Peter Walsh, as he finds himself compelled to follow a woman he does not know through the streets of Central London, considers why he is doing so, ultimately coming to the conclusion that it was “as if the random uproar of the traffic had whispered through hollowed hands his name, not Peter, but his private name which he called himself in his own thoughts. ‘You,’ he said, only ‘you,’ saying it with her white gloves and her shoulders” (53). Peter feels the need to follow this woman for a bit, to see where she goes, because of this feeling that she has seen into the most intimate parts of him and named them.

The name he imagines she has given this intimacy is the name that “he [calls] himself in his own thoughts,” and, when he himself thinks this name, the reader comes to find that it is “you.” This most intimate of names is not Peter, it is not even I, which might be understandable if it is imagined that Peter’s mind is a constant narration of his actions and motivations. No, what Peter’s mind calls itself to itself is “you.” In this way, Peter’s imagination that this woman he is following has hit upon an intimacy she could not have known about is strange because, as he is a stranger, she is more likely to call him “you” than she is to know that is name is Peter. And yet, it is this name that startles Peter out of his day for however long he walks behind this woman.

Calling somebody “you” suggests a distance, a depersonalization, that seems antithetical to the project of this novel. Woolf, in her essay “Modern Fiction” states that this new form for novels, unencumbered by the expectations of traditional form, aims to capture “an ordinary mind on an ordinary day” (160), to get at what makes people who they are without the scaffolding, the barriers, of plot. The project of the modernist novel is to move past these barriers, to burrow inside the mind of the main character and take up residence within their most intimate thoughts. Modernism posits that right inside the mind is the most intimate view of a person somebody can get, and yet Peter is imposing a distance there. His mind addresses itself as a stranger whose name it does not know, and yet somehow Peter has found an intimacy with himself in that gulf.

Peter Walsh is a character who seems unsettled with himself. Like Clarissa, he holds fast to what he loves, but he seems far more territorial over those things, like he imagines if he cannot continually go over what they are, they will fall away. He loves the love he once had for Clarissa, loves the woman he met in India, loves that Clarissa does not know this new him that loves this new woman. These things, posts upon which he hands his sense of self, are impermanent. The Clarissa he loved is no longer there, and she may one day know the woman he is going to marry. Peter himself has not gotten to know his ordinary mind on an ordinary day, and so it continues to be a sort of stranger to him, a “you,” an unnamed thing to which he speaks sometimes. Peter is a character that resists the closeness that this novel’s style of narration attempts to forge between the character and the reader with the distance he finds between himself and his own mind, and yet it is this distance, so different from Clarissa’s, that becomes one of the most telling things about him.

In Virginia Woolf’s essay “Modern Fiction” she critiques the work of notable authors such as Arnold Bennett, John Galsworthy, and H.G. Wells categorizing them as ‘materialists”. It is not their skill that Woof critiques but rather what they chose to explore/depict in their work. Woolf dislikes materialist’s concentration on plausible and formulaic plots along with their habit of describing minute details. As Woolf expresses in her essay, the kind of writing that interests her, as a reader, is focused on exploring character’s interior, what is going on in their head. Woolf suggests that writers should turn away from a predictable materialist focus in favor of what she calls a ‘spiritual’ focus. Woolf praises examples of authors having a spiritual focus such as Russian author Gusev and Irish author James Joyce whose writing focuses more on a character than a plot, just as she does in her novel Mrs. Dalloway. Mrs. Dalloway is just the type of “modern fiction” novel that Woolf praises in her essay. 

Mrs. Dalloway explores her characters through a stream-of-consciousness type of narrative that revolves around the main character, Clarissa Dalloway, as well as other characters she encounters throughout the single day depicted in the novel. Woolf effectively utilizes a third-person omniscient point of view in Mrs. Dalloway, allowing her to explore different character’s interior landscapes and private thoughts. One of the characters that Woolf delves into is Septimus, a war veteran with PTSD. Septimus is a character that perceives things differently than others which is highlighted by his reaction to the fancy car driving down Bond Street. The crowd of people witnessing the car, including Clarissa, are excited by the car whereas Septimus is frightened by the loudness of the car and worries it will burst into flames. Many characters in the novel express an anxiety about death, namely Clarissa and Septimus. On the surface, Clarissa is a shallow society woman notorious for throwing extravagant parties but there is a depth to her that the reader is exposed to. Clarissa’s interior thoughts are deep and complex, at the beginning of the novel she is described as having “a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day”(Woolf 8). Clarissa and Septimus both express how alone they feel in the world, Clarissa’s loneliness prompts her to throw parties whereas Septimus seeks help from doctors after expressing suicidal thoughts. 

