Mrs Dalloway

...in the process of moving my stuff from my parents house. I had most of my stuff but there's still some memorabilia and assorted art work and notebooks and stickers and snowdomes that i had to put in boxes for the final move out.

Anyway, I am terrible about throwing things away. And like to SAVE things. And one is my notebook from my first English Literature class that I took for my English major and in it I found notes about Mrs Dalloway after which this blog is named. They were written in 1992, when I was 20.

I am rewriting them here. in a series of 4 posts. I think of it as drawing another drawing that was from an object.

MRS DALLOWAY, WOOLF #1

"HOW SIGHTS FIX THEMSELVES UPON THE MIND"

I think this is a very impt statement. It almost surmizes everything happening in the story. The people (Mrs D, Peter, Septimus - especially) all are looking at different things but thinking briefly of what they see & then of random things but thinking briefly of what they see & then of random things on their mind in their life what's going on. Except Septimus he's blankly transfixed only on what he sees & then what they have seen in the past sticks in their mind & they'll see something new to remind them of the sight in the past.

1. I feel slightly confused as I read Mrs D because of all the imagery & metaphors that Woolf puts in - as if I miss the meaning in most of them. It's a bit difficult to follow at times - who's thinking what & which he/she the thinker is referring to. But overall I like the story & think it's interesting all the different views & thoughts of the characters Woolf puts in. & the gradual changes she makes like how when Peter is in the park we get his thought & then it naturally flows into Lucrezia's back to Peter's again.

2. (p22 But they beckoned - the leaves? the sights he saw or his eyes?) p 47 "It was all over for her. The sheet was stretched and the bed narrow. She had gone up into the tower alone and left them blackberrying in the sun." I just don't understand this at all!

3. p22 "leaves were alive; trees were alive. And the leave being connected by the millions of fibres with his own body, there on the seat, fanned it up & down; when the branch stretched he, too, made that statement." I like how he becomes between nature and his own being. like he's at one with nature. an interconnection.

4. It gets most confusing when, ok, I know it's Woolf telling the whole story but sometimes we get a persons thought & actually hear what they're thinking but then there's no quotes ever used when they say "I" it's like Woolf is also saying "I" herself so it seems that she feels what the character feels & - what else - sometimes betw a characters descriptions there's their thought & then Woolf's thought & to differentiate them. oh this is a minor example on p27 "let me tell you" who is saying it? is it Woolf talking to the reader or Mrs Dempster's thought? Although I think it's interesting how she flip flops betw these thoughts I find it confusing /frustrating at times.

As I look back at each image I highlighted, there seems to be something in common with all of them, they're hiding something -- p14 "like a cloud.. veil like upon hills", "a snow blanket.." p25 (eternal suffering" p30 a diver plunging while the sea darkens". & then for brief hair of a second Mrs D ALMOST has complete understanding of it p32 "a sudden revelation.. it split its think skin" giving "an inner meaning almosthttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif expressed". As she uncovers something & understands As complete meaning & they keep referring to loneliness & suffering Mrs K's when she thinks of Richard w/ Lady Bruton p47 "I am alone forever" & p58 "the solitary traveller" they're scared to be alone & tired of suffering & Lucrezia is suffering (she is alone) & her husband is scared "he did not want it.. that eternal suffering that eternal loneliness." Lucrezia asks herself "why should I suffer" & they argue about suicide. I think it all has to do w/ death. p69 "beauty that was the truth now" after all the pain & p39 "the world saying "that is all" & "fear no more says the heart" The 1st quote is from Septimus, the2nd Mrs D. they echo each other, like it's not pain. I'm not sure I'm getting anywhere I almost have it though - or is that the point. Too confused. "Why could he see through bodies, see into the future"