Life and Death in Viginia Woolf free essay sample

In order to find answers to this, her ultimate question, we must search through her recurring themes to interpret our own vision of Woolfs views on the main aspects of life as we know it. This paper will demonstrate how Woolf explored the meaning of life and death within the inner thoughts and relationships of her characters and how she used ambiguous characters to demonstrate the need for a balance in ones relationship with the self and with others in order to truly find happiness in life. In Mrs. Dalloway, the issue of life and death in cooperation with the characters emotional and mental inner-workings is a prominent theme. Woolf addresses the meaning of life and how one should live theirs, as well as how one should not. Woolf balances the importance of individual self and the dissemination of that individuals self among others within a cast of interconnected characters. We will write a custom essay sample on Life and Death in Viginia Woolf or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The question of life and death is repeatedly explored through Clarissa, Peter, and Septimus- often in a more connected way that one might notice during a first reading. In â€Å"Walking the Web in the Lost London of Mrs. Dalloway†, Andelys Wood suggests that â€Å"The challenge to readers is that the reality ime in the mind and time on the clock, the experiences of the writer, characters, and readers, all are connected by the novels web† (19). In the novels opening Clarissa is walking through town to buy flowers for her party. She puzzles over the meaning of our own being and the sure inevitability of death while juxtaposing these ideas with her own superficial worries about her stately dinner engagement. Her fusing of the two ideas into one inner conversation becomes the proposed hypothesis throughout the rest of the work, the inner-connectedness of all people. In chapter one, Woolf writes, â€Å"somehow in the streets of London, on the ebb and flow of things, here, there, she survived, Peter survived, lived in each other, she being part, she was positive, of the trees at home; of the house there, ugly, rambling all to bits and pieces as it was; part of people she had never met; being laid out like a mist between the people she knew best, who lifted her on their branches as she had seen the trees lift the mist, but it spread ever so far, her life, herself† (9). This statement, this idea of being constantly a part in others lives while holding onto some sense of autonomy, becomes the proposition on which Woolfs philosophy on the meaning of life and death begins. The emphasis of being in tune with others while imposing the importance of the individual self is shown foremost through Woolfs heroine, Clarissa Dalloway. It is made clear through her character the importance of the privacy of emotions; however, Clarissa also explores the healthy balance of this privacy in conjunction with the societal norms her characters are subjected to. Woolf imagines Clarissa Dalloway as a middle-aged woman who is outwardly very happy with her choice to have married Richard Dalloway, a conservative government official and an obvious manifestation of the era’s constrictive conservative government. Clarissa is dependent on Richard, both emotionally and financially. In â€Å"Nature and the Nation in Mrs. Dalloway†, Melissa Bagley notices that â€Å"Many of her characters employ metaphors that equate women with that which is delicate, depicting the woman described as necessarily dependent† (38). Clarissa is the perfect opposite of this notion. While Clarissa seems to be the perfect and sedate housewife, she remains independent in her own spirit and mind. Woolf explains this in chapter one, when she writes that For in marriage a little license, a little independence there must be between people living together day in day out in the same house; which Richard gave her, and she him (8). This isolation of self is then starkly compared to the comic character of Peter Walsh who, in adoring Clarissa so fervently and interfering with her intimate relations to Sally Seton, left no possibility for her private self. Woolf demonstrates this when she says that â€Å"But with Peter everything had to be shared; everything gone into (8). This fluidity of thought between Clarissa and Peter is shown at varying points throughout the novel, however, Clarissa maintains that while it may be the direct and ever present communication of feeling, even romantic love, it is not a positive condition and even reflects on its detrimental quality to herself and Peters lives by saying, â€Å"And it was intolerable, and when it came to that scene in the little garden by the fountain, she had to break him or they would have been destroyed, both of them ruined† (8). A similar idea is shown through Clarissas love for Sally Seton in which Clarissa experiences both intense emotion and the necessary privacy to express this emotion through the upsetting scene in the garden with Sally and Peter. Clarissas life is structured not only by her tendency to love intensely passionate and overly-communicative people, but also in her reserve for articulating her tendency, as seen through her marriage to Richard Dalloway and her resultant social status. Septimus Warren Smith, a WWI veteran suffering from PTSD who is often viewed by critics as Clarissas correlate in the novel, is someone who realizes his emotional feeling as well but refuses to conform to the patriarchal societies’ norms to an extreme degree. His private emotion is brought to the reader and to the world when he talks to his dead comrades or revels in the beauty of seemingly mundane events. He is decidedly too defiant to societal norms and is oppressed by members of the establishment. His eventual suicide reveals that he is willing to â€Å"take the plunge† and spurns the counterpart lift of emotions connected with the integration and compromise of self for society (3). On the other hand, Clarissa