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.