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So, there’s this famous modernist novel that takes place over the course of a day and is written in a fragmentary stream of consciousness and is a re-telling of The Odyssey, with both stories being named after the titular character… and it’s… Mrs. Dalloway?
I'll do a longer january reading post, but I read both the Odyssey and Mrs. Dalloway over the last week or so, and while I was thinking about the use of nostalgia in Mrs. Dalloway, I realised it was, somewhat superficially, quite similar to the Odyssey, both on the surface, and in some themes and situations. this is a a rudimentary reading on how Mrs. Dalloway, and it was going to be posted under a class discussion board, but um, there is no class discussion board, so my dreamwidth can have it. I don't have any specific references to either text, but assume that everything I say is true because I remember reading it.
The Odyssey is, despite it’s popular reputation, about homecoming, nostos, which is the root word for nostalgia; Mrs. Dalloway is, very similarly, a book rooted in nostalgia. Over and over again, the same few characters remember the same, long ago place, the same, far stranded past; they return over and over to that place, bidden, unbidden. Bourton and Itaca, in this way, are the same. Odysseus insists over and over he must return home, and refuses Gods and riches and the comforts offered by foreign lands to brave the sea over and over again, and go to Ithaca; and yet, this desperate longing is never explained – unbidden, despite the temptations of Calypso and her perfect island, the Phaeacians and their gifts and feasts, Odysseus heart remains fixed to this land, his land – an object of memory, a place that he’s been separated from both physically and temporally for twenty years. Clarissa Dalloway is the same, all through the novel her destination and her longing are clear, Bourton, thirty years ago; she reminisces again and again about this place, despite the apparent happiness (stability) of her current life – she is, perhaps, an Odysseus who chose to stay in Ogyia with Calypso. Here, in Westminster, she is cushioned and safe from the outside world; Richard Dalloway was the more attractive providing prospect, and so she chose him, but in doing so, she has left Bourton, estranged from Sally Heaton, from Peter Walsh. She is now thirty years gone from home, a steeper burden than Odysseus’ twenty, and despite her comforts and her steady marriage and her flowers, she cannot help but recall, again and again, that everpresent everguiding everburning image of Ithaca. She does not know why she wishes to return, she cannot vocalise what it is – only that, as Odysseus admits to Calypso that she is more beautiful and better than Penelope, marrying Richard was the right choice. Read this way, perhaps this is Woolf’s first intervention – Odysseus, as a man had the choice of hardship to comfort, it was not that he had no chance of death, but he had a chance at life – the life he wanted; from the beginning, as a woman, there was no such ‘choice’ for Clarissa Dalloway. Either she must abandon her desire, or she will succumb to the sea.
But Richard is not only Calypso, nor does this make Peter Penelope; half the story of the Odyssey belongs to Penelope and her suitors, as does half the story of Mrs. Dalloway. For seven years, Penelope weaves and unweaves her shroud, whatever progress she makes, she stays up by night to undo; all to hold off the possibility of choice; here is Clarissa, here is Mrs. Dalloway, here is Mrs. Richard Dalloway, she asks over and over of her life, Is this enough? She walks to her parents, holding it out, Have I done something? She shakes away the thought, unsure there is any meaning at all, sure that she is silly and simple and has done nothing of all, neither her flowers nor her parties have any purpose, but they do, she insists they do – this unstable sense of sense of self, sense of purpose, sense of being – that is Penelope’s shroud. It is the mechanism that keeps her in place, immobile; Penelope is neither wife nor widow, she is making a shroud; Clarissa Dalloway is so anxious, she is so fretful, she is so constantly agonized by her own indecision – this is what stops her both from happiness (which would require either a total repression or total ignorance towards any semblance of self) and despair (which would require her full recognition of her self, and in doing so, her death).
Unlike Penelope’s choice of a hundred men (which really is only a choice between Odysseus or not) – Clarissa only has two: Richard or Peter. Superficially, the set-up is very similar: Penelope and Odysseus are a couple with a son, Telemachus who is on the cusp of manhood; with Odysseus away, Penelope now must fend off a hundred unruly suitors, who make a mess out of her house and are constantly hounding her. Clarissa and Richard are a couple with a daughter, Elizabeth, who is on the cusp of maturity, and Peter is an unruly man, the thought/reminder of whom constantly bothers Clarissa. Very much like Telemachus is a reminder of Odysseus and therefore the suitors plot to kill him (in order to erase Odysseus and his authority); Peter is bothered by the existence of Elizabeth, who is a physical reminder of Clarissa’s marriage to Richard. This is superficially. More importantly, is the role of each in the story – what matters for this story is that Odysseus has been gone for twenty years; that his marriage to Penelope, is reliant on her loyalty to this absence, their physical separation. What defines, and what allows the success of the Dalloways’ marriage, is the very same distance that Clarissa is not only loyal to, but also attracted to. The return of Odysseus sets forth the return of order to Ithaca, the rightful king has returned, and set his house straight, and exterminated all the pests. His marriage is safe, his family is together, all is right and in it’s rightful place. This same stability, this unquestioning idyllic patriarchal rule is what Richard represents to Clarissa. In class, everyone seemed to agree the invisible patriarchy was better than the annoying patriarchy; and so, what comes along with Richard, the conservative government, the housewife-hostess, the gentle propagation of class, of the rules and observances of ‘polite’ society; with Richard these things remain in place. Peter, the unruly suitor, is not necessarily an opposition to any of these structures – because the suitors seek to do the same thing to Penelope as Odysseus would, as a wife she is only a possession that indicates power; but Peter, like these suitors, is just more loud and annoying about it. It's not necessarily that life with him is any different, it is only that it would have upset Clarissa’s place in the world; as she asserts over and over throughout the novel, it would not have been right. Penelope twenty-years of fidelity to Odysseus is also a result of her attachment to her place in their life; Clarissa’s loyalty to Richard, is a result of the very same – she is attached to her comforts, she is attached to this sort of living and is unquestioning of it.
