Reflections on Emma and Mrs. Dalloway

So here is the last blog post. I am somewhat at a loss for what new to write about on the topic of space, time, and technology, seeing that writing more about those topics in relation to Emma and Mrs. Dalloway would be akin to beating a dead horse (or perhaps a dead iphone, in keeping with the previous theme). Instead I will reflect on where my writing and I have come over the course of this semester, and my relationships with the texts that we have been reading and discussing.

I have to admit, when I first looked at the syllabus, I thought that class discussions would focus on feminist readings of the texts we were looking at. When we did discuss women in the novels, it was in a way that was related to how advancements in technologies changed culture and therefore improved how women were viewed in society. This way of analyzing women in novels was very different from what I expected and what I had experienced before.

My reactions to the books also differed from what I would have expected. I thought that I would like a more straightforward book such as Emma over a more convoluted book like Mrs. Dalloway, but through reading I discovered the opposite. Events in Emma, much like events that took place during the time period it was set in, take much longer to complete than events in Mrs. Dalloway. It may require several pages of explanation for one event in Emma but in Mrs. Dalloway the action seems much faster and livelier, even though this is not actually the case. In fact, there is very little actual action in Mrs. Dalloway, as most of the story is told through flashbacks or in stream of consciousness. This corresponds to modern vs. older notions of how time should be spent. In modern times, we feel like we can accomplish more through the use of technology in less time, but often times much less is actually being done.

As a modern reader, I felt like I could appreciate Mrs. Dalloway more so than Emma. The limitations of understanding from the differences in social structure sometimes impeded profound meaning from Emma. For example, Harriet’s ancestry was, for the 19^th century reader, a subject of great interest and a reason to finish reading the book. For me, Harriet’s ancestry was of little importance because as a modern American, class and birth have very little importance on what I think of a person, so I had trouble connecting to the text as Jane Austen would probably had hoped.

Proportion and Conversion in Mrs. Dalloway

In Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Sir William Bradshaw is a psychotherapist who sees Septimus Warren Smith, an apparent lunatic. Sir William is highly respected among the high class in London because of his ability to read and deal with persons with psychological problems. When he sees Septimus, he says that the only treatment is seclusion and rest. Sir William claims that Septimus has just lost his sense of proportion. While Sir William’s diagnosis may be true, he handles it in a way that not only is not best for Septimus, but also indicative of the feudal idealists efforts to keep the world in ‘order.’

Septimus has lost all sense of the collectively accepted norms and customs known as convention. He can only acknowledge letters as a fantastic collection of sounds and images rather than understand the system that gives them their meaning: in a toffee advertisement written in the sky by a passing plane he recognizes a thrilling beauty rather than an orderly attempt to communicate (p. 21-22). While Lucrezia wastes away with worry for her husband, Septimus lives content and unimpeded in his own world, unencumbered by worries for others (p. 22-23). Sir William would diagnosis this as lacking a sense of proportion. In other words Septimus has lost a sense for the way that things are related. Letters and words do not have the same meaning to him that that they have for others. He does not have a good sense of his relationships either. He does not know that Lucrezia depends on him, that she is not happy without him. He doesn’t recognize emotional dependence or the need to reciprocate feelings. He is not concerned with things outside of himself. This is why Sir William says that Septimus has lost his sense of proportion.

Sir William is praised, loved, and well respected for his methods in dealing with mentally unstable patients because he makes these types of diagnoses. “Worshipping proportion, Sir William not only prospered himself but made England prosper, secluded her lunatics, forbade childbirth, penalised despair, made it impossible for the unfit to propagate their views until they, too, shared his sense of proportion...” (p. 97) According to him, this condition could only be overcome by lots of rest, and in order for this rest to be achieved, the patient must be institutionalized. This removal from society however, is not meant to benefit the individual, but rather to remove an aberration that threatens to disrupt the flow of normalcy. He was not a healer, he was a pruner, nipping these blemishes in the bud. His goddess Proportion was actually sister to a darker deity: Conversion.

This act of conversion is important to realize in chronological context because in the world of feudalism, you either were or you were not. There was no class mobility and thus no need to convert because the social conventions for a specific class were almost always followed on principle. With the emergence of capitalism and the ability to change class, conventions had less authority. This crumbling of old standards dismayed many like Sir William, Clarissa, and who favored the order and proportion of feudalism. As an esteemed Psychologist, Sir William was able to contain the diluting of the old ideals, and tuck away what didn’t fit into his tidy world. This conversion was a conquest. Woolf describes Sir William’s act of conversion as, “That Goddess whose lust is to override opposition, to stamp indelibly in the sanctuaries of others the image of herself. Naked, defenceless, the exhausted, the friendless received the impress of Sir William's will. He swooped; he devoured. He shut people up.” (p. 98)

This “goddess” of conversion became a force during this time period because the feudal past was struggling with the capitalist present. People like Septimus lacked a sense of proportion and broke convention, so those guardians of propriety--Sir William Bradshaw and the like--sought to “help” them when in reality, they were just pruning the garden.

