Mention Virginia Woolf and the words "stream of consciousness" will almost inevitably appear. But what does this actually mean, and how does Woolf distance herself from both the reader and Clarissa and, in fact, care? Mrs Dalloway is, we are often told, a radically new form of prose that breaks the mold of 19th century fiction. Virginia Woolf herself predicted that "we are trembling on the brink of one of the greatest epochs of English literature" as she and James Joyce struggled to define a new method of capturing character. Here he argues that "all human relationships changed" as a result of the Great War, rendering the Edwardian character portrait obsolete. The intertwining of reader, author, and character was integral to this new attempt to describe the personality as a "multilayered self, in which dreams, memories, and fantasies were as important as actions and thoughts" as vital to life. reading the novel. Using the text edited by Stella McNichol as a copy, this essay will courageously expose an attempt to determine the subtle network of intertwined relationships between these three combatants. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Woolf believes that her greatest breakthrough in composing Mrs. Dalloway was the discovery of a "tunneling process" through which she learned to "pull out beautiful caves behind my characters... the idea is that the caves connect and each comes into the light of day at this time.' .As he developed, he believed he acquired a "more analytical and human quality..." and so his portrayal of the character developed. He often argued with the painter Jacques Raverat about the fictional form, who stated that the problem with the writing was that it is "essentially linear." It is almost impossible to express the way the mind responds to an idea, where, like a stone thrown into a pond, "splashes in the outside air" are followed "beneath the surface" from "waves that follow each other in darkness and darkness". Before this time this idea of ​​the improbable depth of the mind and the multiple consequences of an action was relatively unknown in the caricatures of literature it is "precisely the writer's task to go beyond the 'formal railway of the sentence' and show how people 'think or dream... everywhere'". "the impression of simultaneous connections between the internal and external world, the past and the present, the word and the silence: a form shaped like the waves in a pond rather than like a railway line». This character development is what catalyzes the generation of a new, extraordinarily complex web of attachments and connections that the mad Septimus sees around him: they beckon; the leaves were alive, the trees were alive. And the leaves being connected by millions of fibers with his own body, there on the seat, made him wave up and down; when the branch grew longer he also made this statement. (page 24)Yet it is not only Septimus who is connected in this vast web of interconnected consciousness and thought, but also Clarissa. Upon his death he reflects that "death was an attempt to communicate". The two characters seem linked together in a deeper way than their simple casual acquaintance with Sir William Bradshaw would allow. It is a debatable question to what extent Woolf is personally involved with her characters. It is always dangerous to assume that an author's work is based on his or her life, as thedistinction between poet and character, and playwright and character in other mediums. Desdemona may have died, but it would clearly be absurd to say that this happened because Shakespeare didn't like women. However, perhaps one should not attempt to strip a work to the bone and deny the fundamental relationship between the author, a creator, and her creations. Mrs Dalloway's text and some of Woolf's life experiences seem, and this is by no means certain, connected. It has often been suggested that many of his characters seem based on people within the scope of his experience. Clarissa's world is a social arena of parties and hostesses, much like the one into which Miss Stephen found herself drawn by her cousin George Duckworth and Kitty Maxse, a family friend. Virginia Stephen found Kitty superficial and many critics felt she could have been the model for Clarissa. It is certainly a convincing argument that Woolf is not creating an impression of herself in Mrs Dalloway and evidence of this is provided by her confession that she "found Clarissa somewhat tinsel" and that "a certain disgust for her persisted " throughout the composition of the novel. . Even in the novel, even in the first pages, there are sentences, even in the opening of the novel, that appear in what must be Clarissa's thoughts, and yet are starkly at odds with Woolf's socialist tendencies: Heaven only knows why you love it so much. ... but ... the most dejected of miseries sitting on the doorstep (drinks her ruin) does the same (page 4) Here the ascorbic guilt inherent in the phrase 'drinks her ruin' seems unlikely to come from Woolf, the friend of the working classes. Mrs. Dalloway is a society woman, superficial and reserved, and a development of an earlier character from another story. Other parallels with the teenage Woolf can be seen in the description of Sally Seton, based on her cousin, Madge Symonds. . By the time she was fifteen she was apparently 'in love' with Madge and on one occasion 'Virginia... grasping the handle of the water jug ​​in the top room of Hyde Park Gate... exclaimed to herself: 'Madge is here; she is actually under this roof right now."' The young Woolf never acted on her feelings, much like Clarissa's feelings for Sally Seton, although Woolf later managed to free herself from the sexual restrictions she felt on herself and to have such a relationship. with another woman. Other current acquaintances have been identified as characters in the books. Lydia Lopokova, the dancer, was "remarked" as "a kind of Rezia", ​​and Lady Bruton was based. probably on Woolf's acquaintance with Lady Colefax, who declared "I have been tolerant too often. The truth is that people hardly care for each other." This reflects the woman who can "bully put aside all this useless nonsense." There are also many silhouettes, if not caricatures, of Woolf's friends and acquaintances in the characters of the novel. Clarissa's world is similar to Woolf's in a way that Septimus's is not. But it has infiltrated Septimus' character on a much deeper level than just the social environment. He stated: "I bring here a study of sanity and suicide; the world seen side by side by sane and insane people." In this character he drew on memories of his own intermittent states of madness, which had led, in 1895 and 1915, to suicide attempts. The intensity with which he evoked his own experience can be seen in the fact that in September 1923, while writing about Septimus, he had a "mental tremor", which threatened to recall his periods of madness. That Septimus's madness was equated with Woolf's experience may beseen to be ascertained from the accounts given by Quentin Bell and Leonard Woolf. The former explained that "her symptoms were of a manic-depressive character", while the latter referred to his wife's illness as "manic-depressive insanity", although "the doctors called it neurasthenia... a name which covered a multitude of sins , symptoms, and miseries." His alarming clinical categorization of his symptoms includes progression from exhaustion and insomnia to high arousal, violence and delusions alternating with comatose melancholy, depression, guilt and disgust for food, all of which have points of similarity in delusions and in the misery of Septimus. He hears: A sparrow ... singing freshly and piercingly in Greek words as there is no crime (page 26) This corresponds to Woolf's memories of her own madness, when she listened to the birds singing in Greek and imagined that King Edward VII was lurking in the azaleas using foul language. Another parallel can be seen in Woolf's hostility towards her doctors, particularly towards Sir George Savage, of whom Sir William Bradshaw. Clarissa and Septimus constitute the two pillars of Woolf's "study of sanity and suicide". The one character circulates in a disturbing facsimile of Woolf's story and surroundings, the other displays some of her more alarming traits. His modification of the original title, "The Hours," shows how he had to manipulate the centers of interest in his book and alter the title as he began to focus his attention on the characters rather than the structure of the day. The emphasis now clearly falls on Clarissa, although Woolf works hard to ensure that she does not overshadow any of the book's other themes by giving each of her characters and ideas equal attention (for evidence of this, see the plot summary in Lee, 1977, p 96 - 98). As for the 'stream of consciousness', what we see from the first pages is that while the novel deceptively seems to provide the beginning of a conventional 'story', we are immersed in Clarissa, as much as she 'immerses' herself in the day (page 3 ). The pleasure of the morning reminds her of similar feelings in Bourton, making her think of Peter Walsh and informing us that she will soon be returning from India. Already, as Lee says, "we are made aware that the past is not at odds with the present, but is engaged with it." . Clarissa provides the link between past and present as her consciousness swims between them, feeling the same thing, recognizing Peter Walsh commenting on vegetables and playing with his pocket knife. As she remembers "his eyes, his little knife, his smile, his grumpiness," she herself is