The Unwitting Anarchism of "Mrs. Dalloway"

• Published in: Woolf studies annual 2013-01, Vol.19, p.123-145
• Main Author: McGuigan, John
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Analysis; Anarchism; British & Irish literature; English literature; Novelists; Woolf, Virginia; Woolf, Virginia (1882-1941); Works
• ISSN: 1080-9317

The novel was the obvious lodging, but the novel it seemed was built on the wrong plan. [...]rebuked, the idea started as the oyster starts or the snail to secrete a house for itself. (£4 550) Though her diary notes indicate that with Mrs. Dalloway she wanted to "criticise the social system, & to show it at work, at its most intense" (D2 248), Woolf did not explicitly identify the "idea" animating Mrs. Dalloway to be anarchism- she does not identify the idea at all-nor do any of the novel's characters explicitly pursue or promote anarchist political activity, though Clarissa, Sally, and Peter all held radical socialist opinions as young adults. [...]the more one reads of anarchist philosophy, the more one finds it limits the range of activities, because paramount is the idea that the individual is entirely responsible for the consequences of her actions. Though her "narrow bed" is a source of emotional sorrow for Clarissa, it is also a retreat and "welcome escape" that maintains the "privacy" of her soul. [...]a marriage where each individual is granted a degree of independence and agency, yet a share in the safety and comfort offered by the union, seems like the sort of free-will association that anarchism promoted: [...]though Clarissa has clearly abandoned her seemingly anarchist goal of abolishing private property, she has come to recognize the fates of all individuals as inextricably linked and to move somewhat closer to embodying the ideals that informed such utopian fantasies: as the novel closes, she has exceeded all institutional labels and categories.