Introductory Post/Descriptive Language

    Welcome to my blog about Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf! When I was choosing what book to read for this blog, I gravitated towards Woolf even though I didn’t know much about her, aside from the feminist nature of many of her pieces. Mrs. Dalloway is one of her more well-known publications, and it seemed like a good way for me to be introduced to her writing style while also doing work for this class. I went into reading it with no knowledge of the plot besides the summary on the back of the book, and so getting into both the plot, as well as her writing style, was an interesting experience. 

    For this post, I decided to mostly discuss my thoughts on her writing style, since it is one I don’t see very often, yet I enjoy. Immediately on the first page, she uses an immense amount of detail. I found it really fleshes out the plot, which I think is a very good choice, since this book takes course over a single day. The addition of a large amount of descriptive language and anecdotes that she incorporated make the book not only less dry to read, but also gives it a less linear timeline. While it definitely makes reading it slightly less easy, it also gives it a little bit of spice. 

    Before any discussion of language, I figured I should give at least some plot summary before I go too far and confuse anyone. The book opens with the main character, Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway, out to buy some flowers for a party she is having. As she walks, she meets an old friend and briefly talks with him, as well as reflects on her past. She remembers back to when she was 18, to loves she had in the past. She contemplates death and regrets she had, what she would do if she could live all over again. Much of the story isn’t written as Mrs. Dalloway goes about her day, but as she reflects on the past. 

    While obviously a massive simplification of the events of the first quarter of the book, I think that it gives enough context so that I can mention different quotes and language Woolf uses without completely losing the attention of whoever is reading this. 

    Virginia Woolf’s writing style immediately won me over, with the third paragraph in the entire book having beautiful prose, describing Mrs. Dalloway’s nostalgia for her life as a young woman. She writes, 

  

   “For so it had always seemed to her, when, with a little squeak of the hinges, which she could hear now, she    had burst open the French windows and plunged at Bourton into the open air. How fresh, how calm, stiller than this of course, the air was in the early morning; like the flap of a wave; the kiss of a wave; chill and sharp and yet (for a girl of eighteen as she then was) solemn, feeling as she did, standing there at the open window, that something awful was about to happen; looking at the flowers, at the trees with the smoke winding off them and the rooks rising, falling…”(1).

    It keeps going in similar detail, but I don’t want to have just a transcription of the book taking up the majority of this blog post. I think that this quote illustrates perfectly how beautifully and effortlessly Woolf can describe something in great detail without bogging down the smoothness of the book. Whenever I try and get descriptive with my writing, I always feel like it ends up clunky and obvious that I’m trying hard. I envy her ability to write with detail but keep the words coming naturally and allowing the story to move forward. 

    The imagery in that passage is so pretty and in my opinion, captures the feeling of reminiscing on the past. While I don’t have the experience of Mrs. Dalloway (being a fifty-something-year-old woman thinking back to her time as an 18-year-old - I’m not even 18 yet), most people can relate to the idea of yearning for something in their past, as she does. The level of beauty in her description, however, makes me wonder if she is viewing the world through rose-colored glasses. Lots of time has passed, and she is unsatisfied enough with her life that it makes me wonder if her past is as lovely as she remembers it to be. Of course, not all of the memories that Woolf reveals to us are quite as perfect as the introduction, but I think it was an interesting one to start with. 

    Throughout the book so far, Woolf has been consistent in the level of detail she uses. It reminds me of the writing style in the Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde - long-winded descriptions, but in the way that augments the plot, as opposed to making it more tedious. An example that immediately comes to mind is Wilde's description of a garden early in the book; I find Mrs. Dalloway is similar in the way that it incorporates large amounts of description into relatively short amounts of prose. 

    Another one of my favorite passages from the book so far (in terms of writing style) is on pages 30-31, and it reads, 

    “She began to go slowly upstairs, with her hand on the bannisters, as if she had left a party, where now this friend now that had flashed back her face, her voice; had shut the door and gone out and stood alone, a single figure against the appalling night, or rather, to be accurate, against the stare of this matter-of-fact June morning; soft with the glow of rose petals for some, she knew, and felt it, as she paused by the open staircase window which let in blinds flapping, dogs barking, let in, she thought, feeling herself suddenly shrivelled, aged, breastless, the grinding, blowing, flowering of the day, out of doors, out of the window, out of her body and brain which now failed, since Lady Bruton, whose lunch parties were said to be extraordinarily amusing, had not asked her.”

    Something that can’t be ignored about not just this passage, but the other I mentioned as well, is the length of her sentences. She heavily employs the use of commas, as well as the occasional semicolon instead of a period in her sentences, which is a choice most authors don’t make anymore. In modern literature, writers often favor shorter sentences, which makes the difference much more noticeable. Shocking sentence length aside, the way she describes Mrs. Dalloway’s feelings allows me, who isn’t her age (shocker), to understand her feelings toward herself as she grows older and changes. 

    The contrast between the descriptions within this passage is also worth noting. Woolf talks about the soft glow of rose petals, and soon after uses much more negative words, like “shrivelled” and talks about how her body and brain had failed. Her resentment towards herself for aging is brought to light here, in a way that is both beautiful and saddening. Woolf’s ability to use language to convey emotions that I’ve never experienced before is admirable to me, and so far, I am really enjoying her writing style. 

    I look forward to getting more into the book, for the development of characters and plot of course, but also because I just appreciate the way that Woolf writes. I normally don’t enjoy older books because of how tedious they can be to comprehend, but this book makes it worth it. Instead of just using long words for the sake of being fancy, she uses relatively common words in a way that allows the prose to be understandable but also eloquent. I can’t wait to find more interesting passages, and hopefully, once I get through the book I can have a better understanding of how to integrate detailed language and descriptive techniques more naturally and effectively into my own writing.