Woolf, Virginia, and Bonnie Kime Scott. Mrs. Dalloway. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 2005. Print.

Space and Education

The variety, quantity, and scope of spaces in which a person can inhabit are integral to a person’s success. A person’s education, which is directly correlated to a person’s triumphs, is greatly determined by the space in which it occurs. A public school education can vary greatly depending on the recourses and opportunities available from place to place.

In the 1800‘s the amount of spaces a person could inhabit were limited. The few spaces a person could inhabit directly correspond with the quality and rigor of education received. This idea was displayed in Jane Austen’s Emma. In the novel, Emma Woodhouse was educated by Miss Taylor, her governess. The education Emma received was, for the most part, based off of the extent of Miss Taylor’s education. Being educated by a governess a was standard practice in that time that has since become obsolete because it is not fair to have one’s education limited by the the limited education of just one other person. Since Emma’s space was so limited, so too was her education. Due to the scarce amount of spaces Emma could be in, the quality of education she received, when compared to the education that woman receive today, was not very high. Limited spaces limited Emma Woodhouses’s education.

I, as a 21st century woman, inhabit numerous more spaces then Emma Woodhouse did in the 1800’s. Since there is much more mobility of people among spaces, ideas are spread more easily. The widespread knowledge has allowed the quality of education to increase since the time Emma was written. The amount of spaces I can be in have greatly assisted my success in life. Before college, I lived in a suburb of Atlanta with my family. That opportunities available in that space allowed me to receive a very high quality of education. Since I lived in a comparably affluent area where many of the residents would consider themselves successful, I had the ground-work to be successful myself.

Where I grew up and received my primary education greatly determined the opportunities available for me in terms of secondary education. Living so close to a major metropolitan area opened up that space for me. I am currently being educated at the seventh best public university in the nation. That wouldn’t have been possible had I not been inhabiting successful spaces for the majority of my life. I consider obtaining an education to be one of the most important aspects of my life, and the caliber of education I am receiving would not have been possible had I not inhabited spaces that allowed me to do so.

Emma Woodhouse was not able to inhabit very many spaces, which lead to her limited education. The amount of spaces that I can inhabit; however, is virtually unlimited, and I have received an extensive education so far. I hope that one day I will consider my life to be successful. When that happens, I will attribute that to my work ethic, my perseverance, and the spaces I have inhabited in my life.

Austen, Jane. Emma. New York: Penguin. 1815.Woolf, Virginia.

Student Soldiers

The years spent in college, especially in contrast with those before, are similar years in World War I described by Kern in The Culture of Time and Space: 1880 - 1918 as being in parentheses. The routines of students and their separation from their past make them like the soldiers of World War I.

As a student, I am at college with a lot of people who are very much like me. We are all caught in a routine and just trying to stay afloat, trying to stay alive. Sometimes I feel like I am just going through the motions—just going to classes and doing homework and weathering this storm—just fighting to survive. I get caught in a time flux: my hours, days and weeks run together into a blur. A soldier’s memories are confused as well because their time in the field was so regimented. There was a strict schedule which could not be departed from. The stringent schedule was meant to organize and give purpose to each hour of their day, but it instead stretched the soldier’s tour into a senseless bout of waiting, each day following like the one before it: monotony marked by gunfire.

Like a student’s time spent in class, hours of dull work leading up to a test. For soldiers, their time was spent preparing for battle or participating in one. College students spend their time studying for a test or taking one. Contributing to this anchor-less feeling was the bubble or parentheses of the time spent in college. Separated from the security of the past, old memories are smothered by the ever-pressing reality of the college work load and routine. Thoughts of family and friends were driven from soldier’s minds and replaced by the nightmarish gore of battle. A time before the violence did not seem to have ever existed.

Sometimes, I also feel a loss of personal identity. Too often I feel as though I do not have any control—that I am just going along with everyone else, thinking and doing all the same things that everyone else is thinking and doing. There are hundreds of people just like me, passing and failing, and life carries on. The soldiers of World War I were all the ‘same.’ They looked, dressed, communicated and worked alike, some living and some dying, but the war pressed on.

Adding to this shrinking, unimportant feeling is the gap between student and teacher. Teachers are distant and inaccessible. Generals in World War I remained in an office and strategized from afar, deciding the fate of the soldiers in the field, just as professors grade and teach from a distance.

There is also a similarity in the way that advances are made. In contrast to high school when success was black and white based on pass or fail, success in college can be achieved by roundabout means. You can drop classes, switch majors, take extra time, or depend on a curve. In World War I, instead of defending the front line at all costs, soldiers could cluster, retreat, reevaluate, and still win.