engages in both spectrums of emotion- â€Å"What a lark! What a plunge! † (3). His suppressed emotions were eventually laid out to the public by his plunge into the unknown world of death, wherein Septimus can become part of the entire world with which he has lost contact. In â€Å"The Terror and the Ecstasy: The Textual Politics of Virginia Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway† Patricia Matson hypothesizes that Woolf uses the character of Septimus Smith to represent â€Å"the crushing of the human spirit as a consequence of dogmatic patriarchal authority† (Matson 174). His refusal to repress his fears and regrets about war and suffering is a source of social embarrassment and further separates him from the realm of society, connecting him to the individual portion of the spectrum. Matson insists that the character Sir William Bradshaw, the stereotypical psychologist who is convinced that he holds the key to Septimus recovery, is the ultimate representative of this establishment, a self-serving and oppressive authority. Matson suggests that â€Å"Woolf shows us that his notions of an acceptable social impulse are discursive fabrications that keep at bay whatever threatens to disrupt the order that serves him so well† (74). Sir William, described in an extremely boring and unassuming manner, is the extreme of domination and power; he has established his own reputation for himself through routine and regularity. He responds to Septimus illness by effectively prescribing him to the â€Å"rest cure†, which we now know pushed many people over the edge of reason. By doing this, Sir William excludes Septimus Smith from communicating with any other characters when he says, â€Å"Try to think as little about yourself as possible† (96). However, as is shown with Clarissa Dalloway, this attempt to consider only the others around you and not yourself is a more than likely road to madness and to the destruction of the self. While Matson reveals the chaos in which Woolf inserts her characters, it must be acknowledged that Woolf does indeed allow them windows of opportunity for survival, exploring each one until she finds which seems to work well with the self and the world, â€Å"Posing, as it does, a challenge to authority in all its various forms without ever becoming prescriptive† (163). While she may not ultimately land on one specific point of view, Woolf certainly sympathizes with Clarissas thoughts and feelings demonstrating that she has reached a close and personal relationship with Clarissas, or her own, individual self which can be noticed in her thoughts of sexuality and philosophies of life. In addition, Clarissa seems to be the most content individual of the characters because she balances in the center of many of the characters. In a way, Woolf is guiding the characters, and therefore the audience, through the ultimate question of being and self. Matson elaborates, saying that â€Å"The spectators (readers) quest is not simply to accept the writing process but also to translate that process into some ultimate word† (166). This â€Å"ultimate word† is something that is possibly the review of self and of life; the consequence of associations, of love, of humanity, and of death all at once. The barrier to this invention, in Mrs. Dalloway, is the patriarchal censorship of the self and the marginalization of personal emotions and interests for the good of the whole and for the advantage of the powerful. Woolfs quest for this is evident, as Jane Fisher explains in â€Å"Silent as the Grave: Painting, Narrative, and the Reader in Night and Day and To The Lighthouse† as â€Å"she attempts to bridge not only the gap between the living and the dead but a more stubborn discipline between the living and the living† (95). This quest also manifests itself into Woolfs other famous novel, To the Lighthouse, which considers these questions even more artfully. The characters in this novel continue to represent the opposites of human personality; however, Woolf does not supply an exact middle-ground protagonist as she does in Mrs. Dalloway, perhaps suggesting that this answer is not as simple as previous critics had theorized. While the opposite ends of the spectrum are easily identifiable through Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay, the characters balancing the weight are of a much greater importance to the question of being. In the essay, â€Å"Towers in the Distance†, Diane Cousineau delves into the understanding of this concentrated emotional continuum as well. Her argument uses gender issues to sound off; however, a further reading can be salvaged from her hypothesis. Mrs. Ramsay is seen as a muse and matriarch who feels it is her duty to perform her role, which is to keep everyone blissfully happy and protected from the harsh realities of life. Mr. Ramsay is seen as the errant philosopher who is creatively motivated by his striking and domesticated wife and the visualization of his â€Å"perfect† family. In Cousineaus essay, she views the lighthouse as the representative of the human genders, â€Å"From the base of broad receptivity, the tower grows narrower as it ascends, suggesting that the containing female vessel is finally to be transcended at a point that is exclusively male and isolate† (54). Although, as Cousineau points out, Woolf decidedly uses gender as a main theme in her expression of ideals it is clear that there is a broader, more enveloping issue involved. While it cannot be denied that gender is a concurring and simultaneous issue, this idea of the tower can also be viewed as the manifestation of human identities searching for their needed role in the labyrinth of existence’s meaning. In addition, while the tower line itself is divided into genders it is more and more ambiguous in identity towards the center of the scale. The â€Å"creative force† at the base of the tower represents the social realm, the idea of the self influencing and also being influenced by others. Towards the climax of the tower the force