also evaluated by Scrope Purvis in the act of evaluating the past. This external view of Clarissa as a "jay, green-blue, light, lively" is balanced with the emotional life in which the reader is involved. Clarissa exists on different levels for the reader, for the other characters, and perhaps even for Woolf. One of the things that must be determined when reading Mrs. Dalloway is to be sure that none of the characters are lying to the reader or are wrong. . We see different views of Clarissa, yet we must be certain that Scrope Purvis and Miss Pym are not lying or simply untrustworthy. Both of these characters bring to our attention the facts of Clarissa's age and frailty, perhaps making the irony of her love of life and vitality more painful. There are countless other visions of Clarissa seen through the eyes of the other characters; Sally says she is "hard on people"; Richard imagines that she "wanted support" (page 129). There are also many more opinions at the party than Sir Harry who likes him despite his damned, difficult, upper-class sophistication, which made it impossible to ask Clarissa Dalloway tosit on his lap (page 194) to Jim Hutton who thinks "Presumptuous, but how nice to look at!" (page 195). Clarissa therefore exists as a creature in the eyes of others, and these opinions help Woolf guide the reader. Woolf shows it to us without personal comment, emphasizing the "striped, involved, inextricably confusing" and chaos of human existence, while providing the reader with the multilayered consciousness of Mrs. Dalloway within. From the outside, Clarissa is a hostess, but we are warned of the dangers of judging people so singularly based on appearance by the character herself, who states the dangers of saying "about anyone in the world... whether it was this or whether it was that." Perhaps, then, this external self is a mockery of the internal self, true, but at the same time it is a valid aspect of Clarissa. Interestingly, Clarissa also thinks of "herself" as "character" and summarizes herself as third person. She looks in the mirror and sees herself as "pointy"; dart-like; defined' (page 42). She recognizes that her face and herself are the sum of many different and incompatible parts. But it is this entire self that others see as the woman who "couldn't think, write, even play the piano... Armenians and Turks confused." Beneath Clarissa's perfect hostess exterior lies her emotional self, composed of her love for Sally Seton. and Peter Walsh, and her feelings for those around her: Richard, Elizabeth, Miss Kilman, her party, and life alone. There is an ongoing conflict between his desires to reach out to others, to 'combine, to create' (page 135), and his desire to withdraw and respect 'the privacy of the soul'. His party represents his love of bringing people together, or of harmonizing, (page 140), and this perhaps equates to his passion for the "match burning in the crocus" (page 36) and his hatred of Miss Kilman. And it is the act of this passionate hatred that brings energy and life; «We wanted enemies, not friends» (p. 193). On the other hand, Clarissa's tendency to withdraw "like a nun who has left the world" (page 33), going upstairs to her narrow bed like "a child exploring a tower" (page 35) leads her to fail sexually with Richard, unable to abandon herself, feeling her part in the world diminished because Lady Bruton did not ask her to lunch. This cold, sober, restrictive world is best shown in contrast to the passion of the memories that Peter evokes in her, and in an image that Woolf provides us: It was all over for her. The sheet was tight and the bed narrow. She had climbed the tower alone and left them to ripen the blackberries in the sun. (page 523) Deeper within Clarissa is her faith in her connection to the world through the same intangible web that Septimus feels: Somehow in the streets of London, in the ebb and flow of things, here, there, she has survived, ... . part of people he had never met (page 12) There is a sense that Septimus' death perhaps "redeems the emptiness of his life" and the "corruption, lies, chatter" (page 204) that surround it. Woolf's portrayal of Clarissa. it is, perhaps, less charitable. The image of Lucy, Clarissa's maid, "taking Mrs. Dalloway's parasol, wields it as a sacred weapon in which a goddess, having acquitted herself honorably on the battlefield, undresses and places it in the umbrella stand" ( page 34). The royal family, the empire, and the government (which makes Clarissa tense with pride when she suspects the queen might die) are made to look ridiculous. Similarly, Woolf treats some of the characters Clarissa admires with ferocious satire: she had the thought of the Empire always at her fingertips and had acquired from her association with that armored goddess her wand-like poise, her..