Hard to Sympathize with Everyone

Having finished tonight's reading, I realized I don't like Cohn. I feel bad saying this because from an objective standpoint, Cohn really is not a bad guy at all. However, since I sympathize so much with Jake, it's really REALLY hard to sympathize with Cohn too. Cohn seems to be carrying on some kind of relationship with Brett, but Jake is in love with Brett and can't have her. It is odd that Jake seems to dislike Cohn above all Brett's other "suitors," but it makes sense to me in a way. If you're in love with somebody who you can't have (or who you have decided you can't have), you tend to hope for them to be with people you like at the very least. I don't think Jake is simply prejudiced about Cohn either; Bill was getting pretty exasperated with Cohn as well, and so was I.

I think that in comparison to Mrs. Dalloway, The Sun Also Rises does a great job of making us work hard to sympathize with characters. Especially after reading Mrs. Dalloway, I really really want to understand and like every character I read about. The Sun Also Rises is really challenging that for me. Part of me does sympathize with Cohn, but not all of me does. Because of this, I think The Sun Also Rises depicts life much more realistically than Mrs. Dalloway does. While Mrs. Dalloway gave us the amazing opportunity to delve deep into every character's mind so that we could sympathize with each character, The Sun Also Rises challenges us to sympathize with each character as well, but makes it nearly impossible for some characters. This frustrates me, maybe because I enjoyed being able to see people differently by reading Virginia Woolf's writing. Reading Hemingway's writing forces me to look at people from a much more subjective point of view, and therefore is like real life because it's incredibly difficult (impossible even?) to really like everybody.

"We are shockingly late, dear Mrs. Dalloway..."

"We are shockingly late, dear Mrs. Dalloway, we hardly dared to come in," she [Lady Bradshaw] said.

At Clarissa's party, it is interesting that nearly everyone refers to her as "Clarissa" when they see her, rather than "Mrs. Dalloway." As I was looking for a quote to put into my essay, I stumbled across Lady Bradshaw's line at the party, where she greets Clarissa as "Mrs. Dalloway." This struck me as very interesting; why would Woolf make a point of having the wife of Sir William Bradshaw refer to Clarissa as "Mrs. Dalloway" when nearly everyone else in the book refers to her as "Clarissa?"

It makes perfect sense though, because Virginia Woolf wrote Septimus's doctors with her own doctors in mind, who did not understand her at all. They didn't understand the nature of her illness (or of Septimus's) and therefore did not understand who she really was.

I see Clarissa in part as a reflection of Virginia Woolf, so it makes all the sense in the world to have Clarissa on similar terms with the doctor and his wife as Woolf was with her doctors. Lady Bradshaw doesn't understand Clarissa enough to see her as independent; she only sees Clarissa as the surface-level "Mrs. Dalloway" and nothing else. I imagine Virginia's doctors viewed mental illness the same way--as a surface-level only type of illness where there is nothing of value underneath.

(This is also another way that Clarissa and Septimus are connected; the doctors don't understand him, and their wives fail to understand Clarissa. Also, Septimus doesn't like them, and Clarissa has very similar feelings.)

Poet or Hostess?

"The poet will die--the visionary." This is the line from The Hours that strikes me most. It is Virginia Woolf's reply to her husband's question about who she plans to kill instead of her heroine and why. She has previously explained to him that it's for contrast, and "in order that the rest of us should value life more." As I thought about this conversation between Leonard and Virginia, I began to wonder where Virginia herself fit in with everything. You could say that Clarissa represents Virginia in a way--they are both married to similar men who give them space, love them very much, and take good care of them. Both love their husbands as well and are happy in their marriages (Virginia makes this clear in her suicide note to Leonard). Virginia seems to be connected to Clarissa in a more subtle way as well: both seem to enjoy being hostesses and having social lives. Think about Virginia's visit with her sister, nephews, and niece. She seems to love their company and is extremely sad when they must go. She wishes she could go to London and be invited to her sister's parties and have a more busy life. After her sister and the kids leave, Virginia tries to leave as well, and tells her husband that she will either go to London or choose death, because she is simply not satisfied with her life.

This is where Septimus comes in. Septimus kills himself because life is not enough. This seems to be Virginia's logic as well when she explains to Richard why they must move, and why she is so unhappy. Virginia, like Septimus, must deal with awful mental illness every single day; and although both of them are still able to think clearly and do have happy moments in their lives, ultimately their lives are not enough to cure them. I think Virginia wrote the Clarissa's character seeing her heroine as the person she wished she could be. Virginia wants life to be enough for her. She does appreciate and love life--how could she so accurately portray Clarissa's love for life if she didn't? On the other hand, Virginia also portrays Septimus's logic to end his life very well; how could she do that if she didn't understand him too?

