“The external situation shapes the experience of the inner life”. –How have similar ideas about the importance of the inner life been represented in different contexts in Mrs Dalloway and The Hours?

“The external situation shapes the experience of the inner life”. –How have similar ideas about the importance of the inner life been represented in different contexts in Mrs Dalloway and The Hours?

An individual’s experience of both internal and external life is shaped by our surroundings, the physical environment and our human relationships. Mrs Dalloway, a novel by Virginia Woolf explores the life of a women in one day, the audience is able to see what she is doing, what she feels and what is going on in her head all at the same time. Similarly a film directed by Stephen Daldry titled the Hours explores three narrative streams looking at both the external events and internal thoughts of three separate women. These texts use the context of Virginia Woolf’s own life and the time periods in which they focus on including the 1920’s, 1949 and 2001 to express various thematic concerns. They delve into the multifaceted nature of individuals, women’s experience, a sense of mortality felt by the protagonists and ones sensitivity to nature and people.
In searching for one’s identity and true self we often question the nature of our experiences and the relationships we have with those around us. It is a constant battle between putting on a social mask to manage perception, or alternatively expressing our inner self and risking ridicule. Woolf depicts reserved the agony of Clarissa’s loneliness, which can be seen as a result of her sexual repression, reserved nature and her submission to the social norms. The human personality is not one given mixed monolithic entity, but a shifting combination of impressions and emotions including ones dreams, memories and fantasies. Clarissa Dalloway struggles to accept who she is, as a politician’s housewife who throws parties “to cover the silence”. In this modernist era Clarissa is defined by her husband “not even Clarissa any more, this being Mrs Richard Dalloway”. Interior monologue is used by Woolf as Clarissa reflects on her own identity “Every time she gave a party she had this feeling of being something not herself, and that everyone was unreal in one way; much more real in another.” Miss Kilman, the tutor of the Dalloway’s daughter Elizabeth was always somewhat jealous of Clarissa’s relationship with her daughter, although as she could see right through her exterior persona. Miss Kilman says “And there rose in her an overwhelming desire to overcome her, to unmask her”, indicating her belief that Clarissa is superficial and fake. Being of high social status definitely affects Clarissa’s true identity amongst other things as she aims to impress those with the same social standing as her. Similarly a number of characters in the Hours struggle to balance their internal and external life to achieve true happiness. Laura Brown is supposedly living the “American Dream” however we soon discover she is anything but satisfied in her role as mother and housewife. Stephen Daldry uses cinematic techniques of postmodern pastiche and facial expressions to highlight Laura’s true emotions. A high angle shot shown of Laura in an empty hotel room on the day she was planning to commit suicide portrays her as small, weak and vulnerable. She asks “not to be disturbed” as she contemplates her choice, cross cutting displays her reflection back to the birthday cake and the family she was leaving behind. Ultimately she decides that she is unable to go through with it and instead runs away after the birth of her second child. Laura is one of the few characters in either the book or film who truly decides for themselves what they really want and goes through with it. Kitty, a friend of Laura’s puts on a brave face for society and breaks down behind closed doors. She strongly believes many of the expectations and stereotypes of this society in the 1920s. “You’re lucky Laura, I don't think you can call yourself a women until you're a mother” Kitty says as she is unable to get pregnant. Kitty does not give her own inner self a thought most of the time and puts on a social mask for those around her. Laura and Kitty share a passionate kiss which Kitty is quick to deny as she says “of course everything is alright”. Ultimately, an individual has a choice between being who they truly want to be both inside and out or putting on a social mask for the world. This choice determines an individual’s state of mind, overall happiness and capability to cope within the context of their life.
Sensitivity to nature, people and experiences is reflected

ones sensitivity to nature and people.
Sensitivity to people, experience and nature
Clock- motif of time, often used as a linking device
Flowers and nature- motif

This perspective of Woolf is seen in her characterization of Septimus; a man, though a soldier, but who is passive, introvert and a loner. His feminine-self differentiates him from the world. He’s another character who strives for a realization of the self throughout the novel. Like Clarissa, Septimus is pale and bleak-nosed. Both form prey to their own imaginations. Clarissa must deal with with the “brutal-monster” of hatred while Septimus is frightened of the horror which comes “almost to the surface” and threatens to“burst into flames”.