College life is warfare. Here we are fighting to survive, to win the war, to get that diploma. But like those soldiers, we sometimes lose sense of time and identity when caught in the routine—the parentheses of college life.

Kern, Stephen. The Culture of Time and Space: 1880 - 1918. Cambridge, Mass. [u.a.: Harvard Univ., 2003. Print. 

Eliot, Woolf, and Septimus

Septimus Warren Smith lives in the moral and emotional no-mans land which World War 1 placed upon him. The War, as it was known then, differed greatly from every previous war in that nearly an entire generation of young men were sacrificed in the name of nationalism. New technologies such as barbed wire, machine guns, and poison gas transformed war from a Romanized event where men could show valor and courage to one of massacre. These changes in attitude manifest themselves through the character of Septimus Warren Smith. In Mrs. Dalloway, the changes and mental instability of Smith mirrors that of the European population as a whole. Smith’s sentiments of disillusionment are common themes of writing during this era, including in T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land.

It is easy to understand the sense of drastic changes brought about by World War 1. Take, for example, Smith. The text says, “He went to France to save an England which consisted almost entirely of Shakespeare’s plays and Miss Isabel Pole in a green dress walking in a square. There in the trenches the change … was produced instantly; he developed manliness; he was promoted… But when Evans…was killed …far from showing any emotion or recognizing that here was the end of a friendship, [he] congratulated himself upon feeling very little and very reasonably.” (Woolf, 84) Here Smith can be taken as sort of a metaphor for what happened to all of Europe; what happened emotionally to Smith culturally happened to Europe.

Like Smith, Europe came into World War 1 enthusiastically, like Smith, Europe relied on Romanized notions of life and warfare, and like Smith, Europe was completely different what it was at the beginning of the war. The lack of emotion that Smith comes to show is expressed in T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. The first four lines in The Waste Land “APRIL is the cruellest month,/ breeding Lilacs out of the dead land,/ mixing Memory and desire,/ stirring Dull roots with spring rain” demonstrates how an emotional wasteland currently exists in modern culture. (Eliot) Whereas April would normally bring new life, April is described as cruel in that the promises of renewal go unfulfilled. What the inhabitants of the Wasteland are left with is an “arid plane” emotionally devoid of any life. (Eliot, 424)

Smith clearly inhabits the Wasteland that has become post-World War 1 Europe. In Mrs. Dalloway, the narrator describes Smith by saying, “But even Holmes himself could not touch this last relic straying on the edge of the world, this outcast, who gazed back at the inhabited regions, who lay, like a drowned sailor, on the shore of the world.” (90) The description of Smith as a drowned sailor draw parallels to the drowned sailor Phlebas the Phoenician in part IV of The Waste Land, Death by Water. Smith, like a drowned sailor, becomes removed from the worries of the world. As said in The Waste Land, “Phlebus…Forgot the cry of gulls,/ and the deep seas swell/ And the profit and loss.” (314-15) Phlebas and Smith are both described as drowned men who have forgotten the worries of this world; and similarly both have come to inhabit the Wasteland.

In Mrs. Dalloway, Septimus Warren Smith represents an inhabitant of the Wasteland as described by T.S. Eliot. Woolf’s metaphorical representation between Smith and a post-war Europe further this representation to include the culture of Europe as inhabitants of the Wasteland.

Eliot, T.S. "Eliot, T. S. 1922. The Waste Land." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More. Web. 27 Feb. 2011.

Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. Orlando: Harcourt, Inc. 1925

Presence of Women in Urban Spaces

Since January, I have learned a lot in my english class, and most of what I have learned has been related to the books that we have been reading. The most eye-opening thing that I have learned is that there has been a problematic history concerning the presence of women in urban spaces. Years ago, a woman walking alone in an urban space was identified as a prostitute. Due to the changes that have occurred in the past two centuries, rarely would I be considered a prostitute if I was walking alone in an urban space. This is such a simple thing, but I have taken this for granted.

During the 19th century, stemming from a long standing perspective, if a woman was seen walking by herself in an urban space, she was considered a prostitute. Women were sexualized when alone in urban spaces. It was un-proper, and respectable women would not and could not be alone without giving off the wrong impression. At the turn of the 20th century; however, these antiquated opinions started to break down. In Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Clarissa Dalloway, a respectable woman, walked by herself in an urban space at the very beginning of the novel. By the time of Clarissa Dalloway, women were allowed to walk by themselves, and when seen alone in urban spaces were not nearly as often recognized as a call girl. Although the structure was breaking down, men occasionally still gleaned the wrong impression when spotting a woman by herself.

