Mrs. Dalloway

2 Pages 571 Words

In Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway one thing Clarissa Dalloway was always fascinated by was the stroke of Big Ben. Throughout the novel Clarissa persistently recalls memories from the past which make her live in memory, not in the moment. When watching an airplane overhead creating a message Clarissa stopped, looked up and hypocritically said, “In the triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; this moment of June” (Woolf 4). Clarissa Dalloway wanted to live in the moment, however she did not.
“Clarissa was positive, a particular hush or solemnity; an indescribable pause; suspense before Big Ben strikes” (Woolf 4). Clarissa is completely fixated on time. Clarissa continues her obsession with living in the past by thinking of Peter Walsh, a former lover. She couldn’t be with him because she felt he’d smother her, but there’s a sense of regret whenever she thinks about him. “That was only her dear Peter at his worst; and he could be intolerable; he could be impossible; but adorable to walk with on a morning like this” (Woolf 7). Clarissa dreams about the past thinking it would be better than the present.
The strike of Big Ben brings Clarissa’s present mood, exactly what she’s feeling in that moment into perception. “The sound of Big Ben flooded Clarissa’s drawing-room, where she sat, every so annoyed, at her writing-table; worried; annoyed” (Woolf 117). Big Ben captures her present mood again; it has an omnipresence that makes Clarissa aware of her reality. Often Clarissa lives in fantasy, not reality. Big Ben serves as an alarm so to speak to bring her back to reality.
“Big Ben struck the half-hour” (Woolf 127). Clarissa looks into the window of her neighbor, an elderly woman who she had never known. This woman symbolizes Clarissa’s final reality check. Towards the end of Clarissa’s party she steps into another room, leaving her soci...