Woolfian Boundaries - Clemson University

WOOLF’S TRANSFORMATION OF PROVIDENTIAL FORM IN
MRS. DALLOWAY
by Emily Kopley
Woolf’s preliminary notes for Mrs. Dalloway specify that “Th e interview with
the specialist must be in the middle” (Small Dalloway Notebook, 9 November
1922). And indeed, Septimus Smith’s appointment with Dr. Bradshaw lies
halfway through the novel. Th e scene begins halfway through the day, as well, at “precisely
twelve o’clock” (MD 80). Th e question I would like to address is why this scene “must” occur
“in the middle.” Molly Hoff has suggested abundant mythical sources, such as Ovid, for
what she calls “the midday topos” of the novel (449). I would like to add to the sources Hoff
suggests one concerning not the classical literary tradition, but the Christian one.
Th at Septimus is a Christ fi gure is explicit in Mrs. Dalloway. Th at Bradshaw, an evangelical
Christian, condemns this Christ fi gure, is clearly hypocritical. Clarissa Dalloway’s disgust
with Bradshaw and with Doris Kilman, another self-righteous Christian, confi rms the novel’s
opposition to hypocritical Christianity. Th e spiritual stances of the novel’s main characters
are thus evident from the text. What is more subtle, and what I would like to show, is that
Woolf subverts the traditional Providential form to highlight Christian hypocrisy. In particular,
the noonday scene of Septimus’s condemnation to death fi nds a complement in Clarissa’s
midnight vision at the novel’s conclusion, in which she affi rms her own humanistic faith. By
working with the boundaries between morning and afternoon (noon), evening and morning
(midnight), Woolf stands on the grander boundary between tradition and innovation.
Septimus’s status as Christ fi gure, and Bradshaw’s as hypocritical Christian, merit brief
detailing. Early in the book Septimus is described as “lately taken from life to death, the
Lord who had come to renew society, who lay like a coverlet, a snow blanket smitten only by
the sun, for ever unwasted, suff ering for ever, the scapegoat, the eternal suff erer, but he did
not want [this identity], he moaned” (22). He is “aged about thirty” (12), senses “the birth
of a new religion” (19), clings to “miracles, revelations, agonies” (121), sees proverb-like
revelations (21, 58), and has “won crosses” (75). Woolf apostrophizes Septimus as one of the
“prophetic Christs” whom Bradshaw counsels (84) and as among “the exalted of mankind,”
“the criminal before his Judges…the Lord who had gone from life to death” (82). Further,
Septimus’s feeling that “human nature had condemned him to death” (77, and similar on
82) alludes to the book of Luke, which states of Christ that “the chief priests and our rulers
delivered him to be condemned to death” (24.20). Indeed, like Christ, Septimus is not recognized
by most people around him as prophetic, and sacrifi ces himself so that others—in
particular, Clarissa—may live happily. And fi nally, his visions are of promoting “universal
love: the meaning of the world” (57, 125), the most basic demand of Christianity.
By contrast to the Christ-fi gure of Septimus, Bradshaw is a Christian lacking Christian
spirit. He, like the priests and rulers who condemned Christ, fails to respect the divinity, or
at least the humanity in his midst. Bradshaw is a “priest of science” (80) and “worship[s]
proportion” (84), while seeking to convert others to his heartless breed of Christianity and