Mrs_Dalloway_-_Time_Fragility_and_Morality

Mrs Dalloway Clarissa: ideas about time, fragility and consciousness of mortality Time | Fragility | Mortality | “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” […]. (2.8) | “Death was defiance. Death was an attempt to communicate; people feeling the impossibility of reaching the centre which, mystically, evaded them.” [In Septimus, Clarissa not only sees her own mortality but also feels the fleetingness and fragility of human existence] | “Death was defiance. Death was an attempt to communicate; people feeling the impossibility of reaching the centre which, mystically, evaded them.” | “Life stand still here.” | “So he was deserted. The whole world was clamouring: Kill yourself, kill yourself, for our sakes. But why should he kill himself for their sakes' Food was pleasant; the sun hot; and this killing oneself, how does one set about it, with a table knife, uglily, with floods of blood, - by sucking a gaspipe' He was too weak; he could scarcely raise his hand. Besides, now that he was quite alone, condemned, deserted, as those who are about to die are alone, there was a luxury in it, an isolation full of sublimity; a freedom which the attached can never know.” | “She had the perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very, dangerous to live even one day.” | “She felt somehow very like him—the young man who had killed himself. She felt glad that he had done it; thrown it away. The clock was striking. The leaden circles dissolved in the air. He made her feel the beauty; made her feel the fun. But she must go back. She must assemble.” | “The world wavered and quivered and threatened to burst into flames.” | “Did it matter then, she asked herself, walking towards Bond Street, did it matter that she must inevitably cease completely' All this must go on without her; did she resent it; or did it not become consoling to believe that death ended absolutely'” | “First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable. The leaden circles dissolved in the air.” | | “Clarissa had a theory in those days . . . that since our apparitions, the part of us which appears, are so momentary compared with the other, the unseen part of us, which spreads wide, the unseen might survive, be recovered somehow attached to this person or that, or even haunting certain places after death . . . perhaps—perhaps.” | “Nothing could be slow enough, nothing lasts too long. No pleasure could equal, she thought, straightening the chairs, pushing in one book on the shelf, this having done with the triumphs of youth, lost herself in the process of living, to find it with a shock of delight, as the sun rose, as the day sank. Many a time had she gone, at Barton when they were all talking, to look at the sky; seen it between peoples shoulders at dinner; seen it in London when she could not sleep. She walked to the window.” | "She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged. She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on. . . .far out to sea and alone” (and also in the column of time) | Death was defiance. Death was an attempt to communicate; people feeling the impossibility of reaching the centre which, mystically, evaded them; closeness drew apart; rapture faded, one was alone. There was an embrace in death.” | “Time flaps on the mast.” | “But often now this body she wore . . . this body, with all its capacities, seemed nothing --- nothing at all."Feels like she is dissaperaing, not having any signifance or Page 11 | “After that, how unbelievable death was! - that is must end; and no one in the whole world would know how she had loved it all.” | “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 before Big Ben strikes. There! Out it boomed. First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable. The leaden circles dissolved in the air.”Part of Clarissa’s everyday life is the sound of Big Ben. She has come to anticipate (and be comforted while also disturbed by) the chiming of the bells. | | […] 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 […]. (1.3)Even before the war, Clarissa experienced deep anxiety on a daily basis. Even the simplest actions stir her fear of death now. Because she doesn't connect to other people, she has to deal with this anxiety on her own, which only exacerbates the problem. | “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”. (1.2)In this moment, the mere sound of a squeaky hinge transports Clarissa back in time. It makes her recall her youth at Bourton, her family’s country home. | | “Septimus, lately taken from life to death, the Lord who had come to renew society, who lay like a coverlet, a snow blanket smitten only by the sun, for ever unwasted, suffering for ever, the scapegoat, the eternal sufferer, but he did not want it, he moaned, putting from him with a wave of his hand that eternal suffering, that eternal loneliness.” (1.78)Septimus imagines himself as a lonely savior figure. He believes that he has a message to share – that his suffering can at least teach something to others. In the end, it seems he's right: his death is certainly a lesson to Clarissa. | | | Pg.33 “there was an emptiness about the heart of life; an attic room”Attic room symbolises memories of the past, sense that she feels like she has become redundant in some ways. Removing/retreating from the world to this attic space. In this retreat, she has to ask what she is retreating from and whether she has made the right decisions in life and her legacy. | | | “like a nun” – suggests she hasn’t fulfilled what may be her purpose. Conservation, give up life. Removed herself from society, live in a convent. What has Clarrissa removed herself from' Cannot engage in.Nuns are restricted so she feel restrictiedHer role comes with restrictions, ways of living/behaving, like nuns. In her decision to marry Richard. | | | Pg. 31 “she felt like a nun whose left the world and feels fold around her the familiar veils and response to old devotions” – feels like she is being enclosedBut veils also represent security.Tension – at one time restriciting but also secure and comforting. Gentle, protecting her, yet also confining her to one particular role. | | | It was her life, and, bending her head over the hall table, she