The above is a picture of those who executed the "Dreadnought Hoax." One of them is Virginia Woolf. For a description of the Dreadnought Hoax, see wikipedia.com.Please read to the bottom of page ten, "this being Mrs. Richard Dalloway." Then try to identify the different streams of Mrs. Dalloway's thoughts. For example, "Peter Walsh" is one of the things she thinks about, and her mind leaves him behind, returns to him, leaves him behind, returns to him . . . as she goes along thinking. What other "streams" flow through her mind? Give a brief example of your proposed streams, and a brief explanation where it would be helpful.
25 comments:
I'm not sure if this was how you wanted us to answer the question, but here goes:
On page 10, Mrs. Dalloway begins a long train of thoughts once she steps onto Bond St. she starts off with thinking about how differently her life could have been if she could re-do certain things. she compares herself with Lady Bexborough in appearance: her (lady b) dark skin, beautiful eyes, and large. She moves on to think about the more in depth qualities: slow, stately, interested in politics, dignified, owning a country house, etc. She processes her own characteristics: narrow figure, little face "beaked like a bird's." she thinks of a few good qualities that she embodies but then recalls her feelings of being invisible and unnoticed. Her mind moves on to realize that there will be no more husbands or children for her. at the end of the reading, she accepts that she will just have to carry on like everyone else.
In this "stream" of thought that go through Mrs. Dalloway's head mainly involves her own personal judgments on herself. She is critical of herself while comparing her bad qualities with someone else's grand qualities. In the end she thinks about her future with a very "matter-of-fact" tone set upon it.
She thinks of Peter, then she comes back into reality when she reaches the park. She then thinks of her "gift of knowing people by instinct". She then thinks about the ebb and flow of London and all the different people and places that make it. She thinks from "tears and sorrows" to "courage and endurance". She gets lost in thought again as she thinks about how she should be doing things for herself and not to please other people when she snaps back for a moment while a policeman holds up his and. It's that back and forth of her thoughts to reality that makes this book so interesting.
I agree with CJ in that it is very interesting how Mrs. Dalloway's thoughts carry on and then suddenly observe reality. It is also interesting, Laurel and I were discussing, how we seem to forget the narration is in third person. We seem to be swept into Mrs. Dalloway's head, but really it's somebody else narrating.
The pattern of Mrs. Dalloway's consciousness seems to be that she regrets her past but tries to reason that what she did was okay, but then is still flustered by it, then snaps back to reality. She thinks of Peter, criticizes that relationship, then thinks of herself, and criticizes that.
"She had the oddest sense of being herself invisible, unseen; unknown; there being no more marrying, no more having of children now, but only this astonishing and rather solemn progress with the rest of them..."
Mrs. Dalloway still carries on, rather solemnly than before. Her life, or rather thoughts, seem to go from happy reminiscing, regret, pondering what her life could have been like, observes the things she likes about London, and then moves on.
(Laurel here)
Mrs. Dalloway spends a lot of time contemplating her identity, in one way or another. Her thought-stream about Peter is about him, but it is also about her and how he affected her, and the decision she made when she chose not to marry him. She has a stream of thoughts all about her existence, full of paradoxes and musings. She feels both aged and young, both "slic[ing] like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on."
She muses about her death and her place in life, connected to London and those she loves and the whole world. (I am so interested by when she talks about being a part of everything - "she being part, she was positive, of the trees at home; of th house there, ugly, rambling all to bits and pieces as it was; part of people she had never met; being laid out like a mist between the people she knew best, who lifted her on their branches as she had seen the trees lift the mist, but it spread ever so far, her life, herself." )
Furthering with her self-contemplation, she thinks about how she wants to do things for herself, not for what others think, and about her own existence, and what it means to be married and in London and alive.
Throughout all of these thoughts about her life experience and who she is, she continues to have life experiences: walking along through the streets of London, seeing new things and people, experiencing the vitality of the city she loves. The back-and-forth between her thoughts and her awareness of what she is experiencing at each moment is fascinating and lovely.
