As with almost all literary pieces of work, Virginia Woolf’s 1925 novel, Mrs. Dalloway, incorporates and covers many themes throughout the book. Some of these themes included are, the importance of society and class, all around suffering, repression and oppression, and others alike. The one that stands out significantly for me personally is the reoccurring theme of death and aging. While reading through the novel, I had come across a particular passage or sentence that caught my interest. It appears on page 9 towards the bottom of the page. At this moment in the story Clarissa Dalloway casually walks by Hatchard’s shop with many fleeting thoughts about life and death on her mind. She suddenly pauses from her brisk walk and takes notice of an open book in the shop window. She glances at this book and reads to herself two lines from it. The lines read “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun. Nor the furious winter’s rages.” These lines are taken from Shakespeare’s play Cymbeline that come from the funeral song of Act IV, Scene 2. This verse can be interrupted to mean that with death comes no more suffering and pain; death is the ultimate escape. While reading Mrs. Dalloway, I’ve noticed this idea of death and it’s inevitable lurking around the corner crosses Clarissa’s mind constantly. These thoughts are actually occurring in her mind before and as she passes the shop window. Just a couple of lines before the Shakespeare quote on page 9, it reads, “Did it matter then, she asked herself, walking towards Bond Street, did it matter that she must inevitably cease completely; all this must go on without her; did she resent it; or did it not become consoling to believe that death ended absolutely?” She has come to the realization that sh... ... middle of paper ... ...again renewed. This passage illustrates how she has come to terms with the fact that one-day her mortal life with end and the earth will indeed keep revolving without her on it. In reading Mrs. Dalloway, I myself find death and the effect of time to be the prominent theme. Clarissa Dalloway, in particular, seems obsessed with analyzing her life, and wondering if she has lived a meaningful one. She reflects on death much more than one should and with many different outlooks. For example, at times she is delighted with life and sees all of its’ beauty. Yet, other times she wonders basically “what is the point of it all”? She understands that everything will go on almost exactly as it did before even after she dies, and she is unsure if that thought is comforting or disturbing. Works Cited Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. New York: Harcourt, Brace and, 1925. Print.
Previously, the narrator has intimated, “She had all her life long been accustomed to harbor thoughts and emotions which never voiced themselves. They had never taken the form of struggles. They belonged to her and were her own.” Her thoughts and emotions engulf her, but she does not “struggle” with them. They “belonged to her and were her own.” She does not have to share them with anyone; conversely, she must share her life and her money with her husband and children and with the many social organizations and functions her role demands.
Through persuading the audience to believe that death is a wonderful and relaxing thing, she takes on a very difficult task. A common thought of the end of life is that it is a ceasing of all things good.
Both Virginia Woolf and Annie Dillard are extremely gifted writers. Virginia Woolf in 1942 wrote an essay called The Death of the Moth. Annie Dillard later on in 1976 wrote an essay that was similar in the name called The Death of a Moth and even had similar context. The two authors wrote powerful texts expressing their perspectives on the topic of life and death. They both had similar techniques but used them to develop completely different views. Each of the two authors incorporate in their text a unique way of adding their personal experience in their essay as they describe a specific occasion, time, and memory of their lives. Woolf’s personal experience begins with “it was a pleasant morning, mid-September, mild, benignant, yet with a keener breath than that of the summer months” (Woolf, 1). Annie Dillard personal experience begins with “two summers ago, I was camping alone in the blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia” (Dillard, 1). Including personal experience allowed Virginia Woolf to give her own enjoyable, fulfilling and understandable perception of life and death. Likewise, Annie Dillard used the personal narrative to focus on life but specifically on the life of death. To explore the power of life and death Virginia Woolf uses literary tools such as metaphors and imagery, along with a specific style and structure of writing in a conversational way to create an emotional tone and connect with her reader the value of life, but ultimately accepting death through the relationship of a moth and a human. While Annie Dillard on the other hand uses the same exact literary tools along with a specific style and similar structure to create a completely different perspective on just death, expressing that death is how it comes. ...
a passage from the letter she is writing to add a personal feel to the
In Mrs. Dalloway, Clarissa Dalloway undergoes an internal struggle between her love for society and life and a combined affinity for and fear of death. Her practical marriage to Richard serves its purpose of providing her with an involved social life of gatherings and parties that others may find frivolous but Clarissa sees as “an offering” to the life she loves so well. Throughout the novel she grapples with the prospect of growing old and approaching death, which after the joys of her life seems “unbelievable… that it must end; and no one in the whole world would know how she had loved it all; how, every instant…” At the same time, she is drawn to the very idea of dying, a theme which is most obviously exposed through her reaction to the news of Septimus Smith’s suicide. However, this crucial scene r...
The soliloquy that appears in Act 3 Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s Hamlet is easily one of the most popular speeches in English literature. It has been referenced to in Star Trek, Calvin and Hobbes and A Nightmare on Elm Street. However, this speech was not intended to be a lighthearted reference as indicated by Hamlet’s contemplative, philosophical, and bitter tones he uses while questioning the nature of life and death in this soliloquy.
