Tous les articles sur la thématique "Virginia Woolf"

Mme Dalloway, une femme en costume, naviguant dans le temps avec une horloge et des fleurs.

The fictive experience of time through Mrs. Dalloway

by · Lecture: 7 minutes
  1. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf: A Modernist Novel
  2. Time on the surface level of Mrs. Dalloway
  3. Time and Virginia Woolf’s novel technique
  4. The fictive experience of time through Mrs. Dalloway

Now the reader’s experience must be studied because, when all is said and done, it is the way in which the complexity of time is felt that constitutes part of the interest (part of the pleasure) we derive from reading “Mrs. Dalloway”.

‘Monumental’ time versus private time

Virginia Woolf suggests that time is not uniform, time is not the same for everyone at the same moment. The experience of time is filtered through the characters’ consciousness.

We may distinguish between two forms of time: ‘monumental time’ and ‘private time’. Monumental time is the time of the clocks: Big Ben striking the ‘irrevocable hour’, but it is also the time of the power, of the authorities, of the institutions that fix working hours and regulate the lives of ‘well-balanced people’. Private time is subjective; it is torn apart (asunder) between memory (the past) and expectation: looking forward to future events.

What Virginia Woolf subtly shows is that ‘monumental time’, for example, the chiming of Big Ben, arouses different responses and touches off different echoes according to the characters. Of course, the chiming of Big Ben is objectively the same for everyone at the same instant, however, Virginia Woolf sets out to show that they affect characters differently according to the state of mind and disposition they find themselves in, on the spur of the moment.

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Une pile de papiers, de livres et de puzzles sur une table présentant la nouvelle technique de Virginia Woolf à travers le concept de temps.

Time and Virginia Woolf’s novel technique

by · Lecture: 5 minutes
  1. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf: A Modernist Novel
  2. Time on the surface level of Mrs. Dalloway
  3. Time and Virginia Woolf’s novel technique
  4. The fictive experience of time through Mrs. Dalloway

Showing the various strata of time by taking one single day is a starting point. It is a paradox since at the end, Woolf suggests that taking one single day is an illusion: huge portions of the past are to be found behind every moment in the present. each moment of the present contains within itself different temporal layers.

Time and story-telling

How can a novelist investigate and analyse the depths of different individual minds while keeping a sense of unity? Or, put differently, how can a novelist create a coherent, well-structured novel from various disconnected subjectivities?

Woolf chose a peculiar narrative voice that could dwell and stay successively in the minds of the different protagonists, and that could register/record what goes on in the character’s consciousness. The narrative presence keeps moving from one character to the next and remembers everything. It has the power to resurrect the past in the narration, i.e. the power of bringing back the past into the present or the fiction.

This narrative voice is like a state of mind outside the characters and of which the characters themselves are not conscious. The state of mind surrounds/encloses the characters and glides/insinuates into the recesses of their minds. This narrative presence violates their inner thoughts and steals their most intimate secrets.

Thus, the form of narration of “Mrs. Dalloway” is the indirect discourse, that we will analyse.

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Mme Dalloway de Virginia Woolf explore la dynamique superficielle du temps dans la vie de Mme Dalloway.

Time on the surface level of Mrs. Dalloway

by · Lecture: 5 minutes
  1. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf: A Modernist Novel
  2. Time on the surface level of Mrs. Dalloway
  3. Time and Virginia Woolf’s novel technique
  4. The fictive experience of time through Mrs. Dalloway

Time and space are tightly knit as structural elements. The story spans one day and London is constantly called up through allusions to well-known places: Westminster, Bond Street, Regent’s Park, and Picadilly Circus. Space and time are closely linked.

A day in Mrs Dalloway’s life

Mrs. Dalloway is not old: she is 51. She is from the British ruling class. On the surface level, the day’s events are chronologically organised. At night, the party takes place. The guests are important people of the kingdom.

The story starts in the morning when Mrs. Dalloway prepares to buy flowers. The story closes when the guests are leaving, at 3 AM. It therefore consists of two episodes, the starting and the closing of the perfect hostess.

A series of events and incidents occur between the opening and the closing. Some of these events are commonplace whereas others will have repercussions in the main protagonists’ consciousness: in Mrs Dalloway’s and Walsh’s.

The events are chronologically organised. The passing of the day is marked by the bells and chimes of Big Ben. The most important events take place in threes or multiple of threes. At 12, Warrensmith has an appointment at Bradshaw’s. Bradshaw decides to have Septimus sent to a mental institution. At 3 PM, Richard Dalloway comes into Clarissa’s room with a bunch of flowers. Richard is not able to express his feelings with words. 3 PM (in the past) is also an important moment in Clarissa’s mind for the break with Peter became definitive 30 years ago. At 6 PM, Septimus jumps out of the window.

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Le livre Mme Dalloway de Virginia Woolf est sur une table.

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf: A Modernist Novel

by · Lecture: 4 minutes
  1. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf: A Modernist Novel
  2. Time on the surface level of Mrs. Dalloway
  3. Time and Virginia Woolf’s novel technique
  4. The fictive experience of time through Mrs. Dalloway

Virginia Woolf, a pioneer in the literary world, was deeply engrossed in the exploration of innovative narrative techniques. Her novels, celebrated as groundbreaking masterpieces, introduced avant-garde forms of fiction, charting new territories previously untraversed.

These works boldly shattered the conventional moulds of storytelling, distancing themselves from the well-trodden paths of the Victorian (1837-1901) and Edwardian (1901-1910) eras. Woolf’s narrative experimentation was a declaration of independence from the narrative norms of these ancient ages, heralding a new era in the art of novel writing.

The First World War was a trauma and brought out a crisis. A break is always prepared, the main innovators were Thomas Hardy and Joseph Conrad.

Woolf belongs to an aesthetic movement called the Modernist Novel. “Mrs Dalloway” was published in 1925, which was the year hinging the middle of her career: at the beginning of her career, she was rather traditional (Edwardian) but at the end, “The Waves” is a lyrical fiction, a long and unconventional narrative poem.

“Mrs Dalloway” is still in its shape and structure a novel but at the same time, few clues can be found that point out what Woolf will carry further afterwards.

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