Mrs Dalloway has scattered thoughts in which she thinks about many things at once. For example, she thinks of how she could have done things differently if she were to live her life differently. [compares herself to Lady Bexborough]
She also compares herself to the past and how she drifts away in criticising herself and then comes back to reality, but doesn't delude herself.
Mrs. Dalloway starts out talking about Peter, who was clearly a lover of hers. The way he was talked about was quite unexpected, given that everything Mrs. Dalloway said up until then seemed to be rather positive (such as the nice day, and how happy she was to see everyone, and the excitement for her party...) Another train of thought that she then has seems to be low thoughts of herself. Then she goes on to thinking about Lady Bexborough, and then on to show her frsutration in not finding the right book for Evelyn. Then she things about how she wishes she could relive her life and have it turn out differently, more like Lady Bexborough.
The first impression I got was that the author is trying to show a more human side of Mrs. Dalloway by showing her different trains of thoughts. Up until now, she has been portrayed as a simple woman who doesn't seem to have a care in the world, but now we finally seem to get a taste of who she is and what she actually thinks.
What the others have said - about Peter clearly coming in and out of her focus - is apparent.
The consistancy of how often he comes up in her thoughts shows, to me, that he is a sore subject, or at least someone important to Clarissa, for the discussion of marriage is present in the text.
First it starts out with the distance between them with the line "For they might be parted for hundreds of years, she and Peter; she never wrote a letter and his were dry sticks; but suddenly it would come over her, If he were with me now what would he say?" It then we get grounded as a reader to a specific place, St. James Park, where she thinks about what Peter wouldn't have noticed; "- however beautiful the day might be, and the trees and the grass, the girl in pink - Peter never saw a thing of all that."
This in and out of sensory and vivid images is as natural as anyone's thought process. When we are reminded of someone by a place, a smell, a sign, we register it as someone; that person owns whatever it may be, at least to your memory. This continuence of Peter goes forth to deeper waters where she discusses about marriage and how she "had been right-and she had too-not to marry him". Piece by piece, we are gathering more information about Peter and her relationship, just by the stream of the character's thoughts.
Another thought that Clarissa has is when she's standing at the Park gates and how young she felt, but at the same time, "unspeakably aged". This sense of coming back to her youth also goes back to Peter, for as it said on the top of page 7, it seemed years since they had been together. The Park gives Clarissa almost a sense of security: it is a place she can come back to to trigger moments, feelings, Peter Walsh (as a more specific example), for as the text puts it, "she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day."
Because of this triggering sense that Clarissa has, she can come in and out being grounded by present tense or going back in and out of time or moments without missing a thread or forgetting to tie it back together.
Laurel checking in--
Kim cool tense discussion!
Mrs Dalloway has a mind that one thought leads her to the next with interjections of thoughts of what she is seeing and presently feeling. She began by thinking about peter and how upset she was by the situation and his marriage and then something leads her to think about how each day of life is like living on the edge, its a bit dangerous. That leads her to think about herself and how she is thinking about what she thinks of herself. She says that she is not much out of the ordinary.
She begins randomly noticing the cabs and people around her, a book then leads her to think about books. She then begins to think about life again and how you should not have to have a reason for doing things.
She keeps bringing up Lady Bexborough who she idolizes and wishes she could be. Near the end of the reading her thoughts turn to how she wishes she had a different figure.
She is very observant in all her thoughts she puts very little opinion into her thoughts
stream of thought #1: peter (marrying peter, arguing with peter, peter upsetting her, Peter and the Indian women...) #2 thinks of herself and her gifts to "read" people #3 remembers people, parties, and houses and reminisces and then thinks of death and that "she must inevitable cease compltely." #4 the tears and sorrows society and the world has bred in everyone #5 what book to bring to Eveliyn Whitbread #5 her need to please people #6 envious of Richard who seems to do things for himself #7 regrets on how she has lived her life and how she would live it if she could start all over
i agree with Christine in that it is very interesting how the author makes us feel as though the story is being told in first person though it is in third
I agree with what everyone has said about seeing glimpses of reality in the midst of her wandering thoughts. This does shed an interesting light on how she may see reality; being so clouded by her other thoughts, although that probably belongs in a different discussion.
