Mrs Dalloway Themes

trauma thesis

Woolf intended Mrs Dalloway ‘to criticise the social system, and show it at work, at its most intense’. To do so, Woolf turns her unflinching gaze upon the ongoing influence of First World War traumas, including death, disability and psychological injury. In particular, she addresses the horrific effect that shell shock has on consciousness through her characterisation of Septimus. The fact that neither Septimus’ male doctors nor Rezia are able to facilitate healing suggests the need for cultural change.

trauma 1

First and foremost, Mrs Dalloway illustrates how irrevocably the First World War changed British culture, including people’s inner thoughts and outward social interactions. // ‘All the hat shops and tailors’ shops strangers looked at each other and thought of the dead; of the flag; of Empire.’

(motor car) demonstrates how the trauma of the war underpins British national identity. current British government is portrayed as responsible for propelling England into war. citizens’ awareness that society has been systematically taught to believe in glorifying empire. aware that the painful experience of war arose as a result of their blindly following society’s beliefs.

/

‘As they looked the whole world became perfectly silent, and a flight of gulls crossed the sky, [...] and in this extraordinary silence and peace, in this pallor, in this purity, bells struck eleven times.’ Mrs Dalloway’s 11 a.m. silence is surely the fictional counterpart of the annual 11 a.m. Silence, first observed in November 1919, which by 1925, when the novel was first published, had become a key feature of the Remembrance Sunday ceremony.

trauma 2

Woolf shows how Septimus’ shell-shocked breakdown, though instigated by his war experience, is also a product of post-war Britain’s cultural refusal to acknowledge psychological trauma. // 'the English people, with their children and their horses and their clothes, which she admired in a way; but they were ‘people’ now, because Septimus had said ‘I will kill myself’; an awful thing to say. Suppose they had heard him?' / distinction drawn between supposedly 'normal' English families who are not suffering from the trauma of war (and have greater wealth)

/

‘[When his beloved Evans dies] Septimus, far from showing any emotion or recognising that here was the end of a friendship, congratulated himself upon feeling very little [...] The War had taught him.’ / litote highlights extent of his stoicism- monosyllabic declarative evokes the emptiness of Septimus' mental state, draws a direct causal link with the war

[Septimus' illness] 'reflects the conditions of his society, one in which the after-effects of the war have been evaded, where Proportion is worshipped, and feelings have been numbed and anaesthetized.' - Elaine Showalter

trauma 3

Woolf satirically skewers the medical establishment, presenting their management of Septimus’ psychic trauma as tyrannical and destructive. indeed, she portrays Septimus’ suicide as a culmination of Holmes’ aggressive approach to treatment. // ‘Proportion, divine proportion, Sir William's goddess, was acquired by Sir William walking hospitals, catching salmon, begetting one son in Harley Street (houses a number of private specialists) by Lady Bradshaw, who caught salmon herself and took photographs scarcely to be distinguished from the work of professionals.’ /

Bradshaw's clearly upper-class status undermines the legitimacy of his claims and/or empathy with the suffering

/

'He did not want to die. Life was good. The Sun hot. [...] Holmes was at the door. "I'll give it you!" he cried, and flung himself vigorously, violently down on to Mrs. Filmer's area railings.’ /

assertion that he 'did not want to die' presents the suicide not as an act of madness but as a distinct, intentional form of cultural resistance, a rebellion against the stoic impassivity prescribed by high society and by the medical establishment.

Woolf draws a connection between Sir William Bradshaw’s power - and tyranny - over his patients, and the power and tyranny of colonial rulers over their subjects. Bradshaw’s proportion - rational conformity - becomes conversion - political indoctrination - in the colonies.

trauma 4- optional

Through her presentation of Clarissa’s empathy with Septimus, Woolf offers a more nuanced and psychologically astute approach to understanding trauma. // ‘A thing there was that mattered; a thing, wreathed about with chatter, defaced, obscured in her own life, let drop every day in corruption, lies, chatter. This he had preserved.’

/

‘Death was defiance. Death was an attempt to communicate [...] There was an embrace in death.’