Even though standards were changing, men still gathered the wrong impression from observing a woman alone in an urban space. As Peter was taking a walk, his gaze landed on a young woman who was walking alone in the streets of London, England. He became infatuated with her and followed her for over a mile until she reached her house. Although the woman was oblivious to Peter following her, he imagined what she was like. When I first read this passage, I did not think that the woman Peter followed could have been a prostitute. When I read the excerpt again, I noticed that Peter mentioned that he saw the young woman wearing a “red carnation” (Woolf 52) which is historically a signal of prostitution, and that the young woman had “hanging flower baskets” outside of her house, suggesting indecency (Woolf 53) . Although the woman may or may not have been a prostitute, she represented the transition of opinions of what constituted a prostitution which occurred in the time of Mrs. Dalloway. Despite the fact that women were allowed to be unaccompanied in urban spaces without necessarily marked as being un proper, many years passed until women were freed of that distinction.

Now, I would have never had thought that walking by myself would distinguish me as a prostitute. In society today, indecent women are so much more explicit of the services they offer. The past hundred years have seen an increase in the quantity of spaces that respectable women are allowed to inhabit without appearing improper.

Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. Orlando: Harcourt, Inc. 1925. Print.

Work, Work, Work

This week has been a really stressful week for me. I have had multiple tests and numerous homework assignments as well as commitments to my fraternity. I never really had a chance to slow down this week. Normally, that is not such a bad or unusual thing, as long as I have a chance to refresh and get ready for the next week. I normally take Sundays to do this sort of thing. In the christian faith, this is called a “Sabbath” and is a very important practice because it allows for the restoration of body and mind.

As of lately though, I have not been able to observe this particular practice, and I can feel the consequences. My mind is slower, my body weaker, and my motivation decreased. Today even, I began to wonder whether or not all of the work I was doing was even worth it. I then started to think about the present pace of life and how it is compared to those in Emma and Mrs. Dalloway. Life for them does not go so fast. Sure, there is work done, but only so much as is needed. They have the time to take a break, to paint a picture, to attend a party. They are not constantly moving--constantly filling their lives with things to do.

I feel like today we focus so much on working in order to make our lives worth it. We go to school for years not because we love to learn, but because we want to make money. We put a lot of effort into our work, even outside of our “work,” so that we can get ahead of everyone else. Soon, according to this mentality, we find ourselves working all of time, never taking time to ourselves or our families. Too often do I hear stories of a father who was never around because he was always working.

We have so much vested into what we accomplish that we work so hard to get to that point, and then once we have reached it, we are no longer satisfied with what we’ve made. Once we have “arrived” we look back and are unhappy with what our life looks like. we end up getting precisely what we wanted, but we look back on all the time wasted. While scurrying around to make as much money as possible, we left people trampled in our dust, our families neglected.

I do not want to end up like one of those fathers. I want to work enough to get by. I want to be able to provide for my family. I do not need to work so much as to be able to provide each member of my family with excessive things. I do not need to drive a Lexus or put TVs in every room. I feel like we (especially as Americans) often work to get things when our work should be the means by which we survive.

Just as work is important to surviving, being still is important to truly living. Doing one without the other will always lead to disparity.

Austen, Jane. Emma. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2004. Print

Woolf, Virginia, and Bonnie Kime Scott. Mrs. Dalloway. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 2005. Print.

Society and Trust

Trust is something that while intangible, can form bonds which are stronger than anything else. With this strength, trust also becomes fragile in that it requires a mutual understanding between two parties; once trust is broken once, it is difficult to repair if it can be repaired at all. The very idea of trust in societal terms today differs greatly from trust in the past. The general idea of trust has eroded slowly over the past centuries into something that requires a legal document in order to be good for anything. A moral decay has happened; for example modern credit lenders want debtors to not repay them because debt means interest, and interest means more money. This decay in trust is not recent, however, and the roots of this rot can be seen by comparing the Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway to Jane Austen’s Emma. Besides obvious changes in the culture of the two books, a change in how society views trust can be seen in how the narrator interacts with the reader. In the Emma the reader can trust everything the narrator says; in Mrs. Dalloway the reader has to judge for themselves whether or not what has been said is true and if it should be trusted. The loss in trust between the narrator and the reader mirrors the loss in trust between fellow members of society after World War 1.

In Emma, the narrator is always trustworthy and objective. Partly this comes from the fact that the narrator does not come from a certain point of view but is rather a 3^rd person omniscient narrator, but this also because nothing is ever hidden from the reader. The very first sentence of the novel demonstrates this. “Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.” (Austen, 7) The first description the reader gets of Emma is not one that changes at all throughout the story. Everything the reader needs to know is presented upfront.

Mrs. Dalloway, however, is completely different. The reader’s perceptions of the character’s individual traits in the novel do not come from one source, but from the other characters themselves. The reader has to determine any bias one character might have against another one, and decided whether the knowledge that has been gained is valid. For example, after Peter Walsh’s first meeting with Clarissa in 30 years, Peter’s narration seems overly critical of Clarissa’s character. He says “ ‘There’s my Elizabeth’- that sort of thing – why not ‘Here’s Elizabeth’ simply? – trying to make out, like most mothers, that things are what they’re not” (Woolf, 55) the reader is left to determine what is actually going on here. Is Clarissa actually like most mothers; worldly and obsessed with class like Peter accuses her of being, is Peter still jealous and overreacting, or is it a combination of both situations?