At the beginning of the section we were assigned to read her thoughts of Peter jumped into thoughts of Richard and then right back to Peter again: “(Where was he [Richard] this morning for instance? Some committee, she never asked what.) But with Peter everything had to be shared; everything gone into.” This random thought about Richard’s whereabouts, which is surrounding by parentheses, shows that she is easily distracted by him but then pulled back again to Peter. This happens again at the end of the passage: “Much rather would she have been one of those people like Richard who did things for themselves, whereas, she thought, waiting to cross…” This passage illustrates her thoughts of Richard and then a pull back to mentioning reality briefly, which keeps the reader orientated, in a way, to what is going on outside of her head.
I do agree with what was said earlier, about how Mrs. Dalloway sometimes comes across as self-conscious: “She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged.” Mrs. Dalloway is very aware of others’ perception of her. This is again illustrated in the passage “half the time she did things not simply, not for themselves; but to make people think this or that…” Mrs. Dalloway does attempt to live up to the “society” of the time and this also leads to her thoughts about the social scene in town and what parties and houses everyone is at.
checkin in.
(Mike here - if DisturbiaMike isn't enough)
It is very interesting to see the inner workins of Clarissa Dalloway's mind. On one hand, her thoughts seem VERY sporadic and often random, yet at the same time she is very clear about what she is talking about and they do follow a patern (which usually fall back to Peter Walsh or Richard).
Like what Kim and a lot of other people mentioned, Clarissa mentions Peter quite a lot. It definitely alludes to the fact that Peter is a man that she has many (certainly mixed) feelings for. In the passage for homework marriage and being in love is mentioned several times.
In agreeing to what Audrey said Mrs. Dalloway is a very critical person. As I mentioned in the earlier blog about choosing 3 adjectives that describe her I mentioned that she was self- concious especially about her appearance. At the time, I wasn't sure if her self-consiousness was only in that particular instance of standing next to Hugh Whitbread, but upon reading further it definitely seems to be one of her character traits. In the passage tonight, she compares herself to Lady Bexborough in appearance and demeanor.
She also drifts in between reality and her own personal world. When she is in the park she notices the beautiful morning and how lovely it is, yet after that her thoughts switch back (in a mix) between her private musings.
Can't wait to check back in and see how the discussion is going!
Checking in….it seems that we all have mostly said the same thing, kind of like with the adjectives prompt. I think that maybe because we have only read 10 pages, although this style of writing is very different, and maybe slightly confusing, our view of Mrs. Dalloway seems to be very much the same, which may or may not change as we read on.
Mrs. Dalloway thinks of Peter very often, and what could have been, in reference to him and their relationship, but she is also very quick to criticize their relationship, and him.
She also criticizes herself a lot, and randomly thinks of people and things from the past.
"How much she wanted it-- that people should look pleased as she came in..."
Mrs. Dalloway spends a lot of time criticizing herself and wallowing in the fact that no one notices her. She also realizes that she should stop doing things for other people ahead of doing things for herself. She spends a lot of time observing society.
All throughout the narration, Clarissa thinks of Peter, of the shop, of why people couldn't just for one time be charmed by her presence. We are immersed in detail with her thoughts. As the previous blog had determined, most of us described Clarissa to be a pretty flamboyant person, and yet, here, we see her insecurities. "How much she wanted it- that people should looked pleased as she came in, Clarissa thought [...]" And so we start to wonder why? if through her thoughts we see what Clarissa herself sees in the mirror, through Virginia's we see society's and comprehend a bit more about Clarissa. Clearly, her body language and habits are described through the narration- "She had the oddest sense of being herself invisible, inseen; unkown[...]"
