Mrs. Dalloway is a novel written by modernist writer Virginia Woolf. The novel was published in the United Kingdom in 1925 and uses William James’ metaphor of the “Stream of Consciousness” to narrate the story of a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway. Throughout Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf closely tracks the momentary thoughts of a particular character and she often blurs the distinction between indirect and direct speech as she freely alternates between her mode of narration. She is able to delve into a characters’ experience and mind through soliloquies, indirect interior monologues, and omniscient descriptions. Woolf places a lot of emphasis on Mrs. Dalloway as she is the focal point tying the other characters in the book together based on her past experiences and her present life.
In a nutshell, Mrs. Dalloway depicts a full day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, who is an upper-class housewife residing in London who is getting ready to host a party that evening. In the second half of the book, there seems to be a shift in the main character as Woolf gradually focuses on Septimus Warren Smith, a First World War veteran suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), or in those days it was known as, “Traumatic Neurosis” or “Shell Shock”. Throughout the novel, Septimus frequently hallucinates his dead comrade, Evans who seems to play a central role in his life after World War I. While reading this book, I personally thought that Virginia Woolf has truly captured the essence of the “Stream of Consciousness” as she was a writer who was concerned about capturing emotions such as excitement, pain, beauty and horror in words, she called this “The Modern Age”. I quite enjoyed the uncovering of emotions and how complex it is to understand what the characters were thinking and the thought processes they were going through. Although it was often confusing to follow, I think it shows an accurate representation of how our minds work, even until today.
In Mrs. Dalloway, the uncovering of sexuality and homosociality seems to be a subtle theme which is evident throughout the book between Clarissa and Sally, and Septimus and Evans. According to Woolf, in order to grow, we need to do some gender bending, we need to seek experiences that blur what it means to be a “real man” or a “real woman”. In class discussions, a lot of our discussions circulated around Clarissa and her relationship with Peter as they were supposed to get married however we didn’t really touch on the topic of sexuality and Clarissa’s relationship with Sally. However, when we were first introduced Mrs. Dalloway, we talked about the Victorian Era (Pre-war) where we described it as a more conservative period and how it had a sense of “stuffiness” to it with not much flexibility in relation to gender and sexuality. In this novel, it was written in the Post-Victorian era (after the war) where they moved into becoming more progressive in the exploration of sexuality and Woolf wanted to capture this as a gesture of freedom, especially freedom of spirit.
When reading Mrs. Dalloway, I notice that Clarissa and Septimus seem to show signs of lesbian attachment and homosociality. Homosociality can be defined as same-sex relationships that don’t have a sexual or romantic nature, usually, they are present in friendships, and are attractions between men that specifically exclude women. For Clarissa, her attraction and love for Sally Seton was particularly prominent when they used to live under the same roof. During her first impression of Sally, “all that evening she could not take her eyes off Sally. It was an extraordinary beauty of the kind she most admired, dark, large-eyed, with that quality which, since she hadn’t got it herself, she always envied–…” it’s almost as if Clarissa admired her and looked up to Sally not in a sexual nature (33). However, she couldn’t express her love and admiration to Sally because Clarissa was less daring and was better at repressing her emotions towards Sally. This reminds me of Sigmund Freud as he believed that society is built around the suppression of drives and Clarissa consider the “reality principle” as she has to take into account the external world and the deferment of pleasure.
As her feelings of Sally were flashbacks of her past experiences, sexual fluidity seems to be present as Clarissa’s feelings and thoughts about Sally Seton are constantly changing. In the present time, Mrs. Dalloway no longer has that attraction to Sally. When Mrs. Dalloway looks back at her relationship with Sally, she acknowledges the “purity, the integrity, of her feeling for Sally. It was not like one’s feeling for a man…..it had a quality which could only exist between women” (34). Mrs. Dalloway looks back on this memory and the exploration of her sexuality as an experience she would never forget. As Mrs. Dalloway’s thoughts and feelings act in this continuous movement, her thoughts often progress and develop into a new stream of thoughts where she perceives it as a faded memory (in present time). Also, when Sally kisses Clarissa on the lips, Clarissa’s world “turns upside down” whilst everyone in the background disappears and she was caught in that singular moment with Sally. Even though nothing was being said by either Clarissa or Sally after the kiss, it was similar to Hemingway’s “Theory of Omission”, also known as the “Iceberg theory” because it displayed some of the most significant things about Clarissa and Sally as characters and how everything is impressionistic where some mutually understood meanings or in this case, feelings aren’t being mentioned.
On the other hand, Septimus portrays somewhat of a different homosociality with Evans as we never really meet Evans in the novel. As readers, we are introduced to Evans as Septimus’ “friend” in his recurring analogs and hallucinations. “In the trenches, he developed manliness; he was promoted; he drew the attention, indeed the affection of his officer, Evans by name.”, this was Septimus’ memory of his comrade Evans and how he is introduced as a central part of his life after the war (89). Not only did his possible repressed feelings for Evans cause him to suffer from hallucinations and trouble differentiating between reality and the war, it also disrupted his marriage as he is constantly focused on Evans and not his wife, Lucrezia. After the death of Evans, Septimus has ceased to feel anything and not be consciously aware or present of the present situation. This implies that his ability to emotionally connect dies with Evans, hence hinting that he might’ve felt a deep and emotional connection with Evans as they have gone through a traumatic event together during the First World War. Even though the nature of their friendship is relatively ambiguous, it seems to “extend beyond platonic heterosexual camaraderie.”
I wonder if his greatest remorse is the fact that he couldn’t openly confess his love for Evans? Or that he wasn’t able to accept his sexuality and instead decided to repress them? However, this takes a toll on him because of his repetitive compulsions of constantly seeing Evans in his hallucinations. This relates to Freud’s idea of “victims of fate”, in which the same things repeatedly happen over and over again, and the victim has a particularly negative repetitive compulsion to repeat it. They are also unable to control their repressions so they are compelled for motives that they may not even be able to understand. This makes me think of our Sociology class where we discuss that in modern day, we create these institutions to help find solutions for those who struggle with their sexuality and their repressed desires. In Sociology class, we talked about support groups and mental institutions who could help those who are suffering to deal with their sexuality. I also wonder if Septimus feels guilty about “lying” to Lucrezia as a result of his repressed homosociality and the guilt he feels for harboring feelings which are beyond his control.
Even during modern time, I think that many still struggle with understanding and expressing their sexuality because it is a very complex component of a person’s identity. Homosociality or homoeroticism is something that many cultures still don’t accept as heteronormativity is still prevalent in our society today. Heteronormativity can be defined as social institutions and social policies which reinforce the idea that sexual relationships ought to exist between men and women. These norms cause humans to constantly repress certain desires they might have and often cause discrimination between social groups divided by sexuality.
I think that reading Mrs. Dalloway has made a bigger contribution to our ASTU class and being a global citizen because we are constantly expanding our knowledge on different writing styles and how they differ depending on the social, cultural and political context. We are also viewing different events which have happened throughout history which allows us to uncover counternarratives and different perspectives. Hence, giving us a broader understanding of the world and the changes which have contributed to how we perceive the world we are currently living in today.