'By acquainting the reader with Clarissa's strangeness in advance of Septimus's, the latter's abnormality is to some extent normalised and the response of the medical establishment made to seem all the more arbitrary and unjust.' - David Bradshaw

class thesis

Woolf wrote that she wanted to ‘criticise the social system, and to show it at work, at its most intense’. In Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf is deeply engaged by the question of how the individual is shaped (or deformed) by their social environment; by how class and wealth help to determine their fate. Like other Bloomsbury Group writers, the target of Woolf’s satire is essentially the English Establishment, with its hierarchies and moral complacency. Mrs. Dalloway is in large measure an examination of a single class and its control over English society - as Peter Walsh calls it, the ‘governing class’.

class 1

Woolf suggests the governing class are defined by inflexibility and emotional evasiveness which makes them incapable of reacting appropriately to the critical events of their time and in their own lives. // Clarissa is impressed by Lady Bexborough – 'who opened a bazaar, they said, with the telegram in her hand, John, her favourite, killed; but it was over; thank Heaven-over.'

/

Richard Dalloway, on telling Clarissa he loves her: 'The time comes when it can’t be said; one’s too shy to say it [...] Partly one’s lazy; partly one’s shy.'

/ aphoristic impersonal pronouns disconnect himself from this perceived inadequacy/cowardice

A. D. Moody comments on the class tendency to 'turn away from the disturbing depths of feeling, towards a conventional pleasantness or sentimentality or frivolousness.'

class 2

Woolf also presents the ruling class as being nervous and uncomfortable about social and political change. // 'The girl would stand still and powder her nose in front of every one. And they weren't engaged; just having a good time; no feelings hurt on either side [...] She would make a very good wife at thirty - [...] marry some rich man and live in a large house near Manchester.'

/

Richard Dalloway plans to write a history of Lady Bruton’s family when he is no longer an MP; she assures him the documents are ready at her estate 'whenever the time came; the Labour government, she meant. "Ah, the news from India!" she cried.'

nonspecific, idiomatic phrase is a thinly veiled acknowledgement of the threat of emerging socialist values

/ The early 1920s brought to an end the Conservative-Liberal coalition in British politics; the elections of 1922 and 1923 marked the eclipse of the Liberals and the rise of Labour. It was only a matter of time before a socialist power would be in office, an inevitability of which many of the novels’ characters seem aware.

class 3

The characters in Mrs. Dalloway who cannot learn to restrain their intense emotions are outsiders in a class system dedicated to covering up the tremors that threaten its existence. //

'They turned her out because she would not pretend that the Germans were all villains - when she had German friends, when the only happy days of her life had been spent in Germany!' (Miss Doris Kilman) hypotactic, exclamative clauses framed in free indirect speech allow us to enter K's mind and perceive this injustice. clear distinction between social mores/values and individual subjectivity evoked by pronouns

/

One cannot bring children into a world like this. One cannot perpetuate suffering, or increase the breed of these lustful animals, who have no lasting emotions, but only whims and vanities, eddying them now this way, now that.’

‘Septimus Smith is a threat to governing class values not only because he insists on remembering the War when everyone else is trying to forget it, but because his feverish intensity of feeling is an implicit criticism of the ideal of stoic impassivity.’ - Alex Zwerdling

class 4- optional

Woolf makes clear that the governing class’ power depends on the drudgery of the serving class. She exposes the illusions of the governing class, laying out the gulf between master and servant. // Clarissa Dalloway mentally thanks her servants 'for helping her to be like this, to be what she wanted, gentle, generous-hearted.'

/

'Did it matter, did it matter in the least, one Prime Minister more or less? It made no difference at this hour of the night to Mrs. Walker among the plates, the saucepans, cullenders, [...] which, however hard they washed up in the scullery, seemed to be all on top of her.'

At one point the British Empire was the largest in the world. By the time Woolf’s novel is set, the empire is crumbling; Woolf communicates the idea that time is running out for the ruling classes, their way of life, their values, and their affluence.

privacy, loneliness and communication thesis

Woolf's novel uses free indirect discourse to give glimpses into the inner minds of her characters. She also moves between free indirect discourse and omniscient narration to present their outward interactions with the people and places around them. This framework allows her to present the complex series of relations that define even a day in the life of each character. While many characters value privacy and independence above all else, Woolf shows how this so-called 'privacy of the soul' can also lead to loneliness and isolation. Ultimately, Woolf's presentation of such degrees of privacy, loneliness and failed communication shows how difficult it is to make meaningful connections in the modern world.

privacy, loneliness and communication 1

By providing the reader with glimpses into the minds of her characters, Woolf shows how inner thoughts and feelings are often incommunicable to others. // ‘The time comes when it can't be said; one's too shy to say it, he thought, [...] to say straight out in so many words (whatever she might think of him), holding out his flowers, 'I love you.'

