Woolfian Boundaries - Clemson University

118 WOOLFIAN BOUNDARIES
appropriation allowed Woolf both to assert her place in the same tradition and to break with
it, arguing against self-righteous Christianity and rather in favor of the spirit of Christianity,
Clarissa’s “atheist’s religion of doing good for the sake of goodness” (66).
Brooks notes that in Robinson Crusoe, halfway through the book, Crusoe sees the
famous footprint. Crusoe writes that the time is “about noon,” and when he is “half Way”
between two places, he fi nds the footprint (Defoe 153). Brooks sees this discovery as “a
trial of Crusoe’s spiritual strength” (22). Crusoe fails the trial, but then spends the second
half of the book repenting and converting to Christianity—and converting others, most
notably Friday (see Brooks, 20-26, for a full discussion of the centre of Robinson Crusoe).
In Mrs. Dalloway, Septimus, like Crusoe, is spiritually tested at noon. But by contrast
to Crusoe, Septimus is tested by one who himself converts others. Woolf uses the sun as
an emblem for the converter, the judger, who is in her appropriation of Providential form
not Christ but the hypocritical Christian. In both cases, the intensity of the noonday sun
corresponds to the intensity of the judgment. Defoe uses the form to celebrate Crusoe and
Christian evangelicalism; Woolf to denigrate Bradshaw and the same. While in traditional
providential narratives, the hero is judged by Christ, here the enemy is judging Christ.
And like Robinson Crusoe, which abounds with concern for seeking a life in the “middle
station” and “middle State,” Mrs. Dalloway abounds with talk of “middle”s. For instance,
Woolf relates early on that the story occurs in “the middle of June” (MD 4), with June being
the middle month of the year. Further, when Peter regards himself as the “solitary traveller,”
he imagines that Clarissa dies, and that “the fi nal stroke tolled for death that surprised in the
midst of life” (43). Clarissa herself echoes Peter when she learns of Septimus’s suicide, and
thinks, “in the middle of my party, here’s death” (156). Th ese passages buttress Septimus’s
feeling of condemnation to death at the mathematical middle of the novel.
Yet the sun does seem to have multiple meanings. Th e sun is equated not only with
Bradshaw‘s harsh judgment of Septimus, but also with more positive sentiments. Jean M.
Wyatt has masterfully explicated how the sun motif represents life and death, and has also
suggested many literary and mythic allusions related to life and death throughout the novel.
Building on Wyatt‘s explication, I suggest that the contrary associations with the sun allow
for the possibility of resurrection, life-in-death. Th e proliferation of sun imagery leading
up to the middle scene of Mrs. Dalloway anticipates human-nature-come-in-judgment at
the clash of Septimus and Bradshaw. Septimus has a horrifying vision, early in the novel,
of the sun becoming “extraordinarily hot” (13) at a quarter to noon. And Clarissa repeats
over and over to herself the Cymbeline line, “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun.” Septimus too
echoes the line (118). Th e phrase “heat o’ the sun” suggests Septimus’s apocalyptic vision
and his noon feeling of condemnation to death by a representative of “human nature” who
“make[s] life intolerable.” By reciting the refrain, Clarissa and Septimus tell themselves no
more to fear others’ fatal judgment. Th e refrain alludes not only to death, but also to life
and rebirth. “Th e heat o’ the sun” suggests life at its peak. Right before Septimus leaps to his
death, he thinks, “Life was good. Th e sun hot” (127), equating the sun with affi rmation of
life. In Cymbeline, the line particularly refers to Imogen’s death, which is only temporary, a
“locking-up the spirits for a time, / To be more fresh, reviving” (1.5.40-42). So too in Mrs.
Dalloway does the line embrace life and death—in eff ect saying, “Fear no more the threat of
death,” “Fear no more the joys of life.” Neither death nor life need be feared if resurrection
is possible, as it is for Imogen and for Christ. Likewise, by provoking Clarissa’s profound