The Power of Free Indirect Discourse in Mrs. Dalloway

            After reading the first three chapters of The Sun Also Rises, I was, quite frankly, relieved. Compared to the maddeningly complex sentence structure in Mrs. Dalloway, which I was only able to fully parse at a rate of thirty seconds per sentence, Hemingway’s clear cut sentences were gifts from heaven, and reading Jake’s narrative induced a sort of drugged, euphoric sensation in my brain. Needless to say, if I had to choose one to read on my own, The Sun Also Rises would be the obvious choice.

            Reading the books in an English class, however, with daily discussions and debates, changed things. Mrs. Dalloway, once an impenetrable mess of semi-colons, near run-on sentences, and confusingly unrelated thoughts, started to become a little more accessible, and I found to my surprise that it actually contained a lot of valuable insight. The idea of Septimus and Clarissa making up two halves of the person, for example, is one that I would never have considered, but is actually quite eye-opening. From the point of view of someone who goes through Bipolar Disorder or something similar, such as Virginia Woolf herself, I imagine that they might feel that each of their alter-egos is really a completely different person, and that neither version of themselves should be judged by the actions of the other. In fact, many people with multiple personality disorder who have committed crimes when one particular personality is dominant but are normal, law-abiding citizens when the other is dominant have argued this very point.

Another example of the power of Woolf’s free indirect discourse was her criticism of the accepted treatment for the mentally ill in England in the 1920s. By describing Septimus’s most intimate thoughts, we see that his reality is fundamentally different, and that the simple treatments prescribed by Dr. Holmes and Dr. Bradshaw were in fact grossly inadequate. Even more interestingly, the reader is the only person who truly understands Septimus, with the possible exception of Rezia, and we see that although he is perceived by many as simply insane, he actually has a lot of extremely deep and profound thoughts, thoughts that are even described by Rezia as “beautiful.” This phenomenon is something that I would never have expected, and it was only through free indirect discourse that Woolf was able to portray it accurately.

Although Mrs. Dalloway was often hard to understand, I think it was definitely worth taking the time to unravel, as it allowed us to really get into the heads of the characters, and led to a lot of profound realizations that I never could otherwise have gotten.

The Mezzanine - A Tale of the Ultimate Passion

When I first started reading The Mezzanine, I was expecting a book that followed the normal plot line, suspense increasing until we reach a climax, after which the tension is resolved. After two or three chapters, however, I began to suspect that Baker was not merely setting the scene for some future event, and I resigned myself to 135 pages of unnecessarily meticulous description of the lunch hour of an ordinary guy who I didn't even care about.

As it turns out, I was in for a bit of a surprise. Baker’s narrative was insightful, engaging, witty, and altogether remarkably enjoyable. How, then, was he able to create such a successful novel with such a seemingly humdrum vehicle to drive his plot? There were many factors, of course, that played a part (e.g. his juxtaposition of arcane adjectives and run-of-the-mill objects, or his use of footnotes to allow the reader to really experience his train of thought), but I think the one that truly lifted The Mezzanine to its current status as an extremely successful experimental novel is Baker’s, or rather his main character, Howie’s, relentless passion for absolutely everything, no matter how prosaic.

From the very first page, his passion for escalator rides in the sun spills over into the first footnote, as he proclaims that he “loves the constancy of shine on the edges of moving objects.” Such observations of the various undocumented aspects of day to day life continue throughout the rest of the book, and his devotion to detail often brought up vivid memories that I never knew I had. Another thing that really emphasized the passion he had was his extensive research on questions that I had never thought about, but also didn’t know the answer to myself, such as why shoelaces snap, or why some plastic straws float. I often found myself trying to improve upon his hypotheses, and that lead me to read more and more. Even things he talked about that I couldn’t relate to, such as records or CVSs, were interesting, and his passion for each one came across in spades.

All in all, while this wasn’t exactly what I expected at the beginning, I found that reading it a few pages at a time prompted some really interesting ideas, and not only did I enjoy the book, but I also learned a lot. I have a feeling that future readers, while perhaps not understanding everything he discusses from the 1980s, will still be able to connect with and appreciate his passion, and will find themselves intrigued by the myriad viewpoints and theories he postulates.