Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Elizabeth Dalloway: the forgotten character?

So far in the novel, we have discussed in depth Clarissa Dalloway and her love life, Peter Walsh, Richard Dalloway (to some degree), Septimus, passing laypeople in the streets, but we have not yet addressed Elizabeth Dalloway, who has almost been portrayed as a background character, not as seemingly significant as say Septimus, Clarissa, and Peter. 

Clarissa seems to regard her daughter with some form of disapproval, stemming from their differences. According to Clarissa, Elizabeth does not "care a straw for either of them [Gloves and shoes]", which is mentioned in passing in the first few pages of the book. On that same page, we get a slight introduction to Elizabeth, but it seems to be tinted with Clarissa's resentment for her daughter who "cared for her dog most of all", and "went to Communion", spending large amounts of time with Miss Kilman. As we know, Clarissa is an Atheist, and her mention of her own daughter going to communion seems said with a note of disapproval. Elizabeth seems to reject all of the things that Clarissa holds in high esteem and bases her life around, like dinner parties, luncheons, flower arrangements, and clothing. She "does not care one bit" and it seems to irk Clarissa, but it is not mentioned again till much later in the book when Elizabeth leaves to go on an outing with Miss Kilman. There, we see a strong reaction from Clarissa to Miss Kilman and Elizabeth, saying that "love and religion" (seemingly what Elizabeth and Miss Kilman discuss) is "detestable! How detestable they are!". It is clear that Clarissa does not like Miss Kilman, who treats her with disdain, again going against what Clarissa believes to be proper etiquette. Clarissa is a polite upper class woman who acts courteously even when she doesn't want to, so Miss Kilman seriously offends her by her glaring hostility and feeling of superiority when she comes to take Elizabeth to the Stores. While this reaction to Miss Kilman and Elizabeth being in each other's company may stem from Clarissa's dislike of Miss Kilman, I think it also reflects Clarissa's disapproval of Elizabeth's choices. While she certainly still loves her daughter, Elizabeth is going out of her way to be different from her mother and it cannot go unnoticed by Clarissa and the reader. It is important to note, though, that those are really the only people who do notice: Clarissa and the reader. Clarissa seems to put up a front, reflective of all the other things she hides about her life to keep her public image, hiding her relationship with Elizabeth. When Elizabeth timely interrupts Clarissa and Peter, Clarissa exclaims "My Elizabeth!", and as noted by Peter to be insincere, she could have chosen to say many other things such as "Here's Clarissa!". Clarissa and Elizabeth's relationship seems to be one at a surface level, hidden by a thin layer of pretense, and covering a somewhat deeper mother-daughter love. 

While most of our picture of Elizabeth Dalloway is through Clarissa's eyes, we get a brief visual description of Elizabeth at the top of page 120, "For the Dalloways, in general, were fair-haired; blue-eyed; Elizabeth, on the contrary, was dark; had Chinese eyes in a pale face; and Oriental mystery...", before Woolf returns to Clarissa's opinionated view of Elizabeth. Even in her appearance, Elizabeth stands out from the Dalloways, reflective of her differing personality and interests to Clarissa's. Through Woolf's somewhat racially offensive description of Elizabeth (I detest the word "oriental" very much so), we continue to see themes of Elizabeth's nonconformity to her family. 

Overall, I am very interested to see whether we will receive more information on Elizabeth, especially that isn't clouded by Clarissa's disapproving view. I would like to see why she chooses to be different, her opinion of her family, and the way she sees the world around her. We have had short narratives from other characters through their eyes, and I will continue to hope that Elizabeth will be the next up to bat. 

3 comments:

  1. Elizabeth is a pretty interesting character from what we know of her so far. I think that she has a lot of ambition, which a lot of other upper class women at the time probably didn't have. I like that she wants to go and do something with her life, even though it is kind of a disappointment to her mother. I attribute her ambition to Mrs. Kilman, who started to show Elizabeth that there was more to the world. I think Elizabeth has a lot of potential to be an extremely compelling character later on in the book.

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  2. This is really interesting to think about! Her "conflict" with her mother resembles a lot like a mother's relationship with her rebellious teenager. I feel like the fact that Elizabeth is eighteen is emphasized throughout Mrs. Dalloway. Her defiance may be an incarnation of Woolf's sense of humor as she depicts Elizabeth as the "out of control teenager" while she is actually being a determined, religious young woman.

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  3. This is a really cool post! In a way, it seems like Elizabeth is similar to Clarissa when she was that age - she wants to get away from what she's grown up with, and forms deep attachments to women that represent that change. She just takes it in a very different direction than Clarissa did.

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