/ aphoristic impersonal pronouns disconnect himself from this perceived inadequacy/cowardice

/

But suppose Peter said to her, "Yes, yes, but your parties - what's the sense of your parties?" all she could say was (and nobody could be expected to understand): They're an offering; which sounded horribly vague.’

/ party is an attempt to unite/connect people, but even in describing this endeavour Clarissa fails in communication with others. her attempt is undermined even before she has started.

The Hogarth Press, Virginia and Leonard Woolf’s publishing imprint, published the works of Sigmund Freud in 1921. his theory could be seen as influencing the distinction foregrounded in Mrs Dalloway between the id- uncoordinated (and often repressed) instinctual desires- and the super-ego- internalised cultural rules.

privacy, loneliness and communication 2

As such, many of Woolf's characters attach great value to privacy and independence, preferring their own company to that of others. // / 'And there is a dignity in people; a solitude; even between husband and wife a gulf; and that one must respect [...] for one would not part with it oneself [...]- something, after all, priceless.' impersonal pronouns add a wise aphoristic tone as Clarissa confidently expresses a part of her philosophy gained through age, imperatives ('one must') add to this sense of self-assurance.

'For women, Woolf suggests, the prime years are solitary, and empty as the womb; the female body sheds its 'rich apparel' as the ageing woman must divest herself psychologically of her sexuality in preparation for death.'- Elaine Showalter

/

'A terrible confession it was (he put his hat on again), but now, at the age of fifty-three one scarcely needed people any more.'- hyperbaton foregrounds 'terrible', deictic terms further delay this awkward confession while impersonal pronouns attempt to dissociate himself from it

privacy, loneliness and communication 3

However, Woolf also shows how independence brings with it a sense of loneliness and isolation. // 'She had a 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.'

/

'But he himself remained high on his rock, like a drowned sailor on a rock. I leant over the edge of the boat and fell down, he thought. I went under the sea.'

/ imagery associated with waves and the sea is used as a motif by Woolf to imply danger and a sense of being overwhelmed. Septimus actually falls in the sea, whereas Clarissa does not specify:

'The societified lady and the obscure maniac are in a sense the same person. His foot slipped through the gay surface on which she still stands - that is all the difference between them.' - E M Forster

privacy, loneliness and communication 4- optional

Woolf also shows how even those characters who value privacy and independence also derive pleasure from interacting with the world around them. // In people's eyes, in the swing, tramp, and trudge, [...] in the triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; London; this moment of June.' anaphora creates an invigorating sense of rhythm which underlines auditory imagery to paint a visceral and exciting portrait of this moment in time in London, tricolon adds contrasting certainty and emphasis to Clarissa's thoughts, now optimistic

/

‘But she could remember [...] feeling as she crossed the hall "if it were now to die 'twere now to be most happy." [...] and she felt it, she was convinced, as strongly as Shakespeare meant Othello to feel it, all because she was coming down to dinner in a white frock to meet Sally Seton!’

These lines are taken from Shakespeare’s Othello. They are spoken by Othello early in the play, as he reflects on his marriage to Desdemona as being the pinnacle of his life. He will go on to murder her in a jealous rage later in the play.

death thesis

Set against the backdrop of the First World War, Mrs Dalloway presents the lasting impact of this brutal conflict on the minds and lives of those who survived it. It also offers an intimate portrait of existential thoughts and feelings prompted by sickness, mental illness and an awareness of one’s own mortality. Yet whereas death is presented as something to be feared for Clarissa and Peter, it proves to be the only means of escape for Septimus.

death 1

Woolf’s novel shows how far individuals (particularly Septimus) and wider society have been corrupted by the death and violence of the First World War. // ‘All the hat shops and tailors’ shops strangers looked at each other and thought of the dead; of the flag; of Empire.’

(motor car) demonstrates how the trauma of the war underpins British national identity. current British government is portrayed as responsible for propelling England into war. citizens’ awareness that society has been systematically taught to believe in glorifying empire. aware that the painful experience of war arose as a result of their blindly following society’s beliefs.

/

‘But he himself remained high on his rock, like a drowned sailor on a rock. I leant over the edge of the boat and fell down, he thought. I went under the sea. I have been dead, and yet am now alive, but let me rest still; he begged'

Septimus suffers from ‘shell shock’, which we would now refer to as PTSD. During and immediately after the war this was seen as a manifestation of cowardice. However, by the time Woolf was writing, some medical practitioners had started to argue that shell shock was a psychological effect of industrialised war which could not be dissipated in everyday life.

death 2- optional

Woolf shows how some characters manage fears about growing old and dying through both repression and constructing private fantasies. //

‘No! No! he cried. She is not dead! I am not old, he cried, and marched up Whitehall, as if there rolled down to him, vigorous, unending, his future.’