Common among classic literature, the theme of mortality engages readers on a quest of coping with one of the certainties of life. Katherine Anne Porter masterfully embraces the theme of mortality both directly and indirectly in her story, “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall.” Understanding that all mankind ultimately becomes subject to death unleashes feelings of dread and anxiety in most people; however, Granny Weatherall transitions from rushing to meet her demise in her sixties to completely denying she is on her deathbed when she is eighty. Readers have seen this theme of mortality reverberated over and over in literature, but what makes this story stand the test of time is the author’s complexity. In Katherine Anne Porter’s
Adapted from Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Director Stephen Daldry and playwright David Hare, The Hours was inspired by Virginia Woolf's 1925 novel Mrs. Dalloway. It is no coincidence that The Hours was the working title Woolf had given Mrs. Dalloway as she was writing it. The emotional trauma that this film guides its viewers through becomes evident in the opening prologue. The scene begins with Virginia Woolf composing what would be her suicide notes to her husband Leonard and her sister Vanessa, the two most important people in her life (Curtis, 57.) She begins: "I feel certain that I am going mad again: I feel we can't go through another of these terrible times... You have given me the greatest possible happiness.. ." The portrayal of this process quickly demonstrates the turmoil Woolf is feeling, both from her oncoming episode of "madness" and the difficulty she is having finding the correct words to say "farewell" (Lee, Hermoine). The prologue comes to its climax as Kidman portrays Woolf's suicide. It is a gut-wrenching display of one's "matter-of-fact" acceptance of one's own coming death. Very dramatically, Woolf fills the pockets of her coat with large stones and stoically walks into a swollen river. Her head slowly disappears beneath the muddy water as all hope of her reconsidering her suicide is swept away with the current.
Mrs. Dalloway’s characters’ comprehension of life in relation to the act of striving for significance is juxtaposed with their understanding of the perceived finality
Hamlet is left so distraught by his father 's death and his mother’s quick remarriage of his father’s brother that he wishes to die. Hamlet begins his soliloquy with a metaphor that shows his desire for death: “Oh, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, / Thaw,
The physical and social setting in "Mrs. Dalloway" sets the mood for the novel's principal theme: the theme of social oppression. Social oppression was shown in two ways: the oppression of women as English society returned to its traditional norms and customs after the war, and the oppression of the hard realities of life, "concealing" these realities with the elegance of English society. This paper discusses the purpose of the city in mirroring the theme of social oppression, focusing on issues of gender oppression, particularly against women, and the oppression of poverty and class discrimination between London's peasants and the elite class.
The speaker believes that there is life after death, she believes that death isn’t the end but it is one step closer to eternity. She believes that death is something that happens to us and is not something we can challenge or decide when and how it happens. In the poem Dickenson presents death as something other than death. She uses the poetic device of personification to present death as if it was a human being. (Napierkowski 26-38.) She humanizes the experience making it more acceptable, fearsome and less abstract. (Napierkowski 26-38.) She capitalizes death to make the word more like someone’s name rather than being depicted as the end of human life. Dickenson describes “death” as her companion who is accompanying her to her resting place, her grave. (Napierkowski 26-38.) She states in the poem that “He kindly stopped for me.” Therefore making the event of death, through her use of personification an interaction between human
The extensive descriptions of Mrs. Dalloway’s inner thoughts and observations reveals Woolf’s “stream of consciousness” writing style, which emphasizes the complexity of Clarissa’s existential crisis. She also alludes to Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, further revealing her preoccupation with death as she quotes lines from a funeral song. She reads these lines while shopping in the commotion and joy of the streets of London, which juxtaposes with her internal conflicts regarding death. Shakespeare, a motif in the book, represents hope and solace for Mrs. Dalloway, as his lines form Cymbeline talk about the comforts found in death. From the beginning of the book, Mrs. Dalloway has shown a fear for death and experiences multiple existential crises, so her connection with Shakespeare is her way of dealing with the horrors of death. The multiple layers to this passage, including the irony, juxtaposition, and allusion, reveal Woolf’s complex writing style, which demonstrates that death is constantly present in people’s minds, affecting their everyday
Clarissa's relationships with other females in Mrs. Dalloway offer great insight into her personality. Additionally, Woolf's decision to focus at length on Sally Seton, Millicent Bruton, Ellie Henderson, and Doris Kilman allows the reader to see how women relate to one another in extremely different ways: sometimes drawing upon one another for things they cannot get from men; other times, turning on one another out of jealousy and insecurity. Although Mrs. Dalloway is far from the most healthy or positive literary portrayal of women, Woolf presents an excellent exploration of female relationships.
“Because I could Not Stop for Death” is one of Emily Dickinson's most discussed and famous poems due to its unique view on the popular subject of death. Death in this poem is told as a woman's last trip, a trip where she is going into toward eternity. The way that the poem is written it makes the reader feel the woman‘s tragedy on a much more personal level. Different from the more popular views of death being brutal and cruel, Dickinson makes death seem passive and easy. The theme of the poem is that death is a natural stage in our life cycles, but at the same time she gives comfort to the reader that death is not the end of our journeys, but more like another beginning. The form and tone that Dickinson uses throughout the poem helps her reader to understand the message that she is trying to get across in the poem. The way that the poem is written is that each set of verses tells the reader one little story and as you read the poem all the stories ...