The Odyssey is also a story that is very engaged with hospitality – multiple sections are dedicated the discussions of guests, on hosting, on what makes a good host or a bad host or a good guest or a bad guest; in a echoing vein, Mrs. Dalloway is filled with similar questions about how to appear in society, what is proper behaviour, or meaningful conduct, or the necessary steps. There is a recurring issue on invitation, an invitation Mrs. Dalloway did not receive; an invitation she did not send; an invitation that she sent that was accepted; there are discussions of Peter and Sally not being polite, unsuited, having something wrong with them in some way, a trait that Clarissa, who is perfect at hosting and gracious and polite, also is afraid of having but suspects that she does have. Similar to Odysseus who wears many faces, often at Athena’s will, to trick or deceive others; this is how Clarissa Dalloway herself wades through society – she too changes her face to suit who she speaks with. Both are shapeshifters in a sense, liars, their speech and action running contrary to their thoughts and intentions. This concealment of self – the subsequent losses incurred by such deceptions and transformations – are also central to this poem. This trait integral to Odysseus’ success – his cleverness that allows him to lie – that which grants him the favour of the gods and secures his turbulent fate; is the very thing that Woolf is interested in dissecting. Mrs. Dalloway, after all, is also a novel about the self. The journey to Ithaca is something that both disfigures and revitalizes Odysseus (he is turned into an old man, and then restored to his prime); for Clarissa Dalloway, her longing for home is a similar kaleidoscope, it distorts her image of herself.
Crucially, their fates remain fixed. Clarissa Dalloway does not die, instead Woolf reconfigures the story in order to prevent that very fate, she returns home, just as Odysseus was bound to: “It is Clarissa, he said. For there she was.”
I'll do a longer january reading post, but I read both the Odyssey and Mrs. Dalloway over the last week or so, and while I was thinking about the use of nostalgia in Mrs. Dalloway, I realised it was, somewhat superficially, quite similar to the Odyssey, both on the surface, and in some themes and situations. this is a a rudimentary reading on how Mrs. Dalloway, and it was going to be posted under a class discussion board, but um, there is no class discussion board, so my dreamwidth can have it. I don't have any specific references to either text, but assume that everything I say is true because I remember reading it.
The Odyssey is, despite it’s popular reputation, about homecoming, nostos, which is the root word for nostalgia; Mrs. Dalloway is, very similarly, a book rooted in nostalgia. Over and over again, the same few characters remember the same, long ago place, the same, far stranded past; they return over and over to that place, bidden, unbidden. Bourton and Itaca, in this way, are the same. Odysseus insists over and over he must return home, and refuses Gods and riches and the comforts offered by foreign lands to brave the sea over and over again, and go to Ithaca; and yet, this desperate longing is never explained – unbidden, despite the temptations of Calypso and her perfect island, the Phaeacians and their gifts and feasts, Odysseus heart remains fixed to this land, his land – an object of memory, a place that he’s been separated from both physically and temporally for twenty years. Clarissa Dalloway is the same, all through the novel her destination and her longing are clear, Bourton, thirty years ago; she reminisces again and again about this place, despite the apparent happiness (stability) of her current life – she is, perhaps, an Odysseus who chose to stay in Ogyia with Calypso. Here, in Westminster, she is cushioned and safe from the outside world; Richard Dalloway was the more attractive providing prospect, and so she chose him, but in doing so, she has left Bourton, estranged from Sally Heaton, from Peter Walsh. She is now thirty years gone from home, a steeper burden than Odysseus’ twenty, and despite her comforts and her steady marriage and her flowers, she cannot help but recall, again and again, that everpresent everguiding everburning image of Ithaca. She does not know why she wishes to return, she cannot vocalise what it is – only that, as Odysseus admits to Calypso that she is more beautiful and better than Penelope, marrying Richard was the right choice. Read this way, perhaps this is Woolf’s first intervention – Odysseus, as a man had the choice of hardship to comfort, it was not that he had no chance of death, but he had a chance at life – the life he wanted; from the beginning, as a woman, there was no such ‘choice’ for Clarissa Dalloway. Either she must abandon her desire, or she will succumb to the sea.