/

He pursued; she changed. There was colour in her cheeks; mockery in her eyes; he was an adventurer, reckless, he thought, swift, daring, indeed (landed as he was last night from India) a romantic buccaneer’

In the novel, 'men have the chance to renew their lives through action; if women, as Walsh muses, seem to live more in the past, it is because their lives are more bounded and determined by choices made early in youth.' - Elaine Showalter

death 3

In her characterisation of Clarissa, Woolf shows how joy and death are often closely aligned with each other. // ‘But she could remember [...] feeling as she crossed the hall "if it were now to die 'twere now to be most happy." That was her feeling - Othello's feeling, and she felt it, she was convinced, as strongly as Shakespeare meant Othello to feel it, all because she was coming down to dinner in a white frock to meet Sally Seton!’

These lines are taken from Shakespeare’s Othello. They are spoken by Othello early in the play, as he reflects on his marriage to Desdemona as being the pinnacle of his life. He will go on to murder her in a jealous rage later in the play. the tragic nature of Othello and Desdemona's relationship is perhaps what permits the power of their love, just as the horror of death is what enriches the joys of life

‘Then came the most exquisite moment of her whole life passing a stone urn with flowers in it. Sally stopped; picked a flower; kissed her on the lips. The whole world might have turned upside down!’ deixis highlights the conjunction between the mundane and the sublime

death 4

In her characterisation of Septimus and Clarissa (and the parallel structures that bind them), Woolf shows two ways of dealing with the terror of living; embracing life’s pleasures (such as social events) or committing suicide as an act of defiance and communication. // In people's eyes, in the swing, tramp, and trudge; in the bellow and the uproar... in the triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; London; this moment of June.' anaphora creates an invigorating sense of rhythm which underlines auditory imagery to paint a visceral and exciting portrait of this moment in time in London, tricolon adds contrasting certainty and emphasis to Clarissa's thoughts, now optimistic

/

'He did not want to die. Life was good. [...] Holmes was at the door. "I'll give it you!" he cried, and flung himself vigorously, violently down on to Mrs. Filmer's area railings.’ assertion that he 'did not want to die' presents the suicide not as an act of madness but as a distinct, intentional form of cultural resistance, a rebellion against the stoic impassivity prescribed by high society and by the medical establishment.

'The societified lady and the obscure maniac are in a sense the same person. His foot slipped through the gay surface on which she still stands - that is all the difference between them.' - E M Forster

psychology and perception thesis

Woolf's use of free indirect discourse gives her readers an intimate portrait of the inner workings of the characters' minds. Perhaps most memorable is her presentation of mental illness in her characterisation of Septimus. However, she also offers a sensitive depiction of how the mind understands external sensations and the passing of time. Indeed, long, poetic passages capture the perception of images, sounds, memories, and stream of consciousness all at once.

psychology and perception 1

In her presentation of characters’ thoughts and feelings, Woolf shows how common it is to fixate on others’ opinions of oneself //

'the English people, with their children and their horses and their clothes, which she admired in a way; but they were ‘people’ now, because Septimus had said ‘I will kill myself’; an awful thing to say. Suppose they had heard him?' /

distinction drawn between supposedly 'normal' English families who are not suffering from the trauma of war (and have greater wealth)

/

‘How he scolded her! How they argued! She would marry a Prime Minister and stand at the top of a staircase; the perfect hostess he called her (she had cried over it in her bedroom)'/ The Hogarth Press, Virginia and Leonard Woolf’s publishing imprint, published the works of Sigmund Freud in 1921. his theory could be seen as influencing the distinction foregrounded in Mrs Dalloway between the id- uncoordinated (and often repressed) instinctual desires- and the super-ego- internalised cultural rules. these notions can be seen here in the context of how one perceives oneself as opposed to how one sees oneself as perceived

psychology and perception 2

Woolf's use of free indirect speech also shows how frequently one's experience of the present is shaped by memories of the past. // 'Lord, Lord, what a change had come over [Sally]! the softness of motherhood; its egotism too. Last time they met, Peter remembered, had been among the cauliflowers in the moonlight, the leaves "like rough bronze" she had said.'

