"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" (Woolf, 184).
Much of this novel talked about how people either lost, wanted, or hated time. In death, people find the end of time, because there is nothing, everything just stops, or at least, everything changes. Whatever happens when we die, it will be different from the lives we lead now. (Edit) Virginia Woolf herself took her own life, and many of her ideas spilled over into her novels. Many of the characters in Mrs. Dalloway wanted an escape, and in death they will find one.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Revolution
" For the great revolution of Mr. Willett's summer time had taken place since Peter Walsh's last visit to England" (Woolf, 161-162).
This is an allusion to the beginning of Daylight Savings Time in England. Willett was the first one to come up with the idea of Daylight Savings Time, right before Peter Walsh returned to England. Peter is wondering around London and realizing how much he has missed while he was in India. (Edit) This is also another way Woolf showed that time was an important element of this novel.
Links:
http://www.myneighbourhood.ca/Content/Daylight.html
This is an allusion to the beginning of Daylight Savings Time in England. Willett was the first one to come up with the idea of Daylight Savings Time, right before Peter Walsh returned to England. Peter is wondering around London and realizing how much he has missed while he was in India. (Edit) This is also another way Woolf showed that time was an important element of this novel.
Links:
http://www.myneighbourhood.ca/Content/Daylight.html
God
"(Edit) This women had taken her daughter from her! She was in touch with invisible presences! Heavy, ugly, commonplace, without kindness or grace, she know the meaning of life" (Woolf, 125).
(Edit) Clarissa is not only jealous of this women because she holds her daughters affection, but because she has something to live for. Although this woman believes in god, it is much easier to be happy when you have something. Clarissa already feels as though she has wasted her life, and it is hard to continue the acts of daily life.
(Edit) Clarissa is not only jealous of this women because she holds her daughters affection, but because she has something to live for. Although this woman believes in god, it is much easier to be happy when you have something. Clarissa already feels as though she has wasted her life, and it is hard to continue the acts of daily life.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
"Times"
"his name at the end of the Times, asking for funds, appealing to the public to protect, to preserve" (Woolf, 103).
The Times was, and is, a famous newspaper publication in London. It is interesting that it should be brought up in Mrs. Dalloway simply because of it's name. In this novel, there is a lot of symbolism to time and its implications. Because of the title of the newspaper, the newspaper is immediately identified with its symbolism. (Edit) This is yet another example of Virginia Woolf filling her novel with the theme of time.
Links:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/
The Times was, and is, a famous newspaper publication in London. It is interesting that it should be brought up in Mrs. Dalloway simply because of it's name. In this novel, there is a lot of symbolism to time and its implications. Because of the title of the newspaper, the newspaper is immediately identified with its symbolism. (Edit) This is yet another example of Virginia Woolf filling her novel with the theme of time.
Links:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/
"Antony and Cleopatra"
"reflected how she might give him a taste of Antony and Cleopatra and the rest; lent him books wrote him a scrap of letters; and lit him with such fire as burns only once in a lifetime" (Woolf, 85).
Antony and Cleopatra is a Shakespearean novel written around the turn of the sixteenth century. It tells of two lovers who are seperated because of misfortune, and how they still loved eachother until death. This story is parelle to Peter's situation with Clarissa, because although he has ignored his love for her over the years, it was still there.
Links:
http://www.bookrags.com/notes/anto/SUM.htm
Antony and Cleopatra is a Shakespearean novel written around the turn of the sixteenth century. It tells of two lovers who are seperated because of misfortune, and how they still loved eachother until death. This story is parelle to Peter's situation with Clarissa, because although he has ignored his love for her over the years, it was still there.
Links:
http://www.bookrags.com/notes/anto/SUM.htm
Civilisation
"he, Septimus, was alone, called forth in advance of the mass of men to hear the truth, to learn the meaning, which now at last, after the toils of civilisation-Greeks, Romans, Shakespeare, Darwin, and now himself- was to be given whole to..." (Woolf, 67).
Septimus behaves the way he does not because he is ill, but rather because he knows something that mankind has yet to uncover. The truths of life that were found by the Greeks, Romans, Shakespeare, and Darwin still elude human kind, and he feels as though it is a useless battle, because the truth will endure, not mankind.
Septimus behaves the way he does not because he is ill, but rather because he knows something that mankind has yet to uncover. The truths of life that were found by the Greeks, Romans, Shakespeare, and Darwin still elude human kind, and he feels as though it is a useless battle, because the truth will endure, not mankind.
Regent's Park
"So the elderly nurse knitted over the sleeping baby in Regent's Park"(Woolf, 58)
Regent's Park is a famous park located in London, England. Henry VIII first used this area as a royal hunting ground. Now, the park for its beautiful flower gardens. Because of the flower gardens, the park holds the same symbolism that flowers do in this book. It is also interesting that characters from both narratives have scenes located in Regent's Park. (Edit) Woolf does this to helps draw a connection between the two stories.
St. Margaret's
"Ah, said St. Margaret's, like a hostess who comes into her drawing-room on the very stroke of the hour and finds her guest there already. I am not late. No, it is precisely half- past eleven" (Woolf, 49).
St. Margaret's is a church found next to Westminster Abbey in London, England. Virginia Woolf uses this allusion to serve two purposes. She uses personification so that it is treated more like a character and less like an object. This helps to show that the characters are obsessed with time. Secondly, this novel takes place in one day of Clarissa's life, and the constant reminders of time helps readers to remember this and to start thinking about the importance it holds to the greater meaning of this book.
