Stream of Consciousness in Mrs. Dalloway

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The stream of consciousness technique allows Woolf to connect characters through “shared” public events. She describes an event that occurs in London, then proceeds to enter the consciousness of various characters who are present at the occasion, delving into their innermost thoughts as the event is happening. The beginning of the novel starts off with a backfiring motor car. The scene is depicted through many characters’ eyes: Clarissa, Septimus, Rezia, Miss Pym, Edgar J. Watkiss, Sarah Bletchley, Emily Coates, and Mr. Bowley. Immediately succeeding this mysterious occurrence that leaves all characters, major and minor, wondering at the identity of the person inside the car, comes the appearance of a sky-writing airplane advertising toffee. All the aforementioned characters are once again brought into the story to comment individually on this event. The devices of the car and the airplane serve to bring together the various consciousnesses.[17] However much as the London-dwelling characters’ lives are interwoven through the mundane and ordinary experiences of the city, in another sense they are all disconnected and have entirely disparate souls. Woolf highlights this by painting the different emotional and psychological reactions that each character has toward identical public events.

Stream of consciousness narration gives the reader a glimpse into the thoughts and consciousnesses of characters.[18] Woolf uses the indirect interior monologue, giving her the ability to represent difference, and give voice to a large selection of major and minor characters.[19] Indirect interior monologue also allows Woolf to alternate more comfortably between the private world of Clarissa Dalloway and the public world of London.[20] She is able to reduce the overpowering of the narrator’s voice, while at the same time refrain from using the first-person dialogue, which she found “tyrannical.”[21] Stream of consciousness permits Woolf to shift her characters’ thoughts back and forth between past, present, and future, and between other scenes and places, thus integrating all time and space with the present happenings of the novel.[22]

Depiction of Public Sphere

The original Clarissa Dalloway that Woolf had envisioned ended up being “split” in two: the perfect party hostess, and the suicidal individual, the second of which is now Septimus.[23] The Clarissa that is currently the titular character of the novel is now an embodiment of the perfect socialite. Woolf uses the surface appearance of Clarissa to demonstrate the repercussions of the public sphere and subtly hint at how damaging they can be. “She had the oddest sense of being herself invisible…this being Mrs. Dalloway; not even Clarissa any more; this being Mrs. Richard Dalloway.” (11) Upon her marriage to her husband, Clarissa loses a part of her own identity and individuality, becoming molded into simply “Mrs. Dalloway.” At her own party, she has “the feeling of being something not herself” (187).

There are many symbols and events that indicate the common physical space shared by all the characters in Mrs. Dalloway, such as clock chimes, backfiring motor cars, and sky-writing planes.[24] “The sound of Big Ben striking the half-hour struck out between them with extraordinary vigour…” (52) Even though these symbols represent the connections between the characters, everyone is, in actuality, living in a mental world of their own.[25] Peter Walsh, who often acts as the transition from one character’s perspective to another, has trouble deciphering both Septimus and Clarissa. Although he passes by Septimus and talks with Clarissa, thereby sharing the same public sphere, he does not grasp their innermost thoughts. When he passes Septimus and Rezia, Peter merely believes they are “lovers squabbling under a tree” (77), not understanding the magnitude of their problems. When Peter converses with Clarissa, he believes her to be “frivolous, empty-minded; a mere silly chatterbox” (48), not knowing the depths of Clarissa’s character.

There is emphasis on the community of characters and on the movement from the crowd to the individual.[26] After a public event, such as the mysterious figure in the motor car or the skywriting airplane, is discussed, the narrative immediately shifts to the perspectives of individual characters. Woolf makes good use of the “communal direct interior monologue,” which is the description of internal thoughts and feelings that are not particularly attributable to any specific character.[27] This unique narration creates a sense of crowd unity, thus cementing the public sphere.

Representative of the public sphere are the two physicians depicted in the novel, Dr. Holmes and Sir William Bradshaw. Both men represent the encroaching of “proportion” on the human soul, as well as examples of “fallen” souls. They, unlike Septimus and to some degree Clarissa, do not have any semblance of spiritual reality. Rather, they seek dominion through the body, as both of them are doctors.[28] Woolf uses the consciousnesses of Clarissa and Septimus to attack these medical men who hold public importance. “Why did the sight of him, talking to Richard, curl her up?...But she did not know what it was about Sir William; what exactly she disliked” (200-201). For Septimus, even death is preferred to a visit from Dr. Holmes. “But no; not Holmes…” (163) Septimus lives in a London where people are determined not to feel, explaining why he is persecuted not for his feelings, but for the fact that he feels at all.[29] Woolf is hinting at the superficiality of the public sphere, as it is often overrun by figures of authority such as Holmes and Bradshaw, who really want to undermine the uniqueness of the human soul. Rezia has been put under the spell of these figures, as she believes in the physicians’ words and trusts them. “…for Dr. Holmes had told her to make him notice real things…” (27)

Whereas the physicians are derided for their trespass of the human soul, the Prime Minister featured in the novel is scoffed at for the sheer reverence that he causes; Woolf disparages the bowing down to this authoritative figure. Before the Prime Minister’s arrival at Clarissa’s party, Woolf throws in a disparaging statement aimed at him, “Did it matter, did it matter in the least, one Prime Minister more or less?” (181) The question is rhetorical; it merely serves to point out that the Prime Minister’s attendance at the party is no more or less important than that of other guests. The Prime Minister is not even given a personal identity throughout the novel; he is always just referred to as “Prime Minister.” By leaving his name purposefully ambiguous, Woolf criticizes the blind following of authority.