/

'Now of course, thought Clarissa, he's enchanting! perfectly enchanting! Now I remember how impossible it was ever to make up my mind - and why did I make up my mind - not to marry him?' / time adverbials and shift to personal pronouns delineate between present thought and past remembrance

'Woolf seeks to deepen our understanding of Clarissa through memories and dreams, rather than telling us more directly, as an omniscient narrator might, what her heroine thought and felt.' - John Sutherland

psychology and perception 3- optional

Woolf shows how some characters manage fears about growing old and dying through both repression and constructing private fantasies. //

'No! No! he cried. She is not dead! I am not old, he cried, and marched up Whitehall, as if there rolled down to him, vigorous, unending, his future.'

/

'He pursued; she changed. There was colour in her cheeks; mockery in her eyes; he was an adventurer, reckless, he thought, swift, daring, indeed (landed as he was last night from India) a romantic buccaneer'

In the novel, 'men have the chance to renew their lives through action; if women, as Walsh muses, seem to live more in the past, it is because their lives are more bounded and determined by choices made early in youth.' - Elaine Showalter

psychology and perception 4

Woolf's characterisation of Septimus is a harrowing portrayal of mental illness and the pain, loneliness and isolation associated therewith. // '“Look, look, Septimus!” she cried. For Dr. Holmes had told her to make her husband (who had nothing whatever seriously the matter with him but was a little out of sorts) take an interest in things outside himself.' / Septimus suffers from ‘shell shock’, which we would now refer to as PTSD. During and immediately after the war this was seen as a manifestation of cowardice. However, by the time Woolf was writing, some medical practitioners had started to argue that shell shock was a psychological effect of industrialised war which could not be dissipated in everyday life. /

'But he himself remained high on his rock, like a drowned sailor on a rock. I leant over the edge of the boat and fell down, he thought. I went under the sea. I have been dead, and yet am now alive, but let me rest still; he begged'

time thesis

Taking place over the course of one day, the very framework of Woolf's novel emphasises the passage of time. Instead of using chapter breaks, Woolf uses the chimes of Big Ben to mark time passing in a linear fashion. However, her use of free indirect discourse presents time as a circular concept that repeats through characters' memories of the past. One of Woolf's original titles for the book was 'The Hours'; by simultaneously emphasising the chiming of the hours and the ubiquity of past memories, she ends up showing the fluidity of time, which can be both linear and circular at once.

time 1

The chimes of Big Ben are used as a structural device to present time as a linear concept. // '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.’ / introduces motif. moves from hypotaxis to parataxis, parallelism and declarative to mark this shift to order

'Cubist paintings, strange as they looked to the uninitiated eye, had a unity on the canvas that came from the use of colour, and from the boundary of the frame. In Mrs Dalloway, the striking of Big Ben acts as a temporal grid to organise the narrative.' - Elaine Showalter

'It was precisely twelve o’clock; twelve by Big Ben; whose stroke was wafted over the northern part of London [...]-twelve o’clock struck as Clarissa Dalloway laid her green dress on her bed, and the Warren Smiths walked down Harley Street.' anaphora stresses the wide reach and uniting quality of time (as linear). conditions the lives of all. Big Ben striking shared by omniscient narrator and free indirect discourse- conditions reality both objectively and subjectively

time 2

However, Woolf’s use of free indirect discourse- especially in her characterisation of Clarissa- allows her to present time as a circular concept that repeats through characters’ memories of the past. // 'Lord, Lord, what a change had come over [Sally]! the softness of motherhood; its egotism too. Last time they met, Peter remembered, had been among the cauliflowers in the moonlight, the leaves "like rough bronze" she had said.' /

‘Now of course, thought Clarissa, he's enchanting! perfectly enchanting! Now I remember how impossible it was ever to make up my mind - and why did I make up my mind - not to marry him? she wondered, that awful summer?’ / time adverbials and shift to personal pronouns delineate between present thought and past remembrance

'Woolf seeks to deepen our understanding of Clarissa through memories and dreams, rather than telling us more directly, as an omniscient narrator might, what her heroine thought and felt.' - John Sutherland time as felt in memories is distinctly non-linear- adjusted to foreground emotionally significant moments

time 3

Woolf frequently presents characters’ awareness of time (and by extension their own mortality) as carrying with it a powerful sense of foreboding. // 'Did it matter then, she asked herself, walking towards Bond Street [...] 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?' /

polyclausality highlights the complexity and chaos of Clarissa's mind, aiding the jarring juxtaposition yet connection between the everyday and the existential, repetition ('did it') rhetorical questions evoke Clarissa's uncertainty and fear