The big question here is whether Virginia Woolf is the poet or the hostess. There is ample evidence pointing to each possibility, but I see her as the poet over the hostess; and I imagine she saw herself as a poet as well. She understands life and death. She understands life to the point where she does love it and can therefore portray Clarissa's immense love and appreciation for it; but she also understands death to the point where she can see it as a rational escape from life and can therefore portray Septimus's logical reasons for suicide.

It seems like Virginia wishes she could be Clarissa and overcome her unhappiness with life and realize that it really is enough for her and that life is worth living; on the other hand, perhaps Virginia wishes she had been like Septimus and simply ended her life before she was put under the care of doctors resembling Holmes at worst. In fact, this would make sense in her decision to end her life: she felt that something worse was coming, something she wouldn't be able to rise out of, and she made the logical choice to simply end it all--to escape. This is exactly what Septimus does, and also what Clarissa realizes she doesn't need to do. Why shouldn't Virginia wish she could be like Clarissa and not have to kill herself? Why should anyone want a logical reason to end their life, unless they need that escape? Virginia did not hate life--she hated the life she was stuck living. She ended it to avoid something worse.

Although it makes sense for Virginia to want to be the "hostess" (she cares for Clarissa, and realizes that Clarissa can't kill herself), she can't help but be the poet (she cares for and understands Septimus as well) because that is simply the course that her life takes.

It is also interesting that in The Hours, before Richard kills himself, he quotes Virginia Woolf's suicide note to Clarissa. It's kind of like drawing a circle--Clarissa understands Septimus's reasons for killing himself, as does Virginia. The Richard in the movie, who reminds me of both Virginia and Septimus understands Virginia's suicide as well as Virginia and Clarissa understand Septimus's. Now that I've mentioned the Richard character from The Hours though, I'm realizing that he's extremely interesting as well. He reminds me of both Virginia and Septimus because of his role as a poet, but he also reminds me of Peter because of his open criticism and love for Clarissa--he did not end up with her, but he still loves her (and she seems to love him as well) and because he loves her, he hurts her. It is Richard that causes Clarissa's breakdown in the kitchen.

All of this demonstrates that nobody is exactly one thing or another. Virginia Woolf has aspects of the hostess and of the poet. Movie-Richard has Peter qualities as well as Septimus-Virginia qualities. Laura Brown is absolutely a sympathetic character (we do feel for her and get a chance to understand her to an extent), but we also find ourselves disliking her a bit (and even being slightly creeped out by her) because of the damage she does to her son.

I loved The Hours. It brought up plenty of thought-provoking questions and made my head hurt, but in a good way. It's hard to understand and interpret the idea that the world isn't black and white. It's difficult to make accurate judgments about people when you consider every side to a story; but this is the point that Mrs Dalloway makes. It is a book about so many different things, and one of those things is that it is impossible to put people into categories. We can't just call Mrs. Dalloway a snob, because she is so much more than that. We can't just call Virginia Woolf the poet, because there is so much competing evidence that can't be ignored.

Buses Part 2

It is interesting that I do some of my best thinking while I'm riding the bus. It is also interesting that my wandering mind tends to fall on whatever book I'm reading. I already wrote about how my bus-thoughts were influenced by The Mezzanine, so now I would like to write about how they were influenced by Mrs Dalloway. Interestingly enough, the beginning of my thoughts was similar to something I wrote about in my Mezzanine pastiche: I wrote about how I was imagining who a stranger on a bus was (by this I mean I was coming up with my own story about her job, her personality, etc.). My thoughts this time led me to a different place, though. This time, I was looking out of the window at all the passing people, mostly college students, and I began thinking about Mrs Dalloway. In Mrs Dalloway, we are able to understand each character's "cave" when they are described to us, because in Woolf's descriptions she is able to expertly delve into the mind of a character and tell us simple stories about them that somehow give us a sense of who they are underneath. It's impressive how she does this (and if you've ever tried to describe someone's "cave" you know it's very difficult to do), but she has a way of explaining the character's childhood and how that relates to their fears and outlook on life. She explains to us what each character believes in and loves. She is able to capture the essence of every character she writes.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could do this in real life? Wouldn't it be nice to not only be able to describe someone else's cave, but to be able to describe your own so that someone could understand you perfectly? Wouldn't it be nice to meet someone, or see someone on the street, and be able to see at once who they really are: what they love, what they hate, what challenges they've overcome, what they fear, what's shaped their personality? Obviously this is impossible. One of the only places where a person can even begin to understand others on this deep level is by reading a book by an author that is able to convey every character's cave. In real life, there's hardly any chance of truly understanding others on such a deep level. Perhaps it's possible to understand your closest friends or siblings or spouse, but do we really understand those people? Probably not. I know that even my closest friends probably don't know me on this level, and I don't know them on this level either.

