Virginia Woolf Mrs Dalloway 1925 The Politization of

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Ø Virginia Woolf Ø Mrs Dalloway (1925)

Ø Virginia Woolf Ø Mrs Dalloway (1925)

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space of Virginia Woolf Ø The novel is considered one of her most mature texts and brings some reflections of previous works, such as the short story “A Society”, the tale itself “Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street”, the essay “Modern Fiction” and the novel Jacob’s Room. Ø Elizabeth Abel (1993) believes that the book is part of a moment of transition between the direct narrative style of The Voyage Out and the experimental structure of Woolf’s later work, such as The Waves.

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space of Virginia Woolf Ø Many critics, as we will see below, emphasize how the narrative technique seems to connect the separate elements of the narrative into a unified whole and which ends becoming a myth. Ø Mrs. Dalloway’s day is not an ordinary day, but it is symbolic and timeless.

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space of Virginia Woolf Ø Different perspectives of the various characters who share the same worldview leads us to think of a possible preexisting unit, which connects the characters and two narrative levels: of Mrs. Dalloway’s party and Septimus Smith’s traumatic experience during the war. Ø Although these two characters never meet, there are different points of intersection between the two narratives, such as how Septimus’ death affects Mrs. Dalloway decisively.

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space of Virginia Woolf Ø Let’s look at the plot of Mrs. Dalloway. In the foreground, Clarissa Dalloway decides that she will buy flowers for a party that she is organizing. Ø When Clarissa opens the doors she plunges into a beautiful June morning, which also leads her to dive into the past, and she remembers her youth with her friends of that time, Sally Seton and Peter Walsh, in Bourton.

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space of Virginia Woolf Ø On her way to the flower shop, she meets an old friend, Hugh Whitbread. While she buys flowers, she notices a Royal car, which is perhaps the Queen’s or the Prime Minister’s car. Ø Upon arriving home, she receives a message that her husband, Richard Dalloway, will lunch with Lady Bruton, a prominent figure of the same political party.

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space of Virginia Woolf Ø Clarissa is resentful for not being invited and she locks herself in her room in the attic in order to sew her party dress. Ø At that moment, Clarissa receives a visit from Peter Walsh, whom he had loved in her youth and who she leaves before she married Richard Dalloway. Ø Peter has just arrived from India to tell Clarissa that he is passionately in love with Daisy, a married woman with two children.

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space of Virginia Woolf Ø He realizes that he still loves Clarissa and breaks down in tears. Ø At that moment, Elizabeth Dalloway, Clarissa’s only daughter, interrupts the conversation and Peter leaves. Ø Richard Dalloway and Hugh Whitbread lunch with Lady Bruton, whose goal is to write a letter to the newspaper The Times, explaining her project of immigration to Canada in order to mitigate the English recession.

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space of Virginia Woolf Ø Upon hearing that Peter is in London, Richard decides to buy flowers for Clarissa and tell her he loves her. Ø Ø However, when he gets home, Richard cannot verbalise his feelings and finds Clarissa disturbed since she is forced, against her will, to invite Ellie Henderson, her cousin, to the party, and because Elizabeth was locked in the room with Miss Kilman, her history tutor.

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space of Virginia Woolf Ø The two leave to go shopping, but Elizabeth gets irritated with Miss Kilman and leaves her alone. Elizabeth takes a bus and wanders through the city, when she realises that she need to return to her mother’s party. With the exception of Miss Kilman, all characters mentioned participate in Clarissa’s party. Ø In the second narrative, involves Septimus and Lucrezia, whose nickname is Rezia. Septimus, a veteran traumatized by war, and she, a young Italian woman who used to produce hats in Milan.

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space of Virginia Woolf Ø The two are in Regent’s Park waiting to go to a psychiatric appointment that Septimus has with Sir William Bradshaw. Ø While waiting, Septimus observes a plane pirouetting in the sky and he thinks of his experience as a soldier. Ø His madness leads to a series of daydreams, and Lucrezia tries to keep him in touch with reality. During his consultation with Septimus, Sir William Bradshaw, considering Septimus’ very serious problem, suggests a place for him in one of his nursing homes.

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space of Virginia Woolf Ø Later, when the two are at home, Septimus has a moment of clarity and they experience a moment of great harmony. Ø Then, they are interrupted by Dr. Holmes’ visit, another doctor who also monitors Septimus’ treatment, but he refuses the meet with the doctor and throws himself over the window.

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space of Virginia Woolf Ø During the party, Clarissa receives word of Septimus’suicide and she has a moment of epiphany and communion with Septimus, as if she understood the meaning of his suicide. Ø The communication process in Mrs. Dalloway is a central theme in the novel.