becomes more and more transcendental and particular, leaving he person unaccompanied to deal with more intellectual ideals and less with insignificant matters such as children or marriage plans. Going along with Cousineau, it is evident that Mr. Ramsays character is determined to find in his valiant and scholarly quest the meanings of the letter R which have made him so representative of the patriarchal visions of oppressive society; however, while he is overbearing, he does have redeeming qualities. It seems he is just trapped within the mindset of the male-dominated world and universe, which again melds the ideas of position with gender. Woolfs description of Mr. Ramsay in the first few pages of the novel make his character a solid position representing the patriarchal peak of the tower by saying that â€Å"He was incapable of untruth; never tampered with a fact; never altered a disagreeable word to suit the pleasure or convenience of any mortal being, least of all his own children, who, sprung from his loins, should be aware from childhood that life is difficult; facts uncompromising; and the passage to that fabled land where our brightest hopes are extinguished, our frail barks founder in darkness† (4). Mrs. Ramsay expresses a different view, however, one of the shielding and inspiring force, that â€Å"To pursue truth with such an astonishing lack of consideration for other peoples feelings, to rend the thin veils of civilization so wantonly, so brutally, was to her so horrible an outrage of human decency that, without relying, dazed and blinded, she bent her head as if to let the pelt of jagged hail, the drench of dirty water, bespatter her unrebuked† (32). Mrs. Ramsays concern is mostly of a social and relational aspect, creating an atmosphere which provides comfort and inspiration for others in the novel. These two main and obviously opposing personalities are met in the middle by numerous character elements contained within the children and within Lily Briscoe. Woolf makes an effort to explore and, at times, refute certain arguments which could resolve the conflict between the two views. She makes it perfectly evident that the marriage of these concerns to one another is not an answer as she explores the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay. She also explores this connection through younger characters, Minta and John. The dominance of one over the other in any way makes the other dependent and weak, wasting each other instead of working together to meet a goal. The oldest children who follow in their parents footsteps are also led to their demise, concluding that both ends of the spectrum are destroyed. Prue Ramsay dies in childbirth one year after her â€Å"happy marriage†, â€Å"Which was indeed a tragedy, people said, everything, they said, had promised so well†, while her brother, Andrew, dies in the Great War, signifying mans intellectual idealism bringing on his own destruction (122-3). Clearly, Woolf is assuredly making a point that these roles do not provide the answer to life, and in fact, will destroy the life itself. These deaths bring about the importance of life and the importance of living it the way it is most productive and beneficial to both the individual self and the social realm. Fisher believes it is crucial to the search to Woolfs meaning, â€Å"Yet in its destructive capacity, death also guarantees the defeat of these searches for a stable absolute that can resist time (96). This search for an ultimate meaning once again has risen to the top of the novels concerns and attempts, where marriage has failed, to unite the two ends in a balance. Fisher, however, believes that Woolf has twisted the traditional find into something much more complicated and confusing. She suggests that â€Å"Although the goal is unattainable, the novel portrays that the effort to reach such a goal is heroic† (101). On the contrary, it is evident that the process itself, the struggle for balance of self and others, is the meaning- leading to the answers which Woolf has struggled to convey, as Fisher claims, â€Å"What life means finally cannot be separated from how it achieves meaning† (102). In this, the readers see Woolfs call for moderation and the essentiality of productivity of the human self. While Mrs. Ramsay attempts to keep windows, perhaps windows of communication, open, she finds a problem- â€Å"Every door was left open† (27). This over-production of communication leaves her unable to express herself privately, because she is too open to giving and letting others into her personal realm. Mrs. Ramsays inability to have a private self eventually leads to her death, leaving Mr. Ramsay unable to produce without her muse-like inspiration. In this sense, their marriage was a failure because neither could either relate to their private selves nor social atmospheres in the long run, and were left completely lost or destroyed. In addition, their way of life created a detrimental role model for the other characters that they influenced in their respective strength, therefore, they passed on and created a chain of destruction which is represented in both failed relationships and in the advent of the war. The salvation of relationships and the meaning of life then becomes an important part in the discovery of self and others and the dynamic of these in these two particular novels. Characters who alter or cross these heavily prescribed boundaries in the spectrum become closer to achieving the important communion between self and others. Lily Briscoe is a prime example of this androgynous and balanced self. She, unlike other characters, finds herself closer to the realization of lifes meaning through her experience with the Ramsay family. In â€Å"Virginia Woolfs Quest for Equilibrium†, Nancy Topping Bazin notices that Lily has grown closer to this realization because of her struggle to deal with the death of Mrs. Ramsay. She recalls that â€Å"Mrs. Ramsay has died and Lily is longing and crying out for her. But