Woolf believed that the ways in which men and women perceive and describe the world are inescapably different. here there is a clear distinction drawn between Clarissa's fears regarding death- its finality and the idea of being forgotten- and Peter's- the death of those he loves and the idea of aging /

‘No! No! he cried. She is not dead! I am not old, he cried, and marched up Whitehall, as if there rolled down to him, vigorous, unending, his future.’ [Peter has an image of Clarissa falling in her drawing-room as the clock of St Margaret's]

love and romantic relationships thesis

In her intimate portrait of middle-aged characters on a single day in London, Woolf shows how one's present consciousness can be shaped by memories of past romantic relationships. Furthermore, Woolf suggests that memories of unrequited and interrupted love carry the greatest emotional weight. In her presentation of present and past relationships, Woolf shows how romantic partners often struggle to communicate with each other, creating a tension between private thoughts and public words and actions.

love and romantic relationships 1

Woolf’s characterisation of Clarissa and Peter Walsh shows how memories of past relationships have a powerful effect on one’s experience of the present moment. //

‘Now of course, thought Clarissa, he's enchanting! perfectly enchanting! Now I remember how impossible it was ever to make up my mind - and why did I make up my mind - not to marry him? she wondered, that awful summer?’

/

'No, no, no! He was not in love with her any more! He only felt. [..] unable to get away from the thought of her; she kept coming back and back like a sleeper jolting against him in a railway carriage; which was not being in love.' epizeuxis, exclamatives and tricolon highlight his increased efforts to set aside his intense anxieties/insecurities, short clauses and active verbs build tense momentum and chaos, epistrophe 'her' highlights mental fixation on Clarissa

Cathy Caruth defines trauma as a ‘wound of the mind’ which changes the individual’s relationship to the outside world: that is, the individual’s subjectivity. while trauma in the novel is typically conceived of in terms of the atrocities of the war, more intimate memories such as Clarissa's rejection also play a prominent role in colouring these characters' consciousnesses

love and romantic relationships 2- optional

In her characterisation of Peter and Richard, Woolf shows how jealousy and possessiveness can inform and influence romantic feelings. // ‘this feeling about her when they spoke of Peter Walsh at luncheon; and they never spoke of it; not for years had they spoken of it [...] He had, once upon a time, been jealous of Peter Walsh; jealous of him and Clarissa.’

/

'[I]t would make him furious if Daisy loved anybody else, furious! for he was jealous, uncontrollably jealous by temperament.'

On Peter Walsh: 'Behind his mask of masculine bravado is an immature man who cannot reconcile his alleged ideals with his real feelings and acts.' - Elaine Showalter

love and romantic relationships 3

Woolf’s novel shows how romantic partners often struggle to communicate clearly with one another. //

Richard Dalloway, on telling Clarissa he loves her: 'The time comes when it can’t be said; one’s too shy to say it [...] Partly one’s lazy; partly one’s shy.'

/ aphoristic impersonal pronouns disconnect himself from this perceived inadequacy/cowardice

A. D. Moody comments on the class tendency to 'turn away from the disturbing depths of feeling, towards a conventional pleasantness or sentimentality or frivolousness.'

/ upon observing the young people at her party: ‘But the enormous resources of the English language, the power it bestows, after all, of communicating feelings (at their age, she and Peter would have been arguing all the evening), was not for them.’ [Clarissa and Peter when young]

suggests that difficulty in communication is not merely a particularity of Richard and Clarissa's marriage but an innate disconnect between men and women

love and romantic relationships 4

Woolf presents Clarissa’s memories of Sally Seton as an example of the potential for emotional intimacy and sexual attraction between women. // ‘But she could remember [...] feeling as she crossed the hall "if it were now to die 'twere now to be most happy." That was her feeling - Othello's feeling, and she felt it, she was convinced, as strongly as Shakespeare meant Othello to feel it, all because she was coming down to dinner in a white frock to meet Sally Seton!’ /

These lines are taken from Shakespeare’s Othello. They are spoken by Othello early in the play, as he reflects on his marriage to Desdemona as being the pinnacle of his life. He will go on to murder her in a jealous rage later in the play. by invoking this classic text, Woolf elevates the legitimacy and value of Clarissa and Sally's youthful love, arguing that it is indeed just as (or more) profound as male-female attraction /

‘Then came the most exquisite moment of her whole life passing a stone urn with flowers in it. Sally stopped; picked a flower; kissed her on the lips. The whole world might have turned upside down!’ deixis highlights the conjunction between the mundane and the sublime