The modernist literature reflected the significant changes that took place at the beginning of the twentieth century. Modernist writers transferred the happenings through themes and a new style of writing. Time is a crucial theme in the modern novel. Indeed, the way it was represented shaped the style of the modern novel narration immensely. Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway” serves as a great example of such representation. The element of time in this novel is set to be just one day. However, flashbacks and memories extended this particular period a bit more.
The disjunction between the internal time and the external one has fascinated a lot of modernist writers including Virginia Woolf (Lewis 161). In effect, when reading “Mrs. Dalloway” one can notice that time is a highlighted issue within the narration. The author determines the time frame of the novel which starts the morning in June 1923 and ends the next day by 3 am. However, the external time frame is not the only thing that characters experience; the internal time occupies most of the narration. In this vein, Sellers writes that the narration is complicated with the “continual shifts from an omniscient perspective to one tied to a particular character, shifts that take us from “actual time” into “mind time” ” which they are not “measured on the same scale” (53). Woolf makes the reader go back and forth between the past and the present with the use of flashbacks and past_ recalls.
The stream of consciousness technique allowed the author to explore other times beyond the present. The inner monologues of the characters exposed these times in a purely subjective manner due to the different experiences the protagonists had. This indeed makes the theme of time in the novel quite complicated. The protagonist Clarissa Dalloway is presented to be constantly living in the past through her unexpected flashbacks. While doing her daily activities, she is reminded of events from the past. This does not allow her to enjoy the present. Actually, with each moment passed, Clarissa feels frightened by the idea of death. The passing of hours within the novel is marked by Big Bang sound. Woolf articulates this discomfort with time when she writes “The sound of Big Ben flooded Clarissa’s drawing-room where she sat, ever so annoyed, at her writing-table; worried; annoyed” (Woolf 117). Unlike Clarissa, Septimus is portrayed to be sunken in the past without a choice. His traumatic condition puts him _ without his will_ in a never-ending circle of flashbacks and memories (Maazaoui 69). In effect, Septimus is not threatened by the passing of time. Therefore, he seeks death as an escape from his haunting past.
The way time was handled in “Mrs. Dalloway” indicates its importance at that period. Truly, time and how it was viewed is one of the defining features in the modern era. With the new means of transportation and communication, the theme of time was altered in people’s perception. Its representation in literature in general and in Woolf’s novel specifically was echoed through the non-chronological order of events and most importantly through the rapid shifting from present to past to future. Also, this theme significance was expressed in the time frame of the novel which is set only in one single day. The short amount of time compared to the events that occurred signals the value of time according to the modern individual.
All in all, Virginia Woolf, as one of the leading modernist writers, managed to reflect the concept of time and its impact accurately in Mrs. Dalloway. Due to the massive changes that occurred at the beginning of the previous century, time was no longer regarded in its conventional form. Hence, its representation in literature was innovative and different. The narration of “Mrs. Dalloway” emphasized such innovation both in the techniques used and the way time was handled by the characters.
References:
- Maazaoui, Abbes. The Arts Of Memory And The Poetics Of Remembering. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UNKNOWN: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016. Print.
- Lewis, Pericles. The Cambridge Introduction To Modernism. Cambridge University Press, 2007.
- Sellers, Susan. The Cambridge Companion To Virginia Woolf. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
- Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981.
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