Mrs Dalloway 1173hierarchy of the day. The entire novel can be read as
a commentary on inter-war society and the inequi-
ties of property and social class.
The two main protagonists, Clarissa Dallo-
way and Septimus Warren-Smith, are at opposite
ends of the social scale: Clarissa is an upper-class
socialite, whereas Septimus, originally a clerk, now
a veteran and shell-shocked victim of World War I,
represents the self-educated, those discontent with
their lot and determined to rise above it: “one of
those half-educated, self-educated men who . . . had
gone to London.” He represents socially fragmented
postwar England, whose class divisions no longer
seem secure, opposing the old social order, depicted
in the novel through mainly elderly characters such
as Lady Bruton; Hugh Whitbread; and, to a certain
extent, Clarissa herself. This newly erupting social
order—which, ironically, had fought so valiantly to
preserve the old regime—now questions the very
values of patriarchal English society, which appears
to offer nothing to a postwar world: “[Miss Kilman]
pitied and despised them from the bottom of her
heart. . . . With all this luxury going on, what hope
was there for a better state of things?” The prime
minister himself, an embodiment of pre-war val-
ues and social hierarchy, is ultimately exposed at
Clarissa’s party as unimpressive and indeed almost
pathetic; “He looked so ordinary. You might have
stood him behind a counter and bought biscuits—
poor chap, all rigged up in gold lace.”
Clarissa is a misfit within her social class since,
although there are several references in the book to
her snobbery, she nevertheless comes to an under-
standing during the novel that happiness cannot
be measured simply by one’s position in society but
rather by an ability to see beauty in the mundane
and the ordinary, and to derive joy from such an
experience: “This was what she loved; life; London;
this moment of June.”
The visual presence in the novel of sleek, anony-
mous automobiles, whose occupants are inaccessible
to the general public, is used symbolically by Woolf
to represent the stifling confines of English upper-
class society—ultimately represented by the Royal
Family: “[G]reatness was passing, hidden, down
Bond Street, removed only by a hand’s-breadth from
ordinary people who might now, for the first time
and last, be within speaking distance of the majesty
of England.”
At the bottom of the scale, we see the lower
classes, conditioned over the centuries to admire and
respect their superiors. Clarissa, even with a social
conscience, is kind and generous to her servants and
yet cannot exist without them, thereby perpetuating
the system she purports to dislike. Her snobbery is
too ingrained to be so easily removed: “[T]he obvi-
ous thing to say of her was that she was worldly;
cared too much for rank and society and getting on
in the world.”
Miss Kilman, the impoverished companion/
tutor of Clarissa’s daughter Elizabeth, represents
a burgeoning socialist feminist movement, viewed
by Clarissa as sinister, unnatural, and ultimately
unpleasant: “Heavy, ugly, commonplace, without
kindness or grace.” Likewise, Clarissa’s impoverished
cousin Ellie Henderson inspires pity but at the same
time a certain distaste that she has to spoil a glitter-
ing party with her mundane presence.
The aristocracy is derided for its refusal to
engage with the present, its constant looking back
to the past, and its ability to turn a blind eye to
the suffering of those beneath them in the social
scale. Clarissa’s own daughter Elizabeth “had never
thought about the poor.”
In the characters of Clarissa, her husband, and
Peter Walsh, the novel exposes the dichotomy of
people who want social reform but at the same time
remain products of their upbringing and class, the
ideals of which they find hard to shake off. Richard
Dalloway, for example, admits that England has a
“detestable social system,” which, as a member of
the government he is working to improve. Nev-
ertheless, “he liked being ruled by the descendent
of Horsa; he liked continuity; and the sense of
handing on the traditions of the past.” For all his
socialist ideals, Peter Walsh still retains “moments
of pride in England; in butlers; chow dogs; girls in
their security.”
With the wealth of characters present in the
novel, Woolf reveals an entire social system in
microcosm, from down-and-outs on the streets of
London to servants; clerks; the well-to-do; the aris-
tocracy; and, ultimately, royalty.
Gerri Kimber