Woolf juxtaposes Clarissa’s interior self with her exterior self, which is seemingly an overarching theme of the novel as many characters grapple with their interior and exterior selves. Septimus and Clarissa are foils in Mrs. Dalloway and this becomes very clear when Clarissa is mulling over Septimus’s death, “She felt somehow very like him-the young man who had killed himself. She felt glad that he had done it; thrown it away. The clock was striking. The leaden circles dissolved in the air. He made her feel the beauty; made her feel the fun, But she must go back. She must assemble”(Woolf 186). Septimus and Clarissa both seem to suffer from depression or some mental illness. Septimus had been traumatized by the war, causing him to not only become depressed but he is no longer able to put on a good face for others as Clarissa does. Septimus can not hide his mental illness from society as Clarissa does. 

Before reading “Mrs. Dalloway” I had read very little of Virginia Woolf’s writings but I knew that was mental illness a frequent topic of her work, and that she had committed suicide by drowning in a river. Perhaps that information swayed my reading of Mrs. Dalloway which on the surface seems to be about a middle-aged woman throwing an extravagant society party, but in reality, is an exploration of complex character’s mental state and a commentary on how mental illness was treated in Woolf’s lifetime. Poor Septimus is essentially further victimized by the doctors that he seeks help from and ultimately commits suicide to avoid the treatment prescribed to him. In Mrs. Dalloway Woolf does exactly as she advises others to do in her essay “Modern Fiction”, she takes on an intimate spiritual focus with each of her characters. Woolf utilizes narrative technique and gripping themes to depict the reality of life through fiction, focusing on spirituality and humanity. Woolf manages to portray many issues by exploring the interior of characters and how they move and engage in society, making it easier to understand her claims about materialist novels from her essay. I felt closer to the characters in Mrs. Dalloway than I have to characters in any of the recent novels I have read, Mrs. Dalloway feels very intimate. Ultimately, Woolf does not depict a linear plot driven by conflict but rather simply: the human experience. 

While reading Mrs. Dalloway, it is easy for the average reader to be overpowered by the rapid cannon blasts that are considered sentences in this novel. Each line itself could probably diverge into a tangent, becoming its own story of Clarissa Dalloway’s (or any other character for that matter) that the reader can delve into to discover new meaning. The first ten paragraphs of the story lay out not only the tone, but also the style of a “stream of consciousness” story whose job is to put you into a strangle hold of thought with not a moment to think for yourself. This immersive style is an excellent choice for Mrs. Dalloway as the story itself takes place within about a 24 hour (maybe a little less) time span. One such instance in which we can extrapolate so much out of so little is in the line, “If he were with me now what would he say?–some days, some sights bringing him back to her calmly, without the old bitterness; which perhaps was the reward of having cared for people;”. From this alone we get an in-depth look into Clarissa’s character: 1) Much like every other human being ever, she has regrets and has made a decision which continues to haunt her throughout her life as there is no way to rectify the error that has long passed. 2) She’s understanding as when most people find themselves embroiled in a disagreement, they often stick with the negatives, allowing them to outweigh the positives for example, 5 years of a happy relationship can be ended with one instance of cheating. Clarissa on the other hand misses only the positive interactions with Peter, believing them to be worth dealing with any of the negative ones that came along with him. 3) She’s not happy as happy people do not long for the past, instead looking towards the successes and brightness of their future. Her longing for true happiness is what allowed these thoughts to even seep in.

All of that was drawn from just one line in a diverse, topsy-turvy opening scene, which is pretty much what Mrs. Dalloway is all about: getting a lot out of a little. We can backtrack to a previous line and see even more of her character based on it in the previous paragraph. It says, “They had just come up–unfortunately–to see doctors. Other people came to see pictures; go to the opera; take their daughters out; the Whitbreads came “to see doctors.” Here we can see that 1) She’s sympathetic to the issues of others even if she herself has never experienced anything like it. This sympathy allows her to connect with the other characters throughout the novel as she already HAS a connection with them before the book even began. 2) She’s observant as she pays attention to just how often the Whitbreads go to the doctor. She keeps this knowledge to herself, but keeps it nonetheless in case it is of value elsewhere. 3) She’s judgmental, not in a negative sense necessarily, but she has a perception of what she believes “normal” society is. Clarissa doesn’t believe (a correct belief for the occasion) that going to the doctor often is normal, but it also makes it seems as though going at all is abnormal.

All in all Mrs. Dalloway is a novel that tells it all very quickly, but the reader has to be able to keep up. Can you?

