With such an intricate, interconnected "web" of characters in Mrs. Dalloway, I was surprised that after reading the novel in its entirety, we never get a clear glimpse of how Clarissa and Elizabeth interact. We mostly hear about Elizabeth from Clarissa's thoughts, but almost always her thoughts about Elizabeth are immediately usurped by her cloudy and intense feelings towards Miss Kilman. All we can learn from Clarissa is that she wishes she and Elizabeth were closer, and that she feels Miss Kilman is drawing Elizabeth even further away from her (leading to long complicated trains of thought about her feelings toward Miss Kilman that take up so many more pages than her thoughts about Elizabeth herself). The only other way for us to get more info about this mother-daughter relationship is by taking a look at Elizabeth's thoughts about Clarissa.
Our window into Elizabeth's mind is a small but deep one. The only time that we are immersed in her world is when she leaves Miss Kilman at the army shops and ventures out to the Strand, and she thinks, "For no Dalloways came down the Strand daily; she was a pioneer, a stray, venturing, trusting." From just this sentence, it becomes clear that Elizabeth has been raised as an upper-class schoolgirl (though you could have inferred this already) who has come into little contact with the lives of the larger working class. This probably accounts for her attraction to Miss Kilman as a mentor; I can imagine her listening to the story of Miss Kilman's life with wide eyes, experiencing a kind of culture-shock (or class-shock?) as she learns about Miss Kilman's lifestyle and her opinions on social class, just as Clarissa was fascinated by Sally's radical views when she was the same age as Elizabeth. I can see Miss Kilman serving the same role for Elizabeth as Sally did for Clarissa, and that is opening their eyes (Elizabeth's and Clarissa's) to new ways of looking at the world they've been living in for 18 years, and showing them things they hadn't noticed or even known about before.
I wonder if Clarissa sees or, more likely, feels (but doesn't realize) this connection between Miss Kilman and Sally that accounts for her complex feelings toward her. Clarissa even says "She hated her: she loved her" (170). On the other hand, Clarissa doesn't seem to realize that Miss Kilman might be helping Elizabeth, since she can't seem to get past Miss Kilman's religious devotion because of her own personal aversion to religion.
I actually started writing this blogpost with an entirely different direction in mind, but now that I've written myself here, I'm amazed by how many little connections there are all over the place in Woolf's novel; I didn't even see this one coming, but it makes sense right? This even goes back to what we were talking about in class today with the first panel presentation on Margaret Blanchard's "Socialization in Mrs. Dalloway," where we got to discussing about whether or not Clarissa and Septimus actually connected. Some people asked, how can they share a connection if they've never met? or if Septimus is dead? or if it's only a one-sided connection on Clarissa's part? I think that the connection lies in Clarissa's realizing that her circumstances and Septimus' circumstances are the same in some ways even though they come from completely different social classes and past experiences. Even if there is no "connection" made between the characters, we as readers are meant to understand the connection and see it from the unique context of having read the entire novel. The same applies here with Clarissa-Sally and Elizabeth-Kilman; the characters don't necessarily see the connection, but we do.
One thing that really intrigued me was the way Clarissa *acted* as if she was close to Elizabeth when she was in front of other people. For example, in front of Peter, she acts as if she is delighted to see her daughter and always calls her with the endearing "my Elizabeth." Perhaps this plays into the whole idea of her having to keep up the role of being perfect: a perfect hostess, a perfect wife, and in this case, a perfect mother.
ReplyDeleteI, too, saw the parallels that Woolf was drawing between the Sally-Clarissa relationship and the Elizabeth-Kilman one. I was almost surprised that Woolf didn't bring the similarities between the two up (but like you said, maybe this was because we were looking through the lens of Clarissa's perspective, who may not have realized the similarities). I wonder if maybe, subconsciously, Clarissa doesn't like Kilman because she is worried that Elizabeth might have feelings of confusion, like Clarissa had with her relationship with Sally.
Maybe the reason we don't get a clear glimpse of how Clarissa and Elizabeth interact is because they don't interact much at all. Elizabeth spends her days being tutored by Kilman, and Clarissa spends her days planning her parties. Also, Clarissa has been sick for some time now and probably didn't have much interaction with anyone then.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea that Sally is to Clarissa as Ms. Kilman is to Elizabeth in that they change the worldview's of Clarissa and Elizabeth respectively. But I don't think that Elizabeth and Kilman are as good friends as Clarissa and Sally ever were. Kilman is older than Elizabeth, and I think that there are one or two times in the book where Elizabeth expresses annoyance at Kilman's habit of always talking about her sufferings (133). That, and reading the uncomfortable tea time with Kilman and Elizabeth makes me think that Elizabeth doesn't enjoy Kilman's company as much as her mother thinks she does.
I think one of the only reasons Elizabeth is brought up as a character in the book is to give us more insight into Clarissa's own priorities. I think that her relationship with Elizabeth makes Clarissa look more shallow because Clarissa only thinks of Elizabeth when she's thinking of her hatred towards Kilman and when she's out shopping for gloves. I think the party at the end is also telling, because even though Clarissa runs around making sure to say hello to everyone she doesn't even notice her beautiful daughter who decided to come. Instead, it's Richard who is pleasantly surprised by Elizabeth's presence.
I agree with Kathryn that Clarissa seems to have an exaggerated sense of how influential Miss Kilman is on Elizabeth. When we see them together, she acts impatient to be rid of Kilman's company, and she seems to endure her attentions kind of like an impatient child. Then again, it's maybe also the case that Elizabeth *allows* her mother to assume she is closer to Kilman than in fact she is, to prod her a little. More than either of the two older women who fight over her attentions, Elizabeth seems enchanted with the idea of freedom and independence--boarding the omnibus on her own and riding past her usual stop, exploring the city, figuratively striking out on her own and leaving her mother's world (temporarily) behind. As teen rebellion goes, this is pretty minor, but there is something familiar in the dynamic.
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