One thing that I have noticed when reading Mrs. Dalloway is all of the smooth transitions. If I get distracted for one moment, I look at where I’m reading and wonder who this new character is and how we got there. I find this somewhat surprising considering that each person we go to in this narrative, we see inside their head, and I would think that going from one mind to another would be somewhat jarring. However, Woolf makes it so that the jump from person to person isn’t harsh or sudden. Instead, she always makes a connection between characters, whether it’s the motorcar, the airplane, or just some brief interaction or thought connecting characters together. I think for me, I found the motorcar and airplane scenes to be an interesting connection point. It kind of felt natural how Woolf transitioned through all those characters quickly as people do tend to voice their opinions to each other when something strange or interesting happens and the airplane makes it so that all of those expressions and thoughts could be linked together. Even when it comes back to Mrs. Dalloway after her walk home, it flows well due to her asking “What are they looking at?”, bridging the people, who looking at the plane that connected them to the others watching the plane, to Mrs. Dalloway.
But something else that Woolf does that really allows the novel to flow is the passage of time. Instead of going back and recapping her walk home, which could have contained interesting thoughts and interactions from Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf keeps the novel moving with time. So, while Mrs. Dalloway is reflecting in her room, I’m sure the people who were watching the plane are still out there discussing it, but Woolf leaves them behind and doesn’t return later. It’s really interesting to think how carefully Woolf would have to plan these events, making certain things, like the plane and motorcar, are there to connect people for these transitions to occur, as well as choosing who she will follow at what time, and how she will eventually connect to them. I think part of this effect of weaving in and out of people’s minds is that it leaves you wondering what these people are doing after you have left them or have temporarily gone out of their thoughts. For example, I wonder what Mrs. Dalloway was doing that whole section where we were primarily following Peter, or even what Scrope Purvis is up to. And I feel like that’s a sense that we sort of get in life after we have seen somebody during the day and later kind of wonder what they are doing at this moment, but Woolf makes this effect even greater by giving us a glimpse into the minds of these people, which we don’t get in real life. As more and more characters get introduced and get more time in the novel, I wonder how Woolf will balance it all. With Mrs. Dalloway, Peter, Septimus, and Lucrezia, it will definitely be interesting how the narrative is balanced because, in this novel, time keeps ticking.
I think the transitions are one of the defining aspects of this narrative style, and they make the whole thing much more cinematic in scope. Even though this book came out in the early 1920s, when there were only silent films and no fancy techniques, it's really easy to picture how this would be filmed as a movie with transitions.
ReplyDeleteI think it is honestly really cool how the book does take place in real time. If we spend any amount of time with one character, another character might have already completed a task. The transitions I find to be borderline cinematic as one character pans to another on the page.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the other commentors who are saying that the transitions between characters in this book feel cinematic. Another thing I find really interesting is the ringing of Big Ben that lets us know what time of day the events are happening. This book keeps transitioning between characters and, especially when there are flashbacks, it can be difficult to keep track of time. The moments when Big Ben rings allow us to keep track of how much time has passed between events.
ReplyDeleteThe same thing happened to me while I was reading. I was often very confused as character transition happened, even if it made sense for it to happen, simply because of how smooth the transition were. I often had to reread the section to make sure I understood who the narrator was. I feel like the characters thoughts are blending together, except in the cases of very obvious transitions.
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