Links:
Big Ben
"The sound of Big Ben striking the half-hour struck out between them with extraordinary Vigour, as if a young man..." (Woolf, 48).
Big Ben is the clock tower in London, England. The reference to time pushes Clarissa and Peter apart. They have spent most of their lives apart, and although they once loved each other, they have both changed. Not only does this reference the separation of these two characters, but it also hints that time plays a very important part in this novel.
Links:
Othello
"' 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" (Woolf, 35).
Othello was written by William Shakespeare in the early seventeenth century. It tells of Othello, who wooed himself a wife. He did this by telling her of his adventures in war. Clarissa felt as though she had to woo Sally, much as Othello did his wife. Not only does this help support Clarissa's love for women, but it also strengthens the bond between Clarissa and Septimus.
Links:
Love
" But this question of love (she thought, putting her coat away), this falling in love with women. Take Seton; her relation in the old days with Sally Seton. had not that, after all, been love?" (Woolf, 32).
Some scholars who have explored the novel have decided that Clarissa is a Lesbian. She always struggled with her relationships with men, and found love in her old best friend. Although this may be pointing to her love for women, it may also just be that she was exceptionally close to Sally, and loves her as a dear friend, not a romantic lover.
Some scholars who have explored the novel have decided that Clarissa is a Lesbian. She always struggled with her relationships with men, and found love in her old best friend. Although this may be pointing to her love for women, it may also just be that she was exceptionally close to Sally, and loves her as a dear friend, not a romantic lover.
"Memoirs"
" Narrower and narrower would her bed be. The candle was half burnt down and she had read deep in Baron Marbot's Memoirs" (Woolf, 31).
Baron Marbot's Memoirs tells of a soldier in the Napoleon war. Mrs. Dalloway was set in a time period directly following WW1. Clarissa read this book to not only explore her mortality, but to better connect her to Septimus Smith, the other character who tells this story. Septimus Smith is ill because of the war that he recently fought in, and by Clarissa studying war, the two characters are put at a parallel.
Links:
http://www.amazon.com/Memoirs-Baron-Marbot-Lieutenant-General-Napoleonic/dp/1853670146
Baron Marbot's Memoirs tells of a soldier in the Napoleon war. Mrs. Dalloway was set in a time period directly following WW1. Clarissa read this book to not only explore her mortality, but to better connect her to Septimus Smith, the other character who tells this story. Septimus Smith is ill because of the war that he recently fought in, and by Clarissa studying war, the two characters are put at a parallel.
Links:
http://www.amazon.com/Memoirs-Baron-Marbot-Lieutenant-General-Napoleonic/dp/1853670146
Grasshoppper's
" but with a roughness in her voices like a grasshopper's, which rasped his spine deliciously and sent running up his brain waves of sound which, concussing, broke" (Woolf, 22).
Virginia Woolf not only uses similes to enrich her text, but also to help remind the reader of the setting. In the novel, the characters are at a park, but are watching an aeroplane advertisement. By using a simile like a grasshopper, she helps remind the reader that they are in nature. (Edit) Nature will endure all time, while these characters are only present for a millisecond of eternity.
Virginia Woolf not only uses similes to enrich her text, but also to help remind the reader of the setting. In the novel, the characters are at a park, but are watching an aeroplane advertisement. By using a simile like a grasshopper, she helps remind the reader that they are in nature. (Edit) Nature will endure all time, while these characters are only present for a millisecond of eternity.
Flowers
"There were flowers: delphiniums, sweet peas, bunches of lilac, and carnations, masses of carnations. There were roses; there were irises... but she looked older, this year, turning her head from side to side among the irises and roses and nodding tufts of lilac with her eyes half closed" (Woolf, 13)
In this novel, and in many other works, flowers have two significant pieces of symbolism. The first is that flowers symbolize women. This happens because the actual flower on the plant is the plants female reproductive organ. Flowers are an important element in this novel because women are obsessed with their beauty and youth.
The second important symbolism of flowers is that their beauty is quick to fade. It is only a short time in their lives that they are considered beautiful. In some sense, human life is the same, and our short time on earth fades quickly once we're gone. Clarissa has many flashbacks to her youth, and begins to understand that she has wasted her short life.
"Jaunts and Jollities"
" There were Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities... all spread open. Ever so many books there were; but none to take to Evelyn Whitbread in her nursing home" (Woolf,10).
Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities was a book written by Robert Smith Surtees in the early nineteenth century. Surtees himself greatly enjoyed sports, and even wrote in Sporting magazine. His love for sports carried over to his book, which tells the tale of a cockney grocer and his sporting experiences. Clarissa Dalloway would not choose this short of book to bring to Evelyn because it was about being young and fit, which people at nursing homes generally are not. (Edit) Woolf is showing the reader that the elderly characters in this novel will be obsessed with youth and the end of their lives.
Links:
http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?qsort=&page=1&matches=99&browse=1&qwork=3456907&full=1
Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities was a book written by Robert Smith Surtees in the early nineteenth century. Surtees himself greatly enjoyed sports, and even wrote in Sporting magazine. His love for sports carried over to his book, which tells the tale of a cockney grocer and his sporting experiences. Clarissa Dalloway would not choose this short of book to bring to Evelyn because it was about being young and fit, which people at nursing homes generally are not. (Edit) Woolf is showing the reader that the elderly characters in this novel will be obsessed with youth and the end of their lives.
Links:
http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?qsort=&page=1&matches=99&browse=1&qwork=3456907&full=1
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