Clarissa Dalloway's Stream of Consciousness

Mrs Dalloway written by Virgina Woolf details one day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a high society woman, as she takes a walk through her neighborhood to prepare for a party that she is going to host later that evening. In the novel, Woolf also focuses on the character of Septimus, who is a World War II veteran, suffering from shell shock.

Virginia Woolf is one of the leading modernists of the 20^th century and she wrote this novel using the stream of consciousness mode of narrative. Stream of consciousness, coined by psychologist William James is a narrative device that can be best described as an interior monologue in which the story is presented through the continuous flow of thoughts and feelings. In Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf makes use of the indirect interior monologue—which is a type of monologue in which the author writes the unspoken material like its part of the character’s consciousness and by providing descriptions acts as a guide for the readers.

For example, “Was Evelyn ill again? Evelyn was a good deal out of sorts, said Hugh, intimating by a kind of pout or swell of his very well-covered, manly, extremely handsome, perfectly upholstered body (he was almost too well dressed always, but presumably had to be, with his job at Court) that his wife had some internal ailment…” (Woolf, 198).

In the passage above, when Woolf writes, “he was almost too well dressed always, but presumably had to be, with his job at Court” its written in a way which seems like the aforementioned sentence is part of Clarissa Dalloway’s inner monologue, however, it is Woolf acting as a guide for the readers by passing commentary and providing description, to provide a better understanding of the character.

A direct example of Clarissa Dalloway’s inner monologue would be the reaction that the character Hugh evoked in her, “…internal ailment, nothing serious, which an old friend Clarissa Dalloway would quite understand…Ah, yes she did of course; what a nuisance; and felt very sisterly and oddly conscious at the same time of her hat. Not the right hat for the early morning, was that it? For Hugh always made her feel…that she might be a girl of eighteen…” (Woolf, 198).

In such form of writing, where the line between author’s commentary and the characters conscious thoughts is extremely confusing, punctuation marks provide the signal as to where the writer’s commentary finishes and where the character’s thoughts start. For example, in the sentence, “what a nuisance; and felt very sisterly and oddly conscious at the same time of her hat” (Woolf, 198), the semi colon after “what a nuisance” (that being Clarissa’s thought) signals the change from Clarissa to the writer.

Additionally, it can be seen from the passage above, in the novel, external events take secondary importance and are in fact almost dissolved—or ignored—as the next few paragraphs succeeding the one above, go through Clarissa’s line of thought as she thinks about her party in the evening—and in relation to that Peter Walsh (an old friend) who promises to attend and so on and so forth. Therefore, in the stream of consciousness mode of narrative, Virginia Woolf gives more importance to the reactions of the external environment, than the environment itself.

For someone who wants to try it, the novel provides an excellent model on using the stream of consciousness mode of narrative—with its sophisticated intermingling of the writer’s and characters thoughts together.

--Smriti Bansal

Works Cited:

Woolf, Virginia. "Mrs Dalloway." The Mrs Dalloway Reader. Orlando: Harcourt, 2003. 195-371. Print.