Looking at people walking on campus and sitting on the bus, it struck me that every individual has some interesting story. Everyone has a huge part of their life behind them and has had to deal with obstacles and has strong beliefs and motivations. To really understand just one person would be incredible; to understand many seems impossible. Woolf makes it possible, though! She makes it possible for at least the reader to understand all her major (and some more minor) characters with her writing. She allows us to understand her, as well, assuming characters in the book are based off of her and other people in her life. As we read Mrs Dalloway we see the world not necessarily through Clarissa's or Septimus's or Rezia's or Richard's or Peter's eyes, but through the eyes of Woolf herself. In painting such convincing pictures of the characters in Mrs Dalloway, Woolf also paints a picture of herself for the reader to decipher and understand.

This idea of understanding a person is both comforting and frustrating. It is comforting because Woolf proves that it is possible: she is able to make her readers understand every important character in her book, and allows her readers to understand herself on top of that. All I can say about this is that I'm impressed. There is no easy formula to do this properly, but Woolf succeeds perfectly. However, this idea also frustrates me. I don't like knowing how hard it is to truly understand others; if it's nearly impossible to know each other very well, how can we feel close to people? Don't we as humans need companionship and understanding and closeness? Maybe the way to make up for this is to form close relationships with a few people. Maybe that is how we compensate. Maybe it's in the same way that Richard and Elizabeth seem to understand each other on a deeper level. Maybe Richard and Clarissa understand each other on this level too, but I have a feeling that Elizabeth and Clarissa aren't quite at that point. We can only hope that they will eventually reach it. It is still frustrating to me though, that it is almost instinct to judge people we see on the street and ignore the fact that they, like us, have something underneath (a "cave?") that we will probably never understand.

Peter Walsh

I like Peter Walsh. At the same time, I don't like Peter Walsh. Peter is extremely judgmental of Clarissa; however, the faults he finds with her are the same ones that the reader finds. Peter recognizes that Clarissa is a snob. Some people may love this about him, and I am one of those people. I am also one of the people who hates this about him though, mostly because he loves Clarissa at the same time. Since I, as a reader, know Clarissa on a very deep level (a deeper level than Peter does), I'm slightly offended by Peter's judgmental remarks about her. It seems that if he loves her, he should know her better than he does. He should know who she really is deep down, the way Richard seems to when he says that Clarissa knows he loves her without him having to say anything. When compared to Richard, it seems as though Peter doesn't truly understand Clarissa--but does he?

I know I said earlier that he should know Clarissa on a deeper level. To an extent, I think that is true. But I also think that Peter does know Clarissa on a deeper level, simply because he knew her when they were younger. According to Peter, Clarissa had a lot more warmth and depth back then which he doesn't see in her now. He sees her now as cold and "not herself." Clarissa even notes herself that she doesn't really feel like herself at these parties, yet they're important to her and she still has them anyway. It's very possible that Peter recognizes this about Clarissa, but doesn't realize the extent to which Clarissa is self-aware and self-critical. She knows what criticisms others make about her. She knows what's wrong with her and what people like Peter dislike. Whether Peter realizes this or not, the point is he does know who she really is (based not only on who she was at 18, but also on who she presents herself to be now), and he loves her for who she is deep down and for the faults he finds with her. Peter is actually very much like the reader in a sense, because he both loves and dislikes Clarissa. He seems to understand her on a deeper level, but he also has the ability to be critical of her, so he seems to have a very "full" view of her.

Another role Peter seems to serve is an odd one: he seems to represent the self-critical part of Clarissa's mind. It seems that even if Clarissa doesn't consciously note everything that's wrong with her (if she did, I expect she would be less of a snob), she does unconsciously know that Peter's criticism is completely valid, and I don't think she even needs Peter's criticism in order to be self-critical, whether that's consciously or unconsciously. Perhaps Peter appears to be so closely linked with Clarissa's self-criticism because he has always been critical of her, since they spent time together at Bourton. No matter what, I think it's completely valid to examine Clarissa's unconscious (and conscious) ideas and criticisms about herself by looking at what Peter says about her--after all, he is the only character in the book who is truly openly critical of her, and that definitely influences Clarissa's own ideas.