Mrs. Dalloway, WOOLF, #4

The final entry for Mrs. Dalloway from my college notebook, 1992.

"There is always this conversation or that thought of a great distance between people no matter how close they are. No one

really seems to know each other, barely ever making connections, with each other. The most intimate relatins seemed to have

been during Clarissa's & Peter & Sally's youth. If for Clarissa to be her complete self she had to have a party with each person's

definition of her making her complete that theory is supported when Peter remembers (p152) Clarissa saying "that to know her,

or anyone, one must seek out the people who completed them." & therefore she can say "she felt herself everywhere" A piece of

her was in each person she knew & all the pieces were put together when she had a party. But outside of her parties it was

impossible for anyone to truly know her. (p174) Clarissa's parties now however don't bring the same pleasure to her as they

once had. "These triumphs had a hollowness" in her because even though all the people that made her into who she is were

there was not enough, even though "she loved it & felt it tingle & sting". She was defined from the outside & was "hollow"

inside. (p184) It seems to me that her "hollowness" not solidifies but "her body burnt" from the news of Septimus death at

her party, it changes form. & Septimus's way of winning over Bradshaw & Holmes &

being like how he viewed his wife, a bird, flew out the window. (189) "People understand without things being said" Is this an

inner bonding between people without words - so that the connections are not on the surface. This is Sally's thought here but

also Richard Dalloway has the same one when he was going to tell Mrs D he loved her. I think it's how people do connect

through-out the book, because they never really say what they're thinking & overall this novel seems to me to be like an

impressionist painting the amount of info each character tells us just gives us an impression of the situation & what each

character sees is his/her impression from which they have a thought. Like an object depends on the way the light hits it, the

changing lights, the people differ, changing views. "