A Worthy Book?

What makes a book valuable, I believe, has nothing to do with its prestige or its inclusion of many long words and confusing messages. For me, the merit of a book should always be judged by how people experience it—did they love it? Did the book impact their life or change the way they think? Do they still think of, or re-read every now and then, the story? Did the book make them smile or keep them entertained on a long airplane flight? Do they read this story to their kids or their younger siblings?

That being said, sometimes the merit of the book can be judged by how it gives the opportunity to learn about literature from a more analytical perspective. Fortunately, I would say that Mrs. Dalloway is a genuinely enjoyable read, holds a lot of personal meaning to me, and is a book that can hold academic meaning for an AP student.

According to the College Board’s AP English Literature and Composition Course and Exam Description, the six “Enduring Understandings” of AP Lit are as follows: character, setting, structure, narration, figurative language, and literary argumentation. The successive question: is Mrs. Dalloway really a book of “AP merit?”

Characters in literature allow readers to study and explore a range of values, beliefs, assumptions, biases, and cultural norms represented by those characters.*

From the many perspectives included in Mrs. Dalloway, the reader is able to experience the stories of a wide variety of people—some of whom I’ve spoken of at length in previous posts, like Clarissa Dalloway, Sally Seton, Septimus Smith, and Peter Walsh. The analyses I provided previously should be enough to prove that the characters in Mrs. Dalloway more than fulfill the definition of literary character according to the College Board. From Clarissa to Septimus, from Sally to Peter, we can certainly “study and explore” a true range of people. A comparison of Clarissa and Septimus, for example, allows for an even deeper understanding of character. 

Clarissa and Septimus both suffer from debilitating moments of despair/depression and an enigmatic sense of erraticness. However, they differ in many ways—one being what they value most. Clarissa values even the simplest moments in life and the people she loves. Her biggest fear is death. Meanwhile, Septimus is primarily burdened with psychosis, making it unusually difficult for him to appreciate reality in the way that Clarissa does. His biggest fears are related to his hallucinations and are probably rooted in his persistently permeating guilt and PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). He is unable to fully value the people he loves, like his wife Lucrezia, because of his debilitating mental illnesses. Clarissa believes in mindfulness and in society. Septimus believes in black and white—that life revolves around the clearly divided question; whether or not he is able to experience emotion, post-PTSD. 

Clarissa represents the cultural norms expected of the upper class; while she genuinely enjoys giving parties and being a hostess, the expectations of her and the drama of upper-class society weigh on her shoulders. At her party, she is both exhilarated by her role as hostess and distressed by the innumerable moving parts and responsibility associated with putting on a successful high-class gathering. Septimus was raised with little money and grew up as a mousy academic, but made a name for himself in the army and served with distinction. He and Lucrezia are not members of high society—rather, they live in a small apartment and Septimus is unable to work, while Lucrezia makes hats. 

Similar to Septimus, Sally Seton grew up without a penny to her name but managed to become well educated due to her family ties to the upper class, including Clarissa’s maiden family. As a result, Sally identifies with radical economic ideology. With Clarissa, she creates a communist publication with plans to build a commune! Meanwhile, Peter Walsh is a bit critical of radicalism and is generally disdainful of politics, remaining mostly apolitical, having experienced the privileges associated with growing up as a wealthy, white, English, man. The assumptions and biases each of these characters depict are not inherently negative, rather, Woolf demonstrates the impact that a real-life person's upbringing and identity can have on their worldview. 

Setting and the details associated with it not only depict a time and place, but also convey values associated with that setting... Comparisons, representations, and associations shift meaning from the literal to the figurative and invite readers to interpret a text.*

My favorite setting imagery in this novel is located on the very first page when Clarissa opens the story by reflecting on her days spent as an eighteen-year-old at her family’s home in Bourton.

For so it had always seemed to her, when, with a little squeak of the hinges, which she could hear now, she had burst open the French windows and plunged at Bourton into the open air. How fresh, how calm, stiller than this of course, the air was in the early morning; like the flap of a wave; the kiss of a wave; chill and sharp and yet (for a girl of eighteen as she then was) solemn, feeling as she did, standing there at the open window, that something awful was about to happen; looking at the flowers, at the trees with the smoke winding off them and the rooks rising, falling...**

The setting of Bourton communicates immediately Clarissa’s tendency to dwell on the past and creates an emotional paradox—the imagery is incredibly beautiful and very positive, drawing the reader to visualize the “kiss” of summer morning air and the youthful, dramatic, and anticipatory emotion Clarissa associates with this moment. However, this positive imagery is contrasted with the assertion that Clarissa felt as if “something awful was about to happen.” The positive connotations associated with the imagery of Clarissa at Bourton are overwhelming—the “flap of a wave,” the “kiss of a wave” brings to mind a wonderful picture of floating on one’s back in a calm ocean, a figurative ocean which one figuratively “plunged” into along with a young Clarissa Dalloway, full of expectations which were not altogether positive. This complex use of figurative language invites the reader to interpret and analyze the story. 

The arrangement of the parts and sections of a text, the relationship of the parts to each other, and the sequence in which the text reveals information are all structural choices made by a writer that contribute to the reader’s interpretation of a text... A narrator’s or speaker’s perspective controls the details and emphases that affect how readers experience and interpret a text.*

The unique structure of Mrs. Dalloway is formed in typical Virginia Woolf style: stream of consciousness. The book moves, without chapters or frequent page breaks, through the thoughts of a multitude of characters. As discussed above, this allows readers to explore a range of perspectives and to compare and contrast various characters. Additionally, the blurring of time, as Clarissa moves between observing the present moment and reminiscing about her past, all throughout the course of a single day, makes some things seem distorted. This creates a commentary on the ambiguousness of time, particularly how time is experienced irregularly by people with mental illnesses like Septimus. 

The variation of narrators’ perspectives brings to attention the fact that the narrator’s biases and individuality have an impact on how they view the world, which very effectively teaches a reader about these important concepts. How Clarissa views Peter Walsh is not how Peter views himself, and vice versa. 

The main takeaway from this post is that Mrs. Dalloway is an inherently valuable book. It has taught me a lot both in the academic sense and in my personal life. Being able to relate to or learn from the experiences of Clarissa and Septimus, in particular, has been especially impactful. The character foil formed by the two of them has led me to further introspection about how I perceive the world and how my brain works or has worked in the past. Having this experience with a book that can also be deemed “of merit” by the academic world is certainly convenient, for one thing. Furthering my understanding both of literature and myself is one of the things that I genuinely value. A book that can move me to tears and to a better understanding of literature is, I would certainly say, a good book!

Works Cited

*“AP English Literature and Composition: Course and Exam Description.” AP Central, College Board, https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/pdf/ap-english-literature-and-composition-course-and-exam-description.pdf. Accessed 24 3 2021.

**Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. Harcourt, 1925.