Septimus, in spite of his mental illness appreciates the beauty underlying the world, is able to hear the singing of the birds, and most significantly, craves for some purpose in life.Septimus and Clarissa are both fiercely against any kind of authority or domination and are ‘obsessed’ in their own ways “with a compulsive need for personal autonomy.” “through his suicide, Septimus communicates with Clarissa, who understands his gesture of defiance against an authoritarian society that would force his soul.”

Quotes-

Clarissa identifies with Septimus in his suicide too:“She felt somehow very like him, the young man who had killed himself. She felt glad that he had done it; thrown it away.”

“men must not cut down trees”- Septimus is connected to nature even when he is not connected to anything else. Can’t feel for his wife but still believes it's wrong to cut down trees.

“trees at home”- connection to the natural world, in the connectedness of all things.
“sparrows fluttering, rising, and falling in jagged fountains were part of the pattern, the white and blue, barred with black branches.

“moments like this are buds on the tree of life, flowers of darkness they are, she thought” -Clarissa reflecting on the beauty of nature

Sally is seen as sensitive herself “Sally’s power was amazing , her gift, her personality. There was her way with flowers for instance”.

“Faint sounds rose in spirals up the well of the stairs; the swish of a mop; tapping;knocking; a loudness when the front door opened, a voice repeated a message in the basement; the chink of silver on a tray.”- Auditory imagery conveying her sensitivity to experience.

“time flaps on the mast. There was stop, there we stand. Rigid, the skeleton of habit alone upholds the human frame. Where there is nothing, Peter Walsh said to himself, feeling hollowed out, utterly empty within.” -Reminder of time

“half-past eleven, she says, and the sound of St. Margaret’s glides into the recess of the heart and buries itself in ring after ring of sound”

“sudden loudness of the final stoke tolled for death that surprised in the midst of life”

“the word ‘time’ split its husk, poured its riches over him, and from his lips fell like shells, like shavings from a plane, without his making them….and flew to attach themselves to their places in an ode to Time , an immortal ode to Time”. - notion/ sensitivity to time

“ what a gardener says when he opens the conservatory door in the morning and finds new blossom on his plant:- It has flowered; flowered from vanity, ambition, idealism, passion, loneliness, courage, laziness, the usual seeds”- suggests the sensitivity in Septimus’ nature linking him to Clarissa

“fire as burns only one in a lifetime”- passion for literature and Isabel Pole closely connected

“But beauty was behind a pane of glass”- Septimus illness mean he can no longer feel for his wife and his sensitivity is lost. “he could not feel” repetition reinforcing the anguish Septimus goes through

“Love between man and woman was repulsive to Shakespeare.” deep sense of disgust

“ Far away he heard sobbing; he heard it accurately, he noticed it distinctly; he compared it to a piston thumping. But he felt nothing. His wife was crying and he felt nothing; only each time she sobbed in this profound, this silent, this hope-less way, he descended another step into the pit.” - realises he doesn't feel anything, reference to death
“At last with a melodramatic gesture which he assumed mechanically and with complete consciousness of its insincerity, he dropped his head on his hands”

“But to go deeper, beneath what people said” -Clarissa is tuned into other people and reflects on the purpose of life, she notices the beauty of life and looks

“And she watched out of the window the old lady opposite climbing upstairs.”
“Her sigh was tender and enchanting, like the wind outside a wood in the evening”- Rezia

“They (all day she had been thinking of Burton, of Peter, of Sally), they would grow old.”- Life goes on with ups and downs and compromising

“It is Clarissa he said.
For there she was.” - Closing lines represents how Clarissa is life and its rich tapestry.