Free Mrs. Dalloway (Annotated) by Virginia Woolf

abroad, thirteen years later in
Three Guineas
.
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    London, the Party, and Life Itself
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    T HE EARLIEST reviewers of
Mrs. Dalloway
praised the way that Woolf’s novel brought London vibrantly to life. We can see this in London’s streets and shops and parks, where we receive distinct impressions of individuals from various walks of life, as they cross paths or share public spaces in the course of their day. There is a sort of mechanical vitality as well in London’s
well-run houses, monumental clocks, marching soldiers, measured and efficient medical consultations, newspaper editions, swift mail service, delivery vehicles, automobiles, and even the airplane that rises above it all, leaving a commercial message in the sky. As its central character, Mrs. Dalloway, having been ill, finds life precious, and fights the deadly effects of hate and fear with thoughts of connection. Her party, which culminates the novel, serves a concept of unity, which was precious to modernists and their interpreters, at least until postmodern concepts gained critical authority.
    Woolf was concerned that her central character might be too slight and artificial to stand at the center of her novel. Indeed, Clarissa has had her detractors, starting with Lytton Strachey, who found Woolf alternately laughing at her female protagonist and covering her with aspects of herself (
Diary
3: 32). Some recent interpreters see Clarissa as representative of a social class that Woolf subjected to satire. It is easy to discover Mrs. Dalloway in unflattering moments, where she may patronize her servants, exhibit snobbery in making up her guest list or ignorance in pondering Richard’s dealings with Armenians, or is it Albanians, when in fact the plight of the Armenians was desperate indeed (see notes, page 211).
    But Clarissa—or should we say Virginia Woolf?—does not give a trivial party. That parties get trivialized is in itself a political point. Parties are a form of domestic labor, in this case, of woman’s work. We find a female collaboration across class where the cook, the maid, and Mrs. Dalloway cooperate in production. Standing up to those who trivialize her efforts, Clarissa functions as the outsider within patriarchy, building a mood and sensing, with the beating back of a curtain, that the party itself finally takes life. The early Mrs. Dalloway of
The Voyage Out
and the present Lady Bradshaw can be seen operating very much in the service of their husbands’ careers, and Lady Bradshaw goes
under in the process. Mrs. Dalloway’s party is not centrally concerned with advancing her husband. Richard makes it clear that he could do without Clarissa’s parties, particularly if they put a strain upon her health. While the Prime Minister does make a much-anticipated appearance, Clarissa focuses elsewhere. Some sort of discussion between him and Lady Bruton takes place in a separate room, but we can hardly think this is of great significance, knowing the eugenicist nature of the idea Lady Bruton was advancing to the
Times
. Clarissa has invited the Bradshaws as part of their social circle, but she reserves the right to dislike them. There is a remote chance that by bringing Richard Dalloway and Bradshaw together on the evening of Septimus’s suicide, something may be done toward helping victims of shell shock. But Bradshaw is still an appalling snob as he scrutinizes the paintings, and so Woolf’s satire is sustained. This is not a group one leaves confidently in charge of the nation.
    The party includes some people Clarissa hadn’t originally planned on, and they make a difference. She invites Peter to attend after he shows up at her house in the morning. Sally Seton comes uninvited, when she finds herself in London on the evening of the party. Clarissa gives a last-minute invitation to her dull relative Ellie Henderson, providing Woolf with an outsider to offer her specialized perspective on the