Modernity in Virginia Woolf’s Writings
One of the most important of Virginia Woolf’s writings, which is theorized on the concept of modernity is Mrs. Dalloway. Written in 1953, this particular work of Woolf if part of the contemporary literature. The overall theme, setting, and narration in this particular work were all constructed upon principles of modernism.
The primary aim of Woolf was to diverge from the conventional thought processes that existed in the society prior to the First World War as the aftermath of the war brought in a dramatic degree of change in the way the world is perceived by people.
The novel Mrs. Dalloway essentially deals with modernity in terms of how the protagonist Mrs. Dalloway treats her identity, the way in which she deals with the new city and the régime of the city life and lastly the way in which she deals with mental illness. This essay will explore the modernity and their application in this particular novel of Virginia Woolf.
Modernism as a concept does not merely define another time period in history, but rather identifies itself with a dramatic change that swept the society. The Victorian age concluded with the death of Queen Victoria (Edward’s mother), subsequent to which Edward’s reign existed for just about a decade’s time between the years 1901 to 1910. Yet, for people who lived during this particular reign, felt a great sense of change in a number of ways than the earlier era and this was subsequently marked as the beginning of the ‘Modern Era.’
The modern era was essentially the period after the First World War, and this change was used as the predominant theme in works written by several famous authors and also in the field of poetry. Among several famous writers who were tagged as modernist writers, Virginia Woolf was possibly one of the foremost modernist female author of those days. She is a British author and also arguably the most famous emotional and expressive author of English literature ever known.
Aspects like stream-of-consciousness, and shedding light on the internal emotions and psychological feelings of the characters in her works are the ones that made her popular as one of the mainstream modernist and feminist as well. Despite being one of the foremost female modernist authors and also being one of the most renowned British novelist, Woolf’s popularity weakened after the end of the Second World War. However, with the Feminist criticism becoming a wave during the 1970s, her popularity was re-established.
Personality is possibly one of the most important underlying themes of this particular work of Woolf. Shortly after the story begins, Clarissa Dalloway experiences a private searching instance as she starts looking at her image in the mirror, wherein she finds a face that is “distinctively pointed, dart-like definite” the accustomed face, poised while also highly tense, that her mirror reflected “many million times.” This evidently attentive image portrays a cohesive and inert self, which is actually a personality that she can create for herself wherever she needs a social disguise that is familiar.
The social image that Mrs. Dalloway wants to produce actually masks the several aspects of her personality that are highly incompatible as they can be altered into both differing as well as conflicting images. Almost all other characters present in the novel, are able to see only either of these discordant aspects, which they assume as being her actual and complete personality. \
Ultimately, in due course of the novel, the former inert image of Mrs. Dalloway as she stands in front of the mirror and exploring herself, essentially offers a series of fluctuating and conflicting perceptions about her, and eventually her identity develops to embrace all the conflicting images while she manages to stay un-encompassed by all of them.
The day of Mrs. Dalloway’s life that is portrayed in the novel deals with her preparation for a party that is hosted by her on the same evening, for which she comes out shopping for the required things.
In this portrayal of her preparation for the evening’s party, the author records the myriad thoughts that run in Mrs. Dalloway’s mind, things that she recollects and the impressions that she leaves on others, along with the thoughts of the other characters in the novel.
This novel does not have a plot or a setting and in reality there are not incidents that happen on that day. However, it deals more with the impressions created by the new style of writing that Woolf had adopted, which contradicts with the conventional style of writing.
The social satire of this novel essentially takes majority of its force from the caustic arrangements of the allegorical depiction, which result in the union of vivid representations from the Greek tragedy and the Christian ritual in the same breath.
Woolf envisages a metaphorical; tussle that constantly takes place amidst good and evil, between the merriment that Mrs. Dalloway has in her life and finally the tragic death of Septimus Smith who commits suicide.
The persistent portrayal of past recollections and reminiscence are the techniques through which interior time has been created by Woolf. The depiction of Big Ben at the start of a new chapter denotes the existence of a peripheral reality. The way in which the city has been portrayed is not lifeless, as we can notice several automobiles and hordes of public living their lives concurrently. Personality, a relentless concern of the modernists is portrayed in various forms.