The first real description of Clarissa Dalloway comes roughly half way through the novel, and it is given by Peter Walsh. The description flip flops between praising her and condemning her for her worldly ways. Because of this, the reader has a very difficult time determining the true character of Clarissa.

The difference in narration between Emma and Mrs. Dalloway points to the difference in the general public trust at the time the novels were set in. Mrs. Dalloway is set several years after World War One, a war which drastically changed the European psyche. This war caused every major tenet upon which European society functioned to suddenly become, in a sense, untrustworthy. The difference in the level of trust before the war and after it can be demonstrated by comparing Emma, where the reader can trust everything given to them, much like citizens of European empires who trusted national values and were led into World War One, to Mrs. Dalloway, where the reader must question everything, even the narrator, much like those who had to re-evaluate their lives after the Great War.

Austen, Jane. Emma. New York: Penguin. 1815.Woolf, Virginia.

Mrs. Dalloway. Orlando: Harcourt, Inc. 1925

Changes in relationships since the 19th century

Valentine’s day, a day to celebrate love of all forms, was this Monday and as I walked around campus, I reflected on how open relationships are. Couples hold hands, show public displays of affection, and spend time alone. Relationships, especially those between a man and a woman, have advanced remarkably far in the past 200 years. In the 1800’s relationships took place entirely in public spaces, in the 1900’s relationships began the migration from public spaces to private spaces, and now relationships can exist in any space. This change in relationships is displayed by the relationships in Emma, Mrs. Dalloway, of my peers.

For upper class women in the 1800’s, courtships were highly ritualized to prevent the mixing of classes. A relationship between a man and a woman existed in public spaces, and in the company of others. The standardization of relationships was to prevent mixing of classes, and to ensure the sexual legitimacy of the women. Flirtations were regulated, centered around inanimate objects, and feelings were rarely said out loud. Emma Woodhouse in Jane Austen’s Emma had highly controlled relationships indicative of the 1800’s. At one point in the novel, Emma and Mr. Elton were alone in a carriage, which was a private space. This was a huge break in protocol, and it led Mr. Elton to profess his inappropriate love for Emma. It was considered dangerous for young men and women to inhabit a space alone in this time period. Soon after, the barriers began to break down, and relationships between a man and a woman inhabited private spaces too.

In the early 1900’s, the style of relationships was undergoing drastic changes. At the beginning of Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, Clarissa Dalloway takes a walk by herself in the metropolis of London. The newfound individualism of women helped to cement the changing relationships between men and women. This freedom of women was caused in part by the advent of new public spaces such as department stores. Going shopping was a legitimate reason for women to travel by themselves. The independence of women saw the break down of the strict regulation of feelings and interactions between men and women. Relationships began to progress from only existing in public spaces, to existing in private spaces too. Men and women were allowed to have and express feelings. The distinction between private and public spaces in terms of relationships began to break down.

In the 2000’s, relationships are open and temporary. There is nothing wrong with a man and a woman spending time alone in private spaces; it is accepted and almost promoted by society. Spending time alone with a significant other is an integral part in developing a lasting, strong relationship. Relationships exist in private spaces and public spaces, and both are necessary for growth. I am in a long term relationship, and I am thankful for the changes that have taken place in the past two hundred years. My relationship has thrived in both private and public spaces and I think it would not have survived as long as it has had it only been allowed to exist in public spaces.

Valentine’s day is a day for couples to express their love and devotion for each other in public and private spaces. Professing such love in public spaces would have been frowned upon 200 years ago. The characters in Emma, and even the characters in Mrs. Dalloway would be surprised by the ease at which relationships today exist in private spaces.

Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. Orlando: Harcourt, Inc. 1925. Print.

Austen, Jane. Emma. New York: Penguin. 1815. Print.

Space and Postmodernism

“At present, we are experiencing a new phase of the old struggle--no longer a struggle of contemporary form, filled with life, against the lifeless one, but a struggle of life against form as such, against the principle of form.” (Simmel)

The general frame of mind for the Victorian age was, “A place for everything, and everything in its place.” It was a time defined by boundaries and structure. The social rules were strict and if any were broken, the delicate balance was upset. Jane Austen’s Emma in Emma could not, would not associate or keep company with people who were of a lower class than she. Countess Olenska in Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence was ostracized for committing social crimes. She returned to New York a shameless divorcee of an abusive husband, and her affair with Newland Archer was frustrated, trapped, secret and never truly realized because it was socially forbidden. This structured environment was oppressive to both those blessed by birth and those born into a lower caste. There were no other options. This was lifeless form.

