Mrs. Dalloway

In Mrs. Dalloway, the modernist writer Virginia Woolf undermines the usual conventions of prior prose fiction by adopting an innovative approach to time. She contrasts the objective external time and subjective internal time that structure the plot of the one-day novel. In fact, the story takes place on a single day in June and, by the use of two important techniques, namely the stream of consciousness mode of narration and the interior mono-logue, the reader is constantly flowing from the present to the past or the future. Moreover, Woolf blurs the distinctions between dream and reality but emphasizes the importance of the present moment. Through her symbolism of the diamond, Wolf
As an extremely unconventional novel, Mrs. Dalloway poses a challenge for many avid readers; Woolf doesn't separate her novel into chapters, almost all the "action" occurs in the thoughts of characters, and, the reader must piece together the story from random bits and pieces of information that Woolf provides. Thus, the complexity of the characters may add to the frustration, because Woolf makes it difficult to receive any single dominant impression of any of the characters. No character leaves any distinct predominant impression upon the reader. She displays her characters in one of the two methods discussed above to show that no human being can be denoted by a few words or phrases because of his/her several sides. To demonstrate this complexity, she consistently contrasts and compares the beliefs, emotions, and personalities of her different characters .Clarissa proves to be the most complex character of the novel for several reasons. Woolf compares and contrasts her with all of the other major characters, and also, Woolf analyses the appearance of Clarissa Dalloway versus the reality of Clarissa Dalloway . In a sense, “Mrs Dalloway” is a novel without a plot. Instead of creating major situations between characters to push the story forward, Woolf moved her narrative by following the passing hours of a day. The book is composed of movements from one character to another, or of movements from the internal thoughts of one character to the internal thoughts of another. Later in the passage comes the 'diamond' metaphor which is striking and fresh. A diamond is clear but not transparent; it attracts light, yet reflects and refracts it. The diamond possesses many sides but is organic, one whole thing. When Clarissa is 'in the world,' she draws "the parts (of herself) together," she is whole and unified but doesn't show "the other sides of her," as though the social side of Clarissa takes precedence; all others are part of her being but the side she presents to the world best represents the whole. Amazingly, she is aware of this process and one gets the feeling that Clarissa feels that this one-pointed unification represents her at her best, her strongest, and her most real. The diamond is a metaphor for a certain type of human consciousness.
The diamond and it's qualities of clarity and many-sided wholeness are alluded to in several places in Mrs. Dalloway. Peter Walsh talks of his own life in terms of holding something in his hand: "The compensation of growing old...[is that] one has gained...the power of taking hold of experience, of turning it round, slowly, in the light" ; This quote speaks of both satisfaction and detachment. When Lady Bruton fixes upon some project, her soul "becomes inevitably prismatic, lustrous, half looking-glass, half precious stone" (. Richard Dalloway can reflect little but is aware enough of his 'focus' to know that "happiness is this", having Clarissa as his wife. And the metaphor seems to be extended in certain ways. If the diamond is the prism of the unified self, then light is the experience of life working on the individual consciousness though ultimately, the diamond has an essence that light will not change. This paradox of sameness or 'centeredness' within experience is an essential element of the novel. Septimus Warren Smith almost epitomises the experiences of moments of timelessness within time to an extreme where, for him, living in time vanishes. Peter Walsh reflects on his "susceptibility to impressions" but owns that "Still, one got over things. Still, life had a way of adding day to day" .Though Clarissa regrets the pangs of growing old, "all the same that one day should follow another," yet each of this particular day's little experiences were satisfying, "it was enough" and no one "would know how she had loved it all"
The richness of Woolf's overall vision in the narrative structure also echoes the qualities of the 'diamond'. The narrative itself has a dreamlike quality, each main character meditates, remembers, and 'reflects.' Experience, feeling, and thought often seem to merge into one stream of consciousness so that the characters achieve brief moments of a unified sensibility, the public and private, experience and perception merge into one, thus they shine their brightest. Woolf gives us a glimpse of the souls of her characters, not just their hearts or minds, or hidden flaws or ambitions, because the human being cannot be reduced to one thing or one mode but has many sides, is complex and contradictory, but also has an innate integrity and a wholeness on some level, though in the case of Septimus the whole has become so disparate and fragmented, he can no longer reflect light. But when a person can 'pull themselves together' without being partial to any extreme, who is aware of all their worthy and unworthy parts and impulses then the light of life shines through them as it does a diamond.
The narrative of Mrs. Dalloway may be viewed by some as random congealing of various character experience. Although it appears to be a fragmented assortment of images and thought, there is a psychological coherence to the deeply layered novel. Part of this coherence can be found in Mrs. Dalloway's psychological tone which is tragic in nature. Mrs. Dalloway can be conceived of as a modern transformation of Aristotelian tragedy when one examines the following: 1) structural unity; 2) catharsis; 3) recognition, reversal, and catastrophe; 4) handling of time and overall sense of desperation. Firstly, time itself, which, in fact, measures and divides, becomes fluid, elastic and mobile the interaction of memories and thoughts.
Yet this novel isn't just about Mrs. Dalloway or her complex nature, but rather of Woolf's realisation that as Mrs. Dalloway is multi-dimensional, every human is a mixture of his/her concepts, memories, emotions; still, that same human being leaves behind as many different impressions as there are people who associate with that person. Furthermore, Woolf evokes the following question: If everyone's impression of another is just a fragment of the whole, what is the "real world" like, where everyone's consummate nature is in view? Only then does one realise that such a thing, a consummate nature, doesn't exist, and with the human personality, what you see at this very instant is what you get.