MRS DALLOWAY QUOTES

'That was her self when some effort, some call on her to be her self, drew the part together, she alone knew how different, how incompatible'

Inner vs outer world

Clarissa’s identity is composed of different elements, primarily ‘Clarissa’ and ‘Mrs Dalloway’ - Meisel + ‘The dual life - that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions’ - The awakening

'The world wavered and quivered and threatened to burst into flames'

Sanity vs insanity

insanity, hellish imagery

'This beauty, this exquisite beauty [...] one shape after another of unimaginable beauty [...] with beauty, more beauty!'

Sanity vs insanity

Septimus sees the insane truth, able to appreciate beauty of life. Double to Clarissa, preludes Clarissa's epiphany ' he made her feel the beauty'

'He would shut his eyes; he would see no more'

Repression vs expression

Septimus - self knowledge / knowledge can be confronting.

Tess: ‘Sudden rebellious sense of injustice caused [...] her eyes to swell with the rush of hot tears’

'People must notice; people must see [...] Help, help! She wanted to cry out'

Social conventions / Scandal / Victimhood

Social conventions, Rezia suffering as she tries to hide Septimus' mental health struggles.

'Conscious at the same time of her hat. Not the right hat for the early morning'

Status / Beauty

Frivolity, link to Laura in The Garden Party, prior to epiphany where she says 'Forgive my hat'

vs. lower class like Tess + milkmaids who don't have time for frivolity: 'if they did not work they would not be paid; so they worked on'

'bicycled [...] smoked cigars' vs 'The lustre had gone out of her [...] five sons'

Conformity / Marriage

Sally epitomised the 'new woman' (Jordan Baker; bicycles), and yet she too ultimately conforms.

‘Transforming the young rebels into wooden creatures whose public lives no longer express their buried selves’ - zwerdling

'Light, tall, very upright'

Inner vs outer world

Proper, facade, also contrast to Sally

'Human nature is on you. Holmes and Bradshaw are on you'

Holmes and Bradshaw represent society's impositions

'Sir William who looked very distinguished with his grey hair'

Beauty / Male characters

double standards, men allowed to age, become 'distinguished', whilst women become 'invisible'

'She had the oddest sense of being herself invisible; unseen; unknown; there being no more marrying, no more having of children now'

Fertility / Marriage / Victimhood / Age

lack of worth, purpose, as she ages

able to access Clarissa's internal monologue: ‘I dig out beautiful caves behind my characters [...] gives exactly what I want; humanity, humour, depth’ - Woolf

equal suffering from burgeoning youth - Tess: 'attribute which amounted to a disadvantage just now; [...] caused Alec d'Urberville's eyes to rivet themselves upon her’

'Sounds made harmonies with premeditation; the spaces between them were as significant as the sounds. A child cried.'

Children / Marriage / Tension

short sentence juxtaposed with long descriptions of natural beauty shows how children/family pose a threat to Septimus. In tension with Rezia's desire for children.

'She stood her upright, dusted her frock, kissed her'

Motherhood

methodical, highlights Rezia's skill with children, perfect mother

'Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself'

Agency

Independence. Defies the marriage plot

'Quiet descended on her, calm, content, as her needle'

Domesticity

finds solace in the domestic sphere

'Taking up her needle, summoned, like a queen'

Domesticity

solace in domestic sphere, also royal imagery suggests sense of authority within the domestic sphere that she can not attain in public sphere?

--> link to 'Both of them criticised her very unfairly, laughed at her unjustly, for her parties' -> seen as frivolous to men, but empowering to women

'The perfect hostess'

Clarissa's epiphet

'This being Mrs. Dalloway; not even Clarissa any more; this being Mrs. Richard Dalloway'

Marriage / Entrapment

‘He is the Subject [...] she is the Other’ - Simone de Beauvoir --> defined by Richard

Tess: ‘what I become she must become. What I cannot be she cannot be’

'For there's nothing in the world so bad for some women as marriage'

Marriage / Victimhood

in tension with society's insistence on marriage

'With twice his wits, she had to see things through his eyes [...] With a mind of her own, she must always be quoting Richard'

Marriage / Victimhood

‘What a man is is an arrow into the future and what a woman is is the place the arrow shoots off from’ - The Bell Jar

Tess: 'That's just like you women. Your mind is enslaved to his'

'Her will into his', 'Sweet was her smile, swift her submission' (Lady bradshaw)

Marriage / Victimhood

‘When you were married and had children it was like being brainwashed [...] numb as a slave’ - The bell jar

link to Tess: ' The formerly free and independent Tess'

'But-but-why did she suddenly feel, for no reason that she could discover, desperately unhappy?'

