Mrs. Dalloway Novel Post
‘Where are you off to?’—Hugh Whitbread
‘I love walking in London.’—Clarissa
--Mrs. Dalloway, page 6
(Where was he this morning for instance? Some committee, she never asked what.)
--Mrs. Dalloway, page 8
‘Tell me,’ he said, seizing her by the shoulders. ‘Are you happy, Clarissa? Does Richard--’
The door opened.
--Mrs. Dalloway, page 47-8
The selected quotes featured above are a small representation of the vast number of problematic ‘question and answer’ moments featured throughout Virginia Woolf’s text. As Clarissa wanders about the streets of Westminster, navigating the peculiar pathways and circuitous sidestreets, she wonders where Richard is; the narrator informs us that she never asks. I cannot help but wonder if this refusal to ask questions might be because Richard, like Clarissa, and perhaps other characters in the novel, will not answer. In two of the quotes I cited at the top of this entry, other characters (Hugh and Peter, respectively) as Clarissa questions that do not receive answers—at least not answers to the questions posed to her. Perhaps at the prime instance of a problematic ‘question and answer’ exchange (in addition to being the first example in the novel and a personal favorite of mine) comes on page six, when Hugh asks Clarissa ‘where [she] is off to’ and she responds with, ‘I love walking in London.’ Unlike latter moments in the next, such as the moment when Elizabeth’s carefully calculated entry prevents Clarissa from having to divulge the contents of her mental health to Peter, in this particular example, it does not appear as though Clarissa particularly benefits from avoiding the subject at hand. Clarissa’s seemingly illogical response to Hugh’s prodding does not serve as a simple segway into a different conversation; rather, it halts the conversation altogether. And while Clarissa does not answer Hugh’s question, the response she provides actually answers a much more important question, this one posed by the reader.
So many of our class discussions of Mrs. Dalloway have concerned the title character’s walk—rightfully so when so much of the novel is dependent upon Clarissa’s quotidian adventure. One key focus of the various discussions of Clarissa’s walk has centered upon the (arguably) diametrically opposed ideas of pleasure and purpose. For someone who knows the streets of this portion as well as Clarissa does (and Woolf must), Mrs. Dalloway never appears to take any shortcuts. She wanders about the streets, takes brief detours; for Clarissa the best route is never about traveling in a straight line. While Clarissa keeps her end-goal of the flower shop on Bond Street in mind, her walk seeks pleasure en route to purpose. To return to what I began arguing in the paragraph above, I find that the recurrent ‘Q&A’ sessions with Clarissa, thought they might not provide answers for the characters in the novel, actually have a way of answering some of the most pressing questions of the novel. Clarissa says, ‘I love walking in London,’—privileging the walk over the destination. In this simple refusal to answer the question posed by those located inside the world of the novel, Clarissa actually answers the questions posed by the novel’s audience, whose queries encompass time decades past the final page of the novel—time not as easily calculated and marked away by Big Ben.
posted by PatrickMcKelvey @ 3:21 PM
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