Woolfian Boundaries - Clemson University

Woolf’s Transformation of Providential Form
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celebration of life at the novel’s end, Septimus too endures.
I contend that Clarissa’s fi nal vision at the novel’s end off ers a response to Bradshaw’s
judgment of Septimus at the novel’s middle not only through Clarissa’s approval of Septimus’s
suicide, but also through the scene’s setting at midnight. Th is midnight timing
highlights how Clarissa’s vision affi rms life in answer to Bradshaw’s noon condemnation
of it. In Providential form, since noon marks the presence of Christ-come-in-judgment,
midnight marks the absence of such, and thus potentially the absence of meaning. Just as
Woolf subverts the form at noon by exchanging the roles of judger and judged, she subverts
it at midnight by granting Clarissa an affi rmative vision. While in Providential form, noon
marks the coming of Christ, who from a Christian perspective, gives life all its meaning,
in Mrs. Dalloway, midnight marks Clarissa’s triumphant revelation that people give life its
meaning. What prompts this revelation is Clarissa’s seeing that “in the room opposite the
old lady stared straight at her” (157). Clarissa has seen this lady earlier in the novel: “Why
creeds and prayers and mackintoshes? When, thought Clarissa, that’s the miracle, that’s
the mystery; that old lady” (108). Septimus, right before his suicide, has seen a very similar
sight: “He did not want to die. Life was good. Th e sun hot. Only human beings? Coming
down the staircase opposite an old man stopped and stared at him. Holmes was at the
door. ‘I’ll give it you!’ [Septimus] cried” (127, emphasis added). Septimus then leaps out
the window to his death. Th ese passages show the diff ering spiritualities of Clarissa and
Septimus. Septimus’s faith is not grounded on normal human interaction. Septimus does
not fi nd in the old man the humanistic faith that Clarissa fi nds upon seeing the old lady.
Clarissa, though she bears much affi nity with Septimus, is sane. Her faith is grounded on
experience interacting with other people. Hers is the faith in humanity Septimus might
have had if the war had not distorted it for him, and “human nature”—Holmes, in the
passage above, and Bradshaw at noon—confi rmed this distortion.
Th e old lady represents Clarissa’s and, I believe, Woolf’s own faith in humanity and
rejection of faith in a Christian God. So when Clarissa sees the woman again at the novel’s
end, she again celebrates the miracle and mystery of humanity:
In the room opposite the old lady stared straight at her! She was going to bed. And
the sky.… It was new to her [i.e. Clarissa].… She was going to bed in the room opposite.…
She pulled the blind now. Th e clock began striking. Th e young man had
killed himself; but she did not pity him; with the clock striking the hour, one, two,
three, she did not pity him, with all this going on. Th ere! Th e old lady had put out
her light! Th e whole house was dark now with this going on, she repeated, and the
words came to her, Fear no more the heat of the sun. She must go back to them.
But what an extraordinary night! She felt somehow very like him—the young man
who had killed himself. She felt glad that he had done it; thrown it away. Th e clock
was striking. Th e leaden circles dissolved in the air. (157)
Although Woolf does not say outright that this vision occurs at midnight, the triple mention
of the clock’s striking recalls the triple mention of Big Ben striking at noon. Nowhere
else in the novel does the clock’s striking merit three mentions. Further, the fact that Clarissa
exults when “Th e old lady had put out her light!” and “Th e whole house was dark”
(158) shows that total darkness, often associated with the midnight hour, is complicit