On Woolf’s Perception of Communication in Mrs.Dalloway

高玉榮

(天津中德應用技術大學，天津　300350)

Compared to daily chatting in social occasions，Woolf believed that the deep communication between souls was much more important.Woolf doubted the profundity of daily communication between people and what she advocated and appreciated was communication between souls and emotions.Disappointingly，communications between people even couples were superficial and lacked profundity.It could be demonstrated through the problematic communication between Richard and Clarissa.

In the eyes of their neighborhood，Clarissa and Richard were unified as husband and wife and in harmonious relationship.The family enjoyed celebrated social rank and well-off life and lived a happy life.Besides，Mrs.Dalloway was praised by her external action and appearance as a charming lady admired by both male and female friends around her “pleasant”，“gentle”，“charming” and “graceful”.Scrope Purvis，Mrs.Dalloway’s neighbor appreciated Clarissa’s personal charisma and thought Clarissa was like a lovely bird singing on a beautiful oak tree：“a touch of bird about her，of the jay，blue-green，vivacious and light”.Clarissa’s female friend Miss Blow admired her virtues as "charming manners".

However，many details of the novel revealed that such perfection and harmony were false impressions.Mr.Dalloway’s failure to have a comprehensive and deep understanding of his wife Clarissa，which can be demonstrated by the initial scene of the novel when Mrs.Dalloway went to the market in the morning.The sight of the jewelry store made Clarissa feel delighted as she had “an absurd and faithful passion，she feel like being part of the diamonds and the paste，to illuminate and shine in the middle of the night”.On the contrary，in the memory of Mr.Dalloway，his wife seemed to have no interest in such kind of things.Such words came to Richard’s mind as he saw Hugh bought his wife necklaces “he had never sent Clarissa a jewel；except a bracelet that she never wears it”.In other words，Mr.Dalloway failed to know Mrs.Dalloway’s inner mind.

Another evidence of lack of mutual understanding and real communication between Mr.Dalloway and Mrs.Dalloway was illustrated when being informed that Peter Wash’s coming back London from abroad，a sudden and overwhelming impulse to show his affections to Mrs.Dalloway occurred to him.Peter Wash was Clarissa’s lover when she was unmarried，whose visit reminded Mr.Dalloway of his lack of expressing feelings to Mrs.Dalloway.He recalled his marriage life in the past few years，Mr.Dalloway found that “they had not spoken to each other their feelings and affections for such a long time” and what made Mr.Dalloway more uncomfortable was that he found it difficult to "know her，except in starts，as at luncheon，when he saw her quite distinctly；their whole life." Mr.Dalloway nerved himself and bought a bunch of flowers on his way back home.Though Richard forced himself to tell Mrs.Dalloway “I love you” and rehearsed the phrase several times，he still couldn’t blurt the words out when he handed the flowers to his wife.

From the two examples mentioned above，there existed lack of emotional link and incapability of feelings and affections between Mr.Dalloway and Mrs.Dalloway.Communications between the husband and wife were superficial and lacked profundity.Therefore，it was justifiable to conclude that though the couple lived near and happily in the superficial sense，yet far and separated for a lack of communication between souls.

In the end of the novel，Septimus jumped out the window for privacy and Clarissa went into the salon for communication.This revealed Woolf’s attitude towards the two——t is both were important while making the best of both worlds was impossible.

Bibliography：

[1]Judith Allen，Virginia Woolf and the Politics of Language，2010.

[2]Virginia Woolf，The Common Reader，New York：Harvest Book，1984.