But Richard is not only Calypso, nor does this make Peter Penelope; half the story of the Odyssey belongs to Penelope and her suitors, as does half the story of Mrs. Dalloway. For seven years, Penelope weaves and unweaves her shroud, whatever progress she makes, she stays up by night to undo; all to hold off the possibility of choice; here is Clarissa, here is Mrs. Dalloway, here is Mrs. Richard Dalloway, she asks over and over of her life, Is this enough? She walks to her parents, holding it out, Have I done something? She shakes away the thought, unsure there is any meaning at all, sure that she is silly and simple and has done nothing of all, neither her flowers nor her parties have any purpose, but they do, she insists they do – this unstable sense of sense of self, sense of purpose, sense of being – that is Penelope’s shroud. It is the mechanism that keeps her in place, immobile; Penelope is neither wife nor widow, she is making a shroud; Clarissa Dalloway is so anxious, she is so fretful, she is so constantly agonized by her own indecision – this is what stops her both from happiness (which would require either a total repression or total ignorance towards any semblance of self) and despair (which would require her full recognition of her self, and in doing so, her death).
Unlike Penelope’s choice of a hundred men (which really is only a choice between Odysseus or not) – Clarissa only has two: Richard or Peter. Superficially, the set-up is very similar: Penelope and Odysseus are a couple with a son, Telemachus who is on the cusp of manhood; with Odysseus away, Penelope now must fend off a hundred unruly suitors, who make a mess out of her house and are constantly hounding her. Clarissa and Richard are a couple with a daughter, Elizabeth, who is on the cusp of maturity, and Peter is an unruly man, the thought/reminder of whom constantly bothers Clarissa. Very much like Telemachus is a reminder of Odysseus and therefore the suitors plot to kill him (in order to erase Odysseus and his authority); Peter is bothered by the existence of Elizabeth, who is a physical reminder of Clarissa’s marriage to Richard. This is superficially. More importantly, is the role of each in the story – what matters for this story is that Odysseus has been gone for twenty years; that his marriage to Penelope, is reliant on her loyalty to this absence, their physical separation. What defines, and what allows the success of the Dalloways’ marriage, is the very same distance that Clarissa is not only loyal to, but also attracted to. The return of Odysseus sets forth the return of order to Ithaca, the rightful king has returned, and set his house straight, and exterminated all the pests. His marriage is safe, his family is together, all is right and in it’s rightful place. This same stability, this unquestioning idyllic patriarchal rule is what Richard represents to Clarissa. In class, everyone seemed to agree the invisible patriarchy was better than the annoying patriarchy; and so, what comes along with Richard, the conservative government, the housewife-hostess, the gentle propagation of class, of the rules and observances of ‘polite’ society; with Richard these things remain in place. Peter, the unruly suitor, is not necessarily an opposition to any of these structures – because the suitors seek to do the same thing to Penelope as Odysseus would, as a wife she is only a possession that indicates power; but Peter, like these suitors, is just more loud and annoying about it. It's not necessarily that life with him is any different, it is only that it would have upset Clarissa’s place in the world; as she asserts over and over throughout the novel, it would not have been right. Penelope twenty-years of fidelity to Odysseus is also a result of her attachment to her place in their life; Clarissa’s loyalty to Richard, is a result of the very same – she is attached to her comforts, she is attached to this sort of living and is unquestioning of it.
The Odyssey is also a story that is very engaged with hospitality – multiple sections are dedicated the discussions of guests, on hosting, on what makes a good host or a bad host or a good guest or a bad guest; in a echoing vein, Mrs. Dalloway is filled with similar questions about how to appear in society, what is proper behaviour, or meaningful conduct, or the necessary steps. There is a recurring issue on invitation, an invitation Mrs. Dalloway did not receive; an invitation she did not send; an invitation that she sent that was accepted; there are discussions of Peter and Sally not being polite, unsuited, having something wrong with them in some way, a trait that Clarissa, who is perfect at hosting and gracious and polite, also is afraid of having but suspects that she does have. Similar to Odysseus who wears many faces, often at Athena’s will, to trick or deceive others; this is how Clarissa Dalloway herself wades through society – she too changes her face to suit who she speaks with. Both are shapeshifters in a sense, liars, their speech and action running contrary to their thoughts and intentions. This concealment of self – the subsequent losses incurred by such deceptions and transformations – are also central to this poem. This trait integral to Odysseus’ success – his cleverness that allows him to lie – that which grants him the favour of the gods and secures his turbulent fate; is the very thing that Woolf is interested in dissecting. Mrs. Dalloway, after all, is also a novel about the self. The journey to Ithaca is something that both disfigures and revitalizes Odysseus (he is turned into an old man, and then restored to his prime); for Clarissa Dalloway, her longing for home is a similar kaleidoscope, it distorts her image of herself.
Crucially, their fates remain fixed. Clarissa Dalloway does not die, instead Woolf reconfigures the story in order to prevent that very fate, she returns home, just as Odysseus was bound to: “It is Clarissa, he said. For there she was.”
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