The advancement of industry brought on Capitalism--the philosophical ideal that claims that the rights of the individual are the most important. This was a system of endless opportunity. An individual could achieve anything that was imaginable. No more were people bound to the circumstance into which they were born. They could dream. There was no limit to what the human mind could imagine. They could now consider a world that they could change. For the first time, it was possible for a person to advance in the social ranking. The ability to make your own living by pulling from resources outside of your immediate area made this possible. Humanity benefited from the destruction of the strict social boundaries of the Victorian era because we were doing away with the idea of caste. Capitalism was a new system, a new form that was “filled with life.”

We have, however, taken this destruction too far. We say that we are progressive because we do not support oppression or tyranny, but we have just traded one sin for another. We no longer recognize the walls that were put up to imprison people, but we also do not recognize any other boundaries. Life has now become formless. We think that anything that “oppresses” or keeps us from what we want is bad. This includes any moral standard. Capitalism taught us to dream. It let us see that there were no limits to what is achievable, but we now take that to mean that there are no limits to what should be achieved: no plan that should not be attempted; no desire that should be denied. 

In Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian is a man who caters to his every whim. He attempts to experience every facet of the human consciousness. His mentor, Lord Henry, advises, "The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.” But Dorian’s indulgence destroyed him and all those with whom he came into contact. He lived a life without form. He lived the life of an animal--his habits, his choices, his attitudes all depended on his shifting mood. He was dominated by animal desires and became an animal himself. As in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, just because we can do something does not mean that we should. 

We may not be the social tyrants we once were, but instead we have been perverted into thinking like animals. If postmodernists declare that everything is relative and that there is no form to life, then humanity has lost its value. There is no meaning in the human experience and we end up simply chasing our tails.

Austen, Jane. Emma. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2004. Print

Kern, Stephen. The Culture of Time and Space: 1880 - 1918. Cambridge, Mass. [u.a.: Harvard Univ., 2003. Print.

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Scott McKowen. Frankenstein. New York: Sterling Pub., 2007. Print.

Simmel, Georg. The Conflict in Modern Culture, and Other Essays. New York: Teachers College, 1968. Print.

Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. New York: Modern Library, 1992. Print.

Clash of Cultures

Dylan Richards

Throughout history, old and new often clash. The transition can range from a mere inconvenience to matters that people kill each other over. I remember my parents becoming very annoyed when they had to switch from VCR to DVD because Blockbuster stopped renting out VCR cassettes. This, however, pales in comparison to the hundred or so deaths caused by the riots and the subsequent change of government in Egypt over the course of this last month. Although I’m sure somebody was unfortunate enough to die over the change from VCR to DVD. Many paradigm shifts can be seen in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, and the clash between an old way of life and a new one can easily be seen.

As Stephen Kern says in The Culture of Time and Space, “The traditional world was rooted in conventions that dictated how an individual should experience his own self, other people, and objects in the world….as the entire world was ordered in discrete and mutually exclusive forms: solid/porous, opaque/transparent, inside/outside, public/private, city/country, noble/common, countryman/foreigner, framed/open, actor/audience, ego/object, and space/time.” (209-210) While little in Mrs. Dalloway is explicitly revealed, the reader can see that the distinction between the old way of life and the new one is clashing. Take for example when a car backfires on Bard street. Mrs. Dalloway comes to the conclusion that it is most likely the Queen in the car, and metaphorically this represents the change in the social stratum that happened around this time. Lower classes on the street mix with middle/upper class like Mrs. Dalloway who at that moment mix with the highest of the nobility.

Mrs. Dalloway’s relationship with her husband and her friend Sally Seton further show the difference between old and new. Mrs. Dalloway says, “…she could not dispel a virginity preserved through childbirth which clung to her like a sheet.” (Woolf, 30) Mrs. Dalloway is either still a virgin which means that her marriage was never consummated, or she may feel that her virginity is tied to being in love with her husband, which the reader finds out is not the case. Like the older concept of marriage, love had little to do with upper class marriages. Mrs. Dalloway then realizes that she had been in love, but not with a man. She had been in love with a friend of hers, Sally Seton. This love may have been platonic, but most likely it was homosexual in nature. This represents a newer viewpoint on love, but because Mrs. Dalloway still must deal with older conventions on love and marriage, she hides her true feelings.

The world in which Mrs. Dalloway inhabits is one which changes between the old social norms and new ones. Modern technology, but in particular World War One, changed how people interacted and felt about others and ushered in the modern world. Mrs. Dalloway exhibits the change in culture, both wanting to be free of old conventions but at the same time trapped in them.

Kern, Stephen. "The Nature of Time." The Culture of Time and Space 1880-1918. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1983

Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. Orlando: Harcourt, Inc. 1925

Can you ever really know a person?