I think it is quite intriguing what Christine brought up about being stuck in Mrs. Dalloway's thoughts and her completely even though she is not the one leading the story if you will.
For me though, she doesn't seem to lean to one side or the other streams wise. She is always at either extreme. Clarissa is filled with happy thoughts or she is wallowing in tragedy. She's a very complex person with a perplexing mind so it seems. She never truly fully goes for anything and touches on a bunch of things and then changes the subject and moves and doesn't prove her point there. Mrs. Dalloway is not particularly straight-forward.
checkin in...
I agree that peter is the main focus of her thought. Possibly she is trying to keep her mind off of him but it keeps wondering back to him.
Wow...everyone had really insightful comments...
First of all, I think its fabulous that the wanderings of Mrs. Dalloway's mind correspond to her walk in St. James Park. There is a sense of fluid motion -- both physically and emotionally. Virginia Woolf makes it seem so effortless!
Clarissa begins by thinking of Peter, somewhat scoldingly. She remembers him as having to share everything, writing bad letters, and being unable to simple observe as well as she can. This brings her into a train of thought regarding what constitutes a successful marriage -- one in which some independence is given to both parties. While she seems content that she hasn't married Peter, she begins to think about how painful it was to break it off with him, how tenderly she felt toward him, and how grief-stricken she had been. She occasionally interjects with an observation of the street -- the pink of a girl's dress, the omnibuses, etc...
After thinking of Peter, she begins thinking about age. She feels young, then unspeakably aged. A heavy sense of mortality comes over her, and she becomes afraid to live even for a day. Then she begins to think about how little she knows. The one power she has, she says, is that of instinct. She is very good at "knowing" people. She may not be book smart, but she is observant and instintual.
Then she remembers parties, dancing, all that has passed. She feels the insignificance of it all -- Peter, London, Bond Street, etc... but at the same time feels part of everything, as if she were "laid out like a mist" among it all.
She ponders, briefly, human experience. :-)
Then she thinks of Lady Bexborough, how she admires her, and the kind of woman she would like to be if she could start it all over again. She ponders her plans to visit Ms. Whitbread in the nursing home, and expresses a need for people to enjoy her company. She thinks it might be better to be selfish than needy. She expresses a desire to be more like Lady Bexborough.
She feels insignificant, reduced to nothing, invisible. As if all the meaning in her life as already passed. She feels doomed to a "solemn progress" She becomes, in her own mind, reduced from Clarissa to "Mrs. Richard Dalloway."
And still, her train of thought corresponds to her physical motion.....
sooooo jealous of this writing....
so...so...jealous...
Checking in...
Yeah, although all of our comments are interesting they are also very similar. I wonder if our views of Clarissa will stay the same as each others or differ as the story continues.
Also, Gabby, you made an interesting point between the physical and mental aspects of her walk in the park.
Checking in.
Mrs. Dalloway's 'streams' mostly depends on what she sees around. As someone mentioned above, she sees cabs, books, or random people and she thinks about something somehow related, but all those 'streams' lead to herself and Peter Walsh. For instance, in page 10 she thinks about Richard, then she thinks about Lady Bexborough, and then her 'stream' ends up thinking about herself.
checking in....i love how the writers have pictures with their comments! hahaha love them!
checking in
Her other stream of thoughts revolve around herself and about her regrets of what she could have been.
on page 10 "oh if she could have had her life over again! she thought, stepping on to the pavement, could have looked even differently!"
This is where she comes to the conclusion that she does not like where she is in life. She analizes herself and believes that she means nothing to to the world, she did not do things in her life like she wished she had done them, but i these sudden analizations of herself stem from another person's opinion of her, such as Peter, but then she is exaterating this opinion and applying it to all the aspects of her. And so, feeling like she should have been or acted differently through out her life, she then wishes to start her life over again.
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