Woolf believes that the self is reliant on the other while in the same breath, also being detached from it. “Ephemeral, elusive and intangible, true identity is impossible to capture.” Repetition is one more technique that Woolf has used in this novel for differentiating between the interior and external realities portrayed in the novel. For instance, one can notice that Mrs. Dalloway, Smith, and Walsh recite the phrases from the play Cymbeline, a Shakespearean play that is set in the early Celtic British Kingdoms, while each of these individuals are united with the single concept of memory and reminiscence.
Each of the characters in this novel are seen in a relentless pursuit of recognizaing and identifying their own individual identities and all of them are seen to be really expressive, experiencing as well as thinking about the same thing at all times and none of them are seen to be acting at all.
It is highly evident that the Woolf does not present this story like the way many of her predecessors and for differentiating herself from them and also to bring in the concept of modernity into the work, she is seen using the technique called as the stream of consciousness, similar to several of her contemporaries. This technique essentially involves recording the thoughts of every single character of the novel, in an uninterrupted and endless flow, while the sequence would not possess any obvious association between them.
There are also several mysterious instances in the works of Woolf, which cannot be easily explained in a rational manner using any other aspects present within the novel. This particular drawback has its roots in the trendy principles of forbidding elucidation of any aspect in the text by referring to any aspect that is not present in the text. Such instances can be highlighted with specific reference to the personal life of Woolf and the insentient psychological life.
Modernism is apparently visible in almost every instance of this particular novel because it is the concept of modernity that Woolf has used to tap the minds of her characters, who are in pursuit of finding their own individual identities.
For instance, throughout the novel Mrs. Dalloway is seen exploring her own conscious as she constantly things of the contemporary world: “She would not say of anyone in the world now that they were this or were that. She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged. She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on. She had a perpetual sense, she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day (Woolf, 2.1).”
In pursuit of Mrs. Dalloway’s sexual identity, Woolf is seen stating that, “She felt like a nun who has left the world and feels fold round her the familiar veils and the response to old devolutions (Woolf, 2.2). This was a response she had offered to modernism that had seen her married and also having a child. This made her subdue her sexual desires after marriage and also having child, contrary to the days when she was a charming young lady.
Modernity also is seen fostering the identification of sexuality as Smith is seen feeling highly uneasy about Evan’s image, who is one of his closest pals as well as his commanding officer. Evans is regarded as being “undemonstrative in the company of women (Woolf, 5.73).” When Smith and Evans are in each other’s company, they are seen being highly intimate and also behaving like, “two dogs playing on the hearth-rug (Woolf, 5.73).” Woolf is seen establishing that the two “had to be together, share with each other. Fight with each other and quarrel with each other (Woolf, 5.73).”
Modernity in this particular work of Woolf, has also been highly influential as it had helped in changing the lifestyle of people. For instance, Mrs. Dalloway recollects her own life the way in which passage of time and modernity have been instrumental in ascertaining and molding her life into a party freak that she has become post her marriage.
Even though Mrs. Dalloway has highly accustomed with the norms of the British society and their life style, Woolf states that, “she too, loving it as she did with an absurd and faithful passion, being part of it, since her people were courtiers once in the time of the Georges (Woolf, 1.6).” She thus concludes that modernity and new life styles are highly important components in moving out of the former lifestyles and habits and eventually getting used to new style of living in the society.
Modernity in England has led to the removal of traditional styles of governing like the system of monarchy. Woolf, therefore summarizes that England had not been successful in getting rid of the ancient ruling system and this can as such be highly disadvantageous to the nation as a whole.
Works Cited
Bloom, Harold. Clarissa Dalloway. New York: Chelsea House, 1990. Web.
Frank, Damond. British Literary History 1883-1924. United States: The Ohio State University Press, 3008.
Maze, John R. Virginia Woolf: Feminism, Creativity and Unconsciousness. Greenwood Press, 1997.
Mc.Neillie, Andrew. The Essays of Virginia Woolf. London: Hogarth Press, 1994.
SIMION, Minodora Otilia. "Modernism and Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs. Dalloway." Annals of the „Constantin Brâncuși” University of Târgu Jiu, Letter and Social Science Series 1 (2014): 121-124. Web. 27 March 2016. <http://www.utgjiu.ro/revista/lit/pdf/2014-01/17_Minodora%20Otilia%20Simion.pdf>.
Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. Hertfordshire: Wordswoth Classics, 1996.
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