Representative Idea In Mrs Dalloway

In Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, everything and everyone is insignificant. That is, until someone or something starts to embody a larger idea that gives that person or object significance. Throughout the entirety of the novel, characters and objects themselves only gain significance once enshrouded by a larger representative idea.
The occurrence of characters gaining significance through representative ideas can be seen when Clarissa refers to Miss Kilman and thinks “For it was not her one hated, but the idea of her, which undoubtedly had gathered into itself a great deal that was not Miss Kilman” (Woolf, 12). The passage implies that when someone represents an idea, the idea evolves to become larger, and much more different, that the
When Septimus sees the letters, he thinks that “They are signaling to me [him]. Not indeed in actual words; that is, he could not read the language yet; but it was plain enough, this beauty, this exquisite beauty, and tears filled his eyes as he looked at the smoke words languishing and melting in the sky” (Woolf, 22). Later it is discovered that “It was toffee; they were advertising toffee” (Woolf, 22). Septimus, not being able to read the words, was only able to react to his idea of what the words meant. The grand idea that was surrounding the toffee advertisement became much more significant that the toffee advertisement itself. However, part of Septimus’s extreme reaction can be attributed to his mental illness seen throughout the book. The fact that his mental illness affected his interpretation of the toffee advertisement shows that there is a heavy amount of subjectivity with the character’s interpretations of all things. Specifically, Septimus’s illness causes him to view aforementioned representative ideas in different ways; an object or person will represent something entirely different to Septimus than it does to the other