Entrapment / Repression

‘Anxious self denial is the ultimate product of a female education’ - Gilbert and Gubar --> allowing oneself to consider limitations only perpetuates suffering / sense of entrapment (link to Tess realising cruelty of Angel: ‘Sudden rebellious sense of injustice caused [...] her eyes to swell with the rush of hot tears’)

‘that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool’ - The great gatsby

'She saw; she understood' (Rezia)

Epiphany / Knowledge

Immediate understanding and empathy for Septimus. Yet only achieved through suffering - link to Tess (‘Tess’s passing corporeal blight had been her mental harvest’)

~suffering necessary for enlightenment => The Garden Party

'Like a nun withdrawing, or a child exploring a tower' + 'The bed narrow'

Fertility / Repression

lack of sexuality, menopause

'People were beginning to compare her to poplar trees', 'made her life a burden', 'But they would compare her to lilies'

Fertility / Society / Victimhood / Male Gaze

society's impositions, forced sexual maturity (link to Tess, strawberries)

‘Her beauty was all that Mr Bellingham cared for [...] all he recognised of her’ - Ruth

'A touch of the bird about her [...] there she perched'

Entrapment

bird = motif for entrapment, In contrast to ​​"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will." - Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte

'She had a perpetual sense [...] of being out, out, far out to sea and alone'

Isolation

isolated, invisibility in middle age

{water imagery} - The Awakening, Ophelia

'she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day'

Madness

Clarissa's view on living

'The death of the soul' [...] 'the death of her soul'

Marriage / Entrapment

‘When she gets married, her core gets invaded [...] her feminine role and her core are really in opposition’ - the edible woman, Margaret Atwood --> although interesting to note, both observations come from the focalized male gaze

'reached the park gates. She stood for a moment, looking at the omnibuses'

Escape / Entrapment

omnibus represents freedom/liberation, yet juxtaposed with 'gates' (link to Eveline) -> ‘She gripped with both hands at the iron railing’ - Eveline James Joyce (limitations) suggests freedom is temporary

'The most exquisite moment of her whole life' [...] 'It was like running one's face against a granite wall in the darkness!'

Entrapment

imposition of male characters, temporary happiness for female characters

' "perfect gentlemen" who would "stifle her soul" [...] make a mere hostess of her'

Marriage / Entrapment

tragedy, waste of potential, loss of freedom for Clarissa

-> link back to 'death of the soul'

Why should she be exposed? Why not left in milan? Why tortured? Why'

Victimhood

list of rhetorical questions, desperation, hopelessness, injustice

'he was happy without her. Nothing could make her happy without him!'

Dependence / Love

And yet, happiness based on a man that can not love her back

link to Tess -> ‘Never will love me any more; but I love him just the same, and hate all other men’‘

‘Dearly devoted to his arms / she loves with love that cannot tire’ - the Angel in the house

'If Richard advised her, and Hugh wrote for her, she was sure of being somehow right'

Dependence

female ch's reliance on male ch's (Lady Bruton)

'A sparrow perched on the railing opposite chirped Septimus'

Victimhood / Male characters

bird = entrapment, railing = entrapment (She gripped with both hands at the iron railing’ - Eveline James Joyce (limitations) ) ~also preludes death

not only female character that feel repressed (also link to Richard) - 'he could not bring himself to say he loved her'

'Women live much more in the past than we do'

Inner vs Outer world

idea of married life being miserable (When she gets married, her core gets invaded - Margaret Atwood 'The Edible Woman') therefore, women more likely to find solace in past, as exemplified in Clarissa's flashbacks

'But her poor dog was howling.'

Inner vs outer world

despite appearing happy, this is juxtaposed with howling animal - suggests Elizabeth's inner turmoil, destined to live same repressed life as her mother?

'All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy' - The Importance of being earnest; Oscar Wilde

'It seemed to her [...] that she was opening long windows'

Liberation vs Victmhood

window = liberation - but also social constraint? [woman at the window] 'resonates both as condensed expression of social constraint and social repression and as a figure of potentiality' - Pidduck

'Never had she felt so happy! Never in her life!'

