizabeth has become a beautiful lady and sees herself in her. Women live in past as their life in present is largely decided by their past, unlike men. Moreover Walsh has been more affected by the rejection of Clarissa, signifying the sentimental men hidden beneath the mask of masculine bravado.

At the very start of her day, when she goes out to buy flowers for her party, Clarissa remembers a moment in her youth when she suspected a terrible event would occur. Big Ben tolls out the hour, and Clarissa repeats a line from Shakespeare’s Cymbeline over and over as the day goes on: “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun / Nor the furious winter’s rages.” At this point she considers that all the chapters of her life have already ended and so thinking of death is natural for her. Woolf exaggerates this by creating a psychic character of Septimus Smith, who had attempted suicide and later commits it.

Throughout Mrs. Dalloway, Clarissa, Septimus, Peter, and others struggle to find outlets for communication as well as adequate privacy, and the balance between the two is difficult for all to attain. Clarissa in particular struggles to open the pathway for communication and throws parties in an attempt to draw people together. At the same time, she feels shrouded within her own reflective soul and thinks the ultimate human mystery is how she can exist in one room while the old woman in the house across from hers exists in another. Even as Clarissa celebrates the old woman’s independence, she knows it comes with an inevitable loneliness. Peter tries to explain the contradictory human impulses toward privacy and communication by comparing the soul to a fish that swims along in murky water, and then rises quickly to the surface to frolic on the waves. Clarissa even says it’s the privacy she has with Richard that she likes the most.

Septimus' suicide has allowed Clarissa to see the beauty of life; his death means her rebirth. To emphasize this rebirth, Woolf has the woman across the way finally acknowledge Mrs. Dalloway, "Oh, but how surprising! – in the room opposite the old lady stared straight at her!" .After these great revelations, Clarissa returns to the party. Quite simply, she delights Peter with her return. He no longer denies the deepness of his feeling for her, and her presence changes the moment. A surprisingly optimistic ending indeed.