then, having successfully pictured her again in her minds eye, she suddenly longs for Mr. Ramsay, for she wants to share her vision of Mrs. Ramsay with him† (311). Lily, through her ambiguous nature, has come the closest in the novel to answering the question of life. She is struggling to find her place in life and her attempts at great artistry can be seen as attempts at immortality, a desire to continue influencing life long after her end through painting. This type of communication is similar to Clarissa Dalloways idea that she is part of everyone and everything she has known or come into contact with throughout her life. However, Lily also acknowledges the limitations of this ambiguous communication- â€Å"It would be hung in the servants bedrooms. It would be rolled up and stuffed under a sofa† (158). It is perhaps indicative of the importance of the social realm of art which is something that is a personal expression of the self. This recognition of the importance of both areas of being is a clear sense of revelation, in which Lily finds herself completing her work of art; however, she does it with great difficulty. Cam and James, portraying the future of the novels characters, are also foreshadowing an attempt at a balance of self and others. Both are intimately connected to their mother in early life, who is representative of the social side of the spectrum, while it is seen that there is an extremely broad rift between Mr. Ramsay and these two children. Woolf writes, â€Å"But they vowed, in silence, as they walked, to stand by each other and carry out the great compact- to resist tyranny until death† (163). However, they are both influenced by their father and his representation of individuality embodied by the poetry line, â€Å"We perished, each alone† (191). This clear sense of individualism and responsibility for self is something which tips the scales into balance towards the end of the novel, as they travel towards the lighthouse. According to Cousineau, the lighthouse contains both the â€Å"male† features and â€Å"female† features, perhaps again granting it an androgynous status. Cousineau claims that Woolf purposefully did this in order to grant the reader a glimpse into the answers of life, somewhere no one has thought to look in a dominantly patriarchal society, â€Å"In place of unified and coherent subject and linear time, she insisted on fragmented moments of subjectivity lived simultaneously in the present, past and future† (Cousineau 56). This look at the meaning through a different angle gives Woolf an advantage in exploring this idea of self in a new way, which perhaps is symbolic of the way in which people receive the meaning in life. Woolf does not play the part of the omnipotent narrator and leaves much open to question; however, in doing so, she explores many options without assuring a particular answer, something which would become as problematic as the opposite spectrum beliefs of Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay. In this sense, it becomes the way of thinking and finding which becomes most important in the discovery of life and meaning in self. Woolf attempts to create her characters in imitation of the life that one lives, not in a timeline, therefore the central balance is necessary for the reader. Unfortunately, it is unable to be pinpointed exactly because it is no longer on a linear spectrum. This leaves the quest for enlightenment in life and death to be the actual fulfillment of self, because it is easily recognizable that nothing more than death is in store for us all in the end. Fisher describes this idea when stating that â€Å"The valorization of process arises from the novels awareness of temporal inevitability and a teleology that leads only to death† (101). Mr. Ramsay also becomes an important figure in this discovery, because while he is formerly an agent of individuality, he must learn after Mrs. Ramsays death to adhere to relational needs for himself and not have them provided for him. This, while apparently difficult at first, connects Mr. Ramsay with his children and gives him an ultimate sense of balance which promises a new future for his children and for himself. As they approach the lighthouse, Mr. Ramsays children, although reluctantly, seem to be affected by his presence, â€Å"for she was safe, while he sat there; safe, as she felt herself when she crept in from the garden, and took a book down, and the old gentleman, lowering the paper suddenly, said something very brief over the top of it about the character of Napoleon (191). His sense of security comes with the balance of Cams social characteristics and her yearning for the individual intellectual atmosphere which she so seems to crave from her father. James also seems to acknowledge his fathers praises, although they must reach the island of the lighthouse before this can happen. Woolf conveys this by writing, â€Å"He was so pleased that he was not going to let anyone share a grain of his pleasure† (206). Although in the end they leave the island of their childhood to arrive with their father at the tower, they do not leave without the effect of the origin of their being. The relational need of humans is evident, even when needing to express their individual selves. Woolf has deftly maneuvered to supply the reader and her characters with what Matson called â€Å"subversive keys† to her vision of life and it’s meaning (164). This balances the crucial nature of both relational and individual exploration and dependence. In order to live and live fully, one must develop these parts equally, for each is vital to the others success. This idea is explored in both her primary novels, Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse. Through this reading one can interpret Woolfs use of the inner thought and relationships of her characters, as well as her use of ambiguous characters, as demonstrating the need for a balance in ones relations with the self and with others in order to find true happiness in life.