Regent's Park-- London

                                               

                                    

                                                      Old London Traffic

                                                     

                                                                        Encyclopedia Britannica

Westminister Street

"For having lived in Westminster--how many years now? over twenty, - one feels even in the midst of the traffic, or solemnity; an indescribable pause; a suspense (but that might be her heart, affected, they said, by influenza) before big bang strikes. There! Out it boomed. First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable... The most dejected of miseries sitting on doorsteps (drinking their downfall..."? (4)

I think, in this part of the story, Clarissa gives some important information about herself that somehow, despite life's uncertainties, she saw a way out. She also gives us a hint of the type of life which people in her social circle were living in postwar England. It says that the war's pressure was less jarring to people as time went by, and that before Europe was again fully peaceful, people had begun to ignore the insecurities which had engulfed the continent. 

                                                   From The Encyclopedia Britannica

The Bettmann Archive

""Look," she implored him, pointing at a little troop of boys carrying cricket stumps, and one shuffled, spun around on his heel and shuffled, as if he were acting a clown at the music hall."

  "Look," she implored him, for Dr. Holmes had told her to make him notice real things, go to a music hall, play cricket- that was the very game, Dr. Holmes said, a nice out-of-door game, the very game for her husband.” (15)

Here, Clarissa is trying to get her husband's attention, surely to arouse him into activity, something that the doctor had told her to do. But her attitude for me, says that she could be a difficult wife, perhaps because of her attention for Septimus. With her almost uxorious husband, she has every reason to take advantage of him with every chance. -- Well, that's just my response as I see it. Though the real intention is to help her husband.

It's interesting how the Indians took advantage of the English, and learned cricket even better than their Colonial bosses who had taught them the sport. Today in England-- cricket comes second only to Soccer. But it's India that it's most popular.

Image Source: Google

"No, this way-- over there! Razia exclaimed, waving her aside, lest she should see Septimus. both seemed queer, Maissie Johnson thought. Everything seemed very queer. In London for the first time, come to take up a post at her uncle's in leadenhall Street, and now walking through Regent's Park in the morning, this couple on the chairs gave her quite a turn; the young woman seeming foreign, the man looking queer; so that should she be very old she would still remember and make it jangle again among her memories how she had walked through Regent's Park on a fine summer's morning fifty years ago." (16)

This passage confuses me! Though it seems to be Clarissa and Richard go out,  and while Richard is trying to distract Clarissa from thinking of Septimus, she sees two people sitting in Regent’s Park, -- people she herself hasn't met before--but finds easy to speculate about what mode the couple are in, and what their future would look like."

Google Image-- No attribution

"They sat up tall all hours of the night talking. Sally it was who made her feel, for the first time, how sheltered the life at Bourton was. She knew nothing about sex-- nothing about social problems. She had once seen an old man who dropped dead in a field-- she had seen cows just after their calves were born."(19)

For the first time, Clarissa status as this rich, middle-class, out-of- tough, English lady came to light. All along she's been shielded from life's harsh realities. Then she meets Sally, who enlightened her about what life outside her world.

What struck me here about Clarissa's life, is the similarity I find between (though this is a work of fiction) her innocence as a person and the Buddhist's story about the Lord Buddha, who it's said didn't know suffering until manhood. 

                                                                  Image from here:
Herahttps://3353group4.wordpress.com/2013/07/07/intersections-of-literature-and-art-virginia-woolfs-mrs-dalloway/

"As a cloud crosses the sun, silence falls on London: and falls on the mind.... There we stop; there we stand. Rigid, the skeleton of habit alone upholds the human frame." 

I chose this image because I feel it best describes the tone here. I think the picture shows something of uncertainty which the author so clearly articulates here.

What comes to my mind when I read this, is nothing short of philosophy. I think the writer is profoundly philosophical in her description of the resilience of the human spirit. The mention of cloud, and crossing, and sun and silence-- bringing these powerful symbols together, she creates a kind of calamitous atmosphere that leaves the reader enchanted. But we see that she didn't stop there-- she goes on to include words like;" habit," "upholds" and "human-frame," which I think in many ways, strengthen the story and make it more meaningful.

Overall, I think the difficulties we find in Mrs. Dalloway’s novel, can be a powerful reflection of the life in postwar Europe. The war, to some considerable degree, weakened the British economy, and eventually shook the entire social structure. The effect is that, life became fragmentary, and people felt isolated.