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space of Virginia Woolf Ø This would be a major concern to Woolf and one that is present in her essays, particularly in the essay on Montaigne, written in 1925, the year of Mrs. Dalloway’s publication, in which Woolf makes the following comment about Montaigne:

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space of Virginia Woolf Ø Here then, in spite of all contradictions and all qualifications, is something definite. These essays are an attempt to communicate a soul. On this point at least he is explicit. It is not fame that he wants; it is not that men shall quote him in years to come; he is setting up no statue in the market- place; he wishes only to communicate his soul. Communication is health; communication is truth; communication is happiness. (Woolf, 1984: 64) Ø While Woolf was aware of the power of language, she also faces its limits.

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space of Virginia Woolf Ø One can understand theme of communication as an illusion to which we cling to protect ourselves from what Septimus, with all his “scepticism”, intended to express that the world itself has no sense and that our search for meaning is useless. Ø I believe that the greater significance of Mrs. Dalloway is that there is no point to fear life or death, since everything will return to dust, taking Shakespeare’s verses in Cymbeline, Act IV Scene 2, “Fear no more, the heat of the sun”, constantly repeated in various passages of the book.

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space of Virginia Woolf Ø It also makes us think of Hamlet’s soliloquy in the cemetery, Act V Scene 1, in which the playwright reflects on life and death, leading us to reflect on the vanity of earthly life, the transience of life and the inevitability death. Ø Women’s Space in the Social and Symbolic Space. Ø But now I must recall what Mr. Arnold Bennett says.

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space of Virginia Woolf Ø He says that it is only if the characters are real that the novel has any chance of surviving. Otherwise, die it must. Ø But I ask myself, what is reality? And who are the judges of reality? Ø A character may be real to Mr. Bennett and quite unreal to me. (Woolf, 1978: The Captain’s Death Bed and Other Essays 103)

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space of Virginia Woolf Ø Hussey (1995) realizes that in the past two decades, the social criticism present in the novel resurfaced vigorously, something that Woolf had already made it clear in her diary. Ø Thus, one can notice the issue of division between the male “public” and the “private” female world, an issue discussed by Woolf in Three Guineas and that represents the main argument of it:

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space of Virginia Woolf Ø How could women avoid war if they were excluded from any kind of political experience and decision making of the State? Regarding the “public” world, with its patriarchal architecture, Woolf says: Ø Your world, then, the world of professional, of public life, seen from this angle undoubtedly looks queer. At first sight it is enormously impressive.

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space of Virginia Woolf Ø Within quite a small space are crowded together St. Paul’s, the Bank of England, the Mansion House, the massive if funeral battlements of the Law Courts; on the other side, Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament. There, we say to ourselves, pausing, in this moment of transition on the bridge, our fathers and brothers have spent their lives. (Woolf, 1993 b: 133)

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space of Virginia Woolf Ø In this case, the tragic plot, which involves Septimus Smith, triggers the atrocities that have been committed in the public world and demonstrates the danger of the polarization of gender roles. Ø To avoid their rigidity and limitation, androgyny, according to Woolf, would be a way out of heterogeneity, flexibility and better balance. Ø The patriarchal society of Mrs. Dalloway is marked by spaces of domination, hierarchies and achievements.

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space of Virginia Woolf Ø The interventions of Mrs. Dalloway in these spaces constitute an attempt to insert and a possible change of these boundaries and, therefore, the limitation and exclusion of women. Ø This fact had already been perceived by the narrator of A Room of One’s Own, who cannot sit on the grass of the university and who can only enter the library accompanied a male student.

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space of Virginia Woolf Ø Woolf proposes to create a bridge between domestic and public spaces, exploring different ways of reading, rereading and interpretation of both the city as a patriarchal society, since one reflects the other in the architecture itself. Ø If we think, for example, of Buckingham Palace, which marks a geography of power. Ø This is why Woolf presents different voices (sibyls) to rebuild London’s architecture, seeking to unify the fragments of urban space and time.

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space of Virginia Woolf Ø We can understand this task as the very task of feminism itself, with its revisionist history design in order to insert the female voices into the long periods of silence and absence, in order to rebuild the urban experience and, above all, human one. Ø In this case, Mrs. Dalloway subverts the male visions, not just the urban space, but above all of the institutions that serve to connect and to keep them.

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space

Ø The Politization of the Aesthetics: Mrs. Dalloway Ø The Reflexive and Refractory Space of Virginia Woolf Ø The author reminds us that we must be aware of the implicit subtext in the common wedding plot. Ø We see Mrs. Dalloway more like a nun or as Sally’s lover and of Peter, than as the wife of Richard Dalloway. Ø In the same manner, we do not understand Rezia as Mrs. Smith, but more like a foreigner, a stranger, not only a stranger to the city of London, but to her own husband.