Every episode of Gossip Girl begins with the narrator stating, “And who am I? That’s one secret I’ll never tell.” As I was watching an episode of Gossip Girl this week, it struck me that everyone is entitled to their own individual inner selves that are closed off from all other people. My inner thoughts that control who I am are dictated by my stream of consciousness, which only I understand. I modify my stream of consciousness into comparably formal, organized speaking in order for others to understand what I am saying, and to try to explain who I am.

Our thoughts are organized in a disorganized way, jumping from thought to thought in a seemingly random way. The logic and pattern of thinking is only understandable to the person thinking the thoughts. This style of thinking is known in literature as stream of consciousness, and it portrays an individuals point of view. This loose monologue is demonstrated in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. Mrs. Dalloway describes her day in a way that is convoluted, and difficult to follow. Since the story is told in the stream of consciousness style, it allows the reader to experience exactly what Mrs. Dalloway is thinking. The reader learns so much more about Mrs. Dalloway’s character this way; just in the first few pages the reader learns she is reflective, critical, and concerned with appearances. Without experiencing her inner thoughts, the reader would have elucidated considerably less about Mrs. Dalloway.

Stream of consciousness is different from formal speaking and organized writing. Formal speaking and organized writing is presented in a concise and understandable way, and is the style present in the majority of novels, articles, and speeches. The style of stream of consciousness is almost the opposite of formal writing; it has no decipherable pattern, and no connections between ideas. Since a person thinks and feels in a disorganized manner, and has to present thoughts in an arranged way, a conversion has to take place.

In order for an author to convert his thoughts into stream of conscious, he has to redevelop and restructure his thoughts. Thoughts begin a process to transform from what you really feel to what is understandable to those who you want to convey your thoughts to. Reflecting on the fact that there is a conversion from inner to outer thoughts makes me wonder if maybe no one really understands what you are really trying to say. Since your true meaning and intention can get lost in the translation, I am curious if anyone truly knows who you are?

There is a certain dissension between who one is interiorly and how you appear to everyone else. The narrator of Gossip Girl understands that who one really is is a secret. True understanding of a person comes from the comprehension of inner thoughts, and the only person privy to that information is the person himself. I’ve always hoped that at least a few people in my life truly know me, and it is unnerving to know that a person is never fully understood by anyone else.

Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. Orlando: Harcourt, Inc. 1925. Print.

Old Age and the Difference in Generations

The first time I read Miss Brill by Katherine Mansfield, I was struck by how the story could be understood without any consideration of the time period it was written in. Everything seemed modern and explicit, except for the last line of the story, which is different from everything that came before. In the last two sentences the formerly concrete story changed. “She unclasped the neck let quickly; quickly, without looking, laid it inside. But when she put the lid on she thought she heard something crying” (Mansfield, 302). Whatever was crying seemed to be crying over Miss Brill’s and the culture she represents decline.

The mysterious source of the crying probably came from the personified fur. Earlier in the story the fur spoke, saying “ ‘What has been happening to me?’ said the sad little eyes.” (298) the fur is both the voice of Miss Brill and the voice of her generation. When the little girl at the end of the story laughed at Miss Brill’s fur, she was not just laughing at her clothing, she was illustrating the disconnect between Miss Brill’s age and culture and their own. Until the children said this about Miss Brill, she was not aware of the difference in cultures. She thought of herself as part of the younger crowd, even taking part in their lives indirectly, she even says “No doubt somebody would have noticed if she hadn’t been there.” (301) Miss Brill hopes that the old couple on a park bench will leave soon, like the younger couple hopes that Miss Brill will leave. She also separates herself from the old people who sit like statues on benches in the park. They look “as though they’d just come from dark little rooms or even-even cupboards.” (300) While she tries to separate herself from the elderly, at the end of the story Miss Brill goes back home to her room, which is described as a cupboard.

Miss Brill is really the story of how a woman discovers that she no longer belongs to the culture she thought she did and how she discovers this. It is the fur, not Miss Brill which cries at this realization. This is fitting because as a newly acquired member of the elderly, Miss Brill acts just as the other old people who sit still as statues on the benches. She has no reaction.

Mansfield, Katherine. Miss Brill

Love and Marriage

In a society that trumpets the glory of the individual, an individual can become so wrapped up in itself that their own needs and desires are paramount. Divorce is fueled by this selfishness. If there is no compromise, no agreement to be made, then there can only be abandonment. Since we are watching out for number one, we only care about our spouse based on whether or not they can make us happy.

Marriage is no longer meaningful because it is now so dependent upon circumstance. Our love is conditional. Our love is less of actual love and more a passing infatuation. We base it off of whether or not we always get along with the other person and how “in tune” we are with each other. There is no commitment, no higher aspiration, just a matter of feelings and convenience. This basis on conditions comes from a focus on the self in the situation. When the marriage becomes more about being happy with someone rather than enduring life with someone, things do not work “for better or for worse.”