Society / Liberation

happiness in isolation, making hats with Septimus removed from society

link to Tess: ‘All is trouble outside there: inside here content’

'Death was defiance'

Liberation vs Victimhood / Endings

Link to Tess - is her death defiance or resignation? Equally, is Clarissa's choice to live thereby resignation - or the ultimate defiance?

the end is ‘a tribute to endurance, survival and joy’ - Showalter

'Every profession is open to the women of your generation'

Liberation

Set in 1923 (although written 1925), following the war and the imp. role of women in the workforce, as well as votes for women over age of 30 in 1918 (progressive society)

'In the room opposite the old lady stared straight at her'

following epiphany, she is finally *seen*, no longer invisible, also preludes Peter Walsh seeing her 'For there she was'

'He made her feel the beauty; made her feel the fun'

Ending / Epiphany

appreciates the beauty in life (evolution of Laura in TGP) - ‘ “Isn’t life-” But what life was she couldn’t explain’ - The Garden party and, the end is ‘a tribute to endurance, survival and joy’ - Showalter

'She feared time itself [...] the dwindling of life [...] as in the youthful years, the colours, salts, tones of existence'

Fertility

fear of aging, lack of vitality in middle age

'For he was not old; his life was not over'

Fertility / Male characters

Peter Walsh' struggle against aging; negative assertions to ease his insecurities.

'He had never felt so young in years' [...] he followed her [...] he pursued'

Male characters / Power

men able to regain youth through younger women (at their expense) as seen in Ann Veronica --> H.G Wells Ann Veronica: ‘That delightful sense of free, unembarrassed movement was gone’

'Summer [...] passionately in love [...] laughing [...] talking [...] bathed in yellow light'

Past vs Present

Beautiful imagery used to describe youth highlights how characters escape to past

'An hour's complete rest after luncheon'

Madness

actions dictated by husbands (although note how Richard does it out of care, progression of male characters?)

Rest cure - Virginia Woolf herself

‘Making me lie down for an hour after each meal’, ‘it is a very bad habit I am sure’ - the yellow wallpaper ~ Charlotte P Gilman

'It is Clarissa, he said. // For there she was.'

Ending / Male gaze?

In response to Woolf’s ‘professions’ where she claims the ‘Angel in the house’ must be killed in order for women to progress ‘freely and openly’ ...

→ ‘Mrs Dalloway is killed and Clarissa remains’ - Dierkes

'Was he not weighted there, rooted to the pavement, for a purpose? But for what purpose?'

Male characters / Lack of purpose

female characters are not the only ones that question purpose (Peter Walsh as well in light of age)

'he was an adventurer, reckless [...] a romantic buccaneer'

Male characters / Power

able to reaffirm masculinity and youth through pursuit of younger women

'She knew nothing; no language, no history; she scarcely read a book now, except memoirs in bed'

Education

lack of female education

'I have not attempted to extenuate their faults; but to prove them to be the natural consequence of their education and station in society' - Wollstonecraft

'She was never in the room five minutes without making you feel her superiority, your inferiority'

Defiance

Doris Kilman as an unconventional f character.

'Happiness is this he thought'

'He had not said "I love you"; but he held her hand. Happiness is this, is this, he thought.'

Male Characters / Repression

inability to express - attempt to convince himself.

'wore a mackintosh; [...] did not, after all, dress to please'

Defiance

Ms Kilman; importance of her clothing.

Contradicts The Angel in the House: 'man must be pleased ; but him to please is woman's pleasure'

'to love makes one solitary'

Victimhood

rendered a victim by her love for Septimus; lonely

'She could not grow old and have no children!'

Fertility / Victimhood

Rezia's fear of not fulfilling her role as a mother

'Why hadn't she stayed at home? she cried, twisting the knob of the iron railing.'

Entrapment

Maisie Johnson - failed new woman; evoked Eveline- {railing}

'"I'll give it you!" he cried, and flung himself vigorously, violently down on to Mrs. Filmer's area railings'

Entrapment

ultimate entrapment even in defiant death - Eveline {railing}

'Her mother would not like her to be wandering off alone like this. She turned back down the Strand'

Passivity

Despite moment of rebellion, Elizabeth ultimately returns to the domestic sphere.

'entrails in her body, stretching them as she crossed the room, and then, with a final twist'

Victimhood / Suffering

Miss Kilman unrequited homosexual desire for Elizabeth