bowed beneath the influence, felt blessed and purified, saying to herself, as she took the pad with the telephone message on it, how moments like this are buds on the tree of life, flowers of darkness they are, she thought london’s modern world of energy and excitement has given her some meaning. Contast/retreat of going home contrast with freedom and joining with freedom and people of that movement. | | | Keeps repeating “fear no more” – trying to allay those concerns. Trying to quiet some of the anxieties she has about her husband, her life “But she feared time itself, and read on Lady Bruton's face, as if ithad been a dial cut in impassive stone, the dwindling of life; how year byyear her share was sliced; how little the margin that remained was capableany longer of stretching, of absorbing, as in the youthful years, thecolours, salts, tones of existence, so that she filled the room she entered,and felt often as she stood hesitating one moment on the threshold of herdrawing-room, an exquisite suspense, such as might stay a diver beforeplunging while the sea darkens and brightens beneath him, and thewaves which threaten to break, but only gently split their surface, rolland conceal and encrust as they just turn over the weeds with pearl”Slicing – totally cut of, irriversable, every moment passing slicing that part. Consious of time getting sliced away, can’t go back and change decisions. Showed how she was slowly losing the life.Drainging away – through structure of the sentence, so logn and accumulation dissipearing, losing the essence and liveliness that we know she really values in LondonIt darkens, brightens – emphasises uncertainty. On the threshold – not quite sure what it holds, could be something incredible – might be able to find what she is searching for, essence, meaning. But at the same time she might not, or too fearful. Never launched herself into life like she wanted. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Page 12 – all her soul rested – I Page 40 ‘ one woman who sat in her drawing-room and made a meetingpoint, a radiancy no doubt in some dull lives, a refuge for the lonely to come to, perhaps; she had helped young people, who were grateful to her; had tried to be the same always, never showing a sign of all the other sides of her—faults, jealousies, vanities, suspicions, like this of Lady Bruton not asking her to lunch; Fears Lady Bruton and showing human emotions that are part of the human condition. Fearing lfie ad also what living means – judged, have to behave ina certain way, worried about significance of not being invited to lunch. Relates to 144 – She was about to split asunder, she felt. The agony was so terrific. If she could grasp her, if she could clasp her, if she could make her hers absolutely and forever and then die; that was all she wanted. But to sit here, unable to think of anything to say; to see Elizabeth turning against her; to be felt repulsive even by her— * Wishes she had courage to change what she sees. Passive. Unable to think of anything – on poralisis. Not certain if she has the courage to move forward or not. At the end of the novel 204 – keeps talking about clocks, metaphor of time passing, ‘clock was striking’ – repeats when Big Ben is striking. Very pessimistic when reflects how she likes the boy who had commited suicide. Doesn’t pity him, and feels like she is much like him. Doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to die – she sees some struggle that echoes her own. Understanding for the situation he has found himself in, grieves for him and that choice. At the same choice she knows she chooses differently, chooses lfe and to continue. Clearer sense of who she is. Acceptance of what she is about to do. Septimus’s death promps her consoius of her own mortality (he was so young). Also makes her appreiciate her life she has now. He helps to clarify her thinking .Also the old lady too – recognises this other lady whose life is closer to its end – stimulates her reflections and makes her conscious of her time remaining, had deciocions between life or death. Just because shes made bad deciouns in the past doesn’t mean she doesn’t have decisions left. Sally / Peter remind her of her past and of the time that has passed. She hasn’t seen any of them for a long time (Peta in india, sally lived own life) their return is a prompt for her consuosness of the time when they all met – as young people. IN their return she is questioning in that time' Have I become who I wanted to be. They also remind her of how she used to be. Remind her of that side of herself – she and sally had a connection, particular understanding with Peter, this side of her hasn’t been acknowledged of Richard, fragmented nature of her identity. In her marriage she is a different woman, it has missed out elements of her – who wants to plunge into things etcetc. Her role of mrs Dalloway represses her. Moves between Tension – images, changing calling herself Clarissa and Mrs Dalloway, movig between present and past. Movig between personality. Better understanding of her whole self. Sally has also retreated into conventionality – hasn’t continued or maintained her old personality. Sally is consumed by role of wife and mother. No spontinaity. Peter didn’t go to india. See pages: * 12 -14 * 31-34 * 39-40 * 143-152 * 167 * 139,204 What is Virginia Woolf saying about these issues “Come along,' she said. 'They're waiting.' He had never felt so happy in the whole of his life! Without a word they made it up. They walked down to the lake. He had twenty minutes of perfect happiness. Her voice, her laugh, her dress (something floating, white, crimson), her spirit, her adventurousness; she made them all disembark and explore the island; she startled a hen; she laughed; she sang. And all the time, he knew perfectly well, Dalloway was falling in love with her; she was falling in love with Dalloway; but it didn't seem to matter. Nothing mattered. They sat on the ground and talked-he and Clarissa. They went in and out of each other's minds without any effort. And then in a second it was over. He said to himself as they were getting into the boat, 'She will marry that man,' dully, without any resentment; but it was an obvious thing. Dalloway would marry Clarissa.”