In Emma, marriage was, wanted or not, a great agent of change. It caused the separation of Emma and Miss Taylor; it changed the duties of both Miss Taylor and Mr. Weston; and it changed forever Miss Taylor’s identity. Now, marriage is about convenience. It is more about finding someone whose schedules, likes, dislikes, and habits align with our own. Very often, couples will agree to live together before they decide to get married. They want to make sure that the relationship “feels” right. If it doesn’t work out, they can quit the relationship without much effort.

When problems arise in our relationships, we say “nobody’s perfect” and drop the relationship rather than try to work through it. We consider a clash in personality an imperfection or impediment that keeps the relationship from moving forward and growing. If it’s not growing, it’s leaves are falling, and the weather has gotten bitterly cold, than it must be dying and should be uprooted. We forget to take into account the changing seasons. Divorce is often a hasty overreaction to inclement weather.

This inclement weather, changing circumstance, dependence on feeling and idea that “nobody’s perfect” keep people from true love. People quit when it gets difficult; they are fair-weather friends, unwilling to invest in real love. Love that demands perfection, commitment, sacrifice. Love that is independent of circumstance.

Real love between a man and a woman is a difficult thing. As C.S Lewis says in regard to the kind of love between a man and his wife,

“Love may, indeed, love the beloved when her beauty is lost: but not because it is lost. Love may forgive all infirmities and love still in spite of them: but Love cannot cease to will their removal. Love is more sensitive that hatred itself to every blemish in the beloved; his “feeling is more soft and sensible that are the tender horns of cockled snails”. Of all powers he forgives most; but he condones least: he is pleased with little, but demands all.”

Love is mutual service. You serve them because you love what you see in them. It is a promise to commit to what is best in your spouse--to respect and foster it. You can trust your spouse because what they ask you to change will only make you better, because they won’t let you lose what is best in you--that which they love. And you will serve them, and hold them accountable as well because you love them too much to let them be anything but their best. Marriage is mutual growing. You are growing together, helping each other, for each other. It’s not about what that person can do, or how they can make you feel good, it’s about bringing out the best in each other. Instead of demanding your needs be met, you attend to theirs, and you will be naturally reciprocated.

Austen, Jane. Emma. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2004. Print.

Lewis, C. S. The Problem of Pain. [San Francisco]: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001. Print.

Close relationships are the only remedy for loneliness

College represents myriad ideas: more responsibilities, new friends, independence, and exciting educational advances. Although college represents numerous happy notions, while listing all that college personifies, few mention loneliness. With family far away and friends attending different schools across the country, one’s day-to-day life before college is simply gone. Before new relationships are formed, a college freshman often may feel forlorn and dejected.

Although in Miss Brill was considered an old lady in her time, the struggles she experienced are comparable to how freshmen in college can feel. Miss Brill was the epitome of loneliness. One of her companions was her beloved fur, and she even conversed with it. She sat on the same bench every Sunday, observed the people surrounding her, and felt a certain pleasure in being a part of their far more exciting lives. Her isolation extended so far that she believed she had relationships with the people she merely watched once a week. Miss Brill was an solitary woman, and as many teenagers transition to college life, they also experience isolation. There is an adjustment period for eighteen and nineteen year-olds when they leave the comforts of home and adjust to the atmosphere and pace of university life. Many students feel lonely and homesick and although their feelings are generally fleeting, the way students for that period of time is the same way Miss Brill felt every day.

I believe that loneliness is a feeling, a state of mind that almost everyone deals with. Even if a person is surrounded by friends, and even if a person has a great deal of friends on Facebook, loneliness is still an undercurrent of one’s feelings. I am convinced that feelings of loneliness can never be rectified. They can never be changed. The only way to not feel the day-to-day side effects of being companionless is to cultivate and rely on close, meaningful relationships. Close relationships in which a person can share his deepest, most intimate feelings are an integral, if not the most important, part of being happy.

As Katherine Mansfield’s short story depicted her, Miss Brill didn’t have any close relationships. Although she doesn’t recognize that what she is feeling is loneliness, her actions demonstrate how she actually feels. For the people in my generation, college is the time to create lasting friendships and relationships. My parents both reminisce about their college days, and tell me that its not the classes they remember, but the close friendships that began in their freshman year of college. The friendships they pursued in college are still strong today. I hope that the friends I have made since I’ve been attending college last until I am as old as my parents, and even longer.

I was lucky enough not to experience the loneliness that many of my peers felt during the first few months of college; the person I have the closest relationship with is attending the same college as I am. I know; however, that sometime in my life I will feel lonesome and unlike Miss Brill, I will combat my loneliness by cultivating close relationships. That’s the only way to truly be happy.

Mansfield, Katherine. “Miss Brill.” Stories. 1956. New York: Vintage 1991. 298-302. Print.