Compared to Turn of the Screw (which was written earlier in the authors career and who’s title appears to be a favorite phrase of the authors as he uses it in chapter 12 of  What Maisie Knew) this novel is in fact “modern”. The very discussion of divorce is not something Victorian society acknowledged in any way other than sweeping it under the rug. While it existed it was a huge taboo. While cheating on a spouse has always existed in society it is only in the ‘modern’ world where it is openly discussed. Addressing these concepts at all, especially in the beginning of the novel makeTo her parents Maisie is a game piece, a billiard ball shot at by both of them to defeat their opponents. These and other concepts in the novel bring in the ‘modernism’ of Henry James’s writing, however, it seems that the end message of the novel is that the old victorian ways are more ‘moral’. 

The old Victorian ways can be seen most personified in the character of Mrs. Wix. She is older than both of Maisie’s parents and her two step-parents. While she is poor and a widow she is the most moral of all the characters in contact with Maisie. While Maisie is the central character she is directly influenced by her guardians, each representing a different aspect of society. The new, modern glamorous society which is underhanded and deceitful as represented by her step-parents, the older establishes society which is also underhanded and deceitful but more established as represented by her parents and the oldest and most noble aspect of society which is represented by Mrs. Wix. 

While Mrs. Wix is not well educated and very poor she is without question the most moral of all of Maisie’s parental figures. While she is a widow she never perseus any new romantic relationships. This distance from the other sex has her remaining morally ‘pure’ in contrast to both Mrs. Beale and Ida who both live off of the men around them. Mrs. Wix, in contrast, lives off of her own merit and will only allow herself to be taken care of by Sir Claude when Mrs. Beale is not in the picture of their family. She is also a mother and acts on her motherly instincts when caring for Maisie. This is because she most accurately represents the old mores of the Victorian past. She is the noble poor woman who stands in contrast to the amoral or loosely moralled parents and step parents. 

By choosing to remain with Mrs. Wix Maisie, who throughout the novel is exposed to more than her fair share of modernity and traditional mores. While she is shuttled back and forth between her parents and steph parents she is also shuttled back and forth between modern mores and traditional ones. By choosing to remain with Mrs. Wix at the end of the novel it appears as those James is stating that the traditional mores are the better choice between the two. While she could have lived a life of luxury with her step parents, who would in turn be living in sin, she instead decides to stay with Mrs. Wix, most likely in poverty and most likely abandoned by both her parents, her father, having already left to live off a mistress in America. This choice seems to speak to Maisies simultaneous understanding but rejection of modernity. 

         Henry James’ “What Maisie Knew” focuses on the trauma a young six-year-old girl experiences due to her parents’ abuse, which is then furthered by the other, well-meaning adults in her life. The first round of her poor treatment is the neglect of her parents through the course of their divorce. Following that, Maisie is used by her parents to send messages of hate and spite, both through actions and letters, leaving Maisie herself feeling as though, “everything was bad because she had been employed to make it so.” Although her parents fight about Maisie, they do not care for her in the slightest, something Maisie appears to be somewhat aware of. However, they marry and hire individuals who appear to care more about their daughter than they do. As a result, more fighting ensues over Maisie, adding to her trauma, regardless of whether or not it was out of love.

         The choice left up to Maisie at the end of the novel is the most challenging and stressful part of the book, made all the worse by the fact that she was only six years old. Seeming cruel and inappropriate, Mrs. Wix and Sir Claude are both attempting to turn Maisie’s opinion of the other in order to win her favour. Along with hurling insults to each other and talking poorly about one another to Maisie, Sir Claude’s query, which seems to be more of a request, of Maisie is, “Should [she] see [her] way to let[ting Mrs. Wix] go?” A heartbreaking question, one that is synonymous with ‘which of us do you pick?’ Sir Claude continues on to insulting Mrs. Wix’s intelligence, “laugh[ing]” at the thought of how little she is able to teach Maisie and care for her more than Mrs. Wix would ever be able to, particularly financially, which Sir Claude continues to bring up. The most upsetting part, however, is when Maisie counters his ask with a stipulation of her own; he would have to give up Mrs. Beale. Despite Sir Claude’s supposed love for Maisie, he is unable to put her first. Sir Claude would rather stay with his soon-to-be bride than his stepdaughter.

Thankfully, Maisie stays with Mrs. Wix, despite difficulties that may arise in the future. What vindicates Maisie’s ultimate decision are the last few lines of the novel. Mrs. Wix and Maisie are leaving the hotel they had been residing in, with Sir Claude and Mrs. Beale still inside. Maisie “look[s] back” and realises that Sir Claude “wasn’t there”, “on the balcony” when she did so. The pair had just left the hotel, indicating Sir Claude should have been watching Maisie walk away, as it is most likely the last chance he had to lay eyes on her. Mrs. Wix reveals, as she cannot help herself, “He went to her”, to Mrs. Beale, who he cared for more deeply than Maisie.