This Pocket of Still Air

"One of the triumphs of civilisation, Peter Walsh thought . . . as
the light high bell of the ambulance sounded" (151).

Points for Reflection

"The Introduction" (c.1925; 1973)

1. Though this tale does not provide details about Lily Everit’s essay on “the character of Dean Swift” (184), we can assume her argument concerns Jonathan Swift, the fiction writer and satirist who was dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin for over three decades (1713-45).  Swift drew attention, most famously in “A Modest Proposal” (1729), to the desperate conditions in which many of the working class in Ireland lived. Given what little we can gather about Lily from this brief short story, what might have prompted an essay on the character of Swift?
2. How long does Lily Everit manage to hold onto her new confidence following the praise of a professor?
3. Does Lily carry her essay about Swift on her person throughout this evening?
4. What is “the whirpool” that Lily fears entering?
5. Does Lily feel like her genuine self, as if she’s finally coming into her own, as she moves through the party in Mrs. Dalloway’s drawing-room?
6. Do the architectural achievements of men inspire or intimidate Lily?
7. What does Clarissa Dalloway feel as she introduces Lily Everit to Bob Brinsley, and what reflection on her own marriage does this moment provoke?  Does inclusion of this moment in a work of short fiction adjacent to Mrs. Dalloway help support, or counter, Haffey’s claims about the nature of Clarissa’s and Richard’s marriage (Haffey 45-47)?
8. Does Bob kill a fly?
9. What does Bob talk about after learning that Lily writes essays, not poetry?
10. Does Lily’s imagination return to the natural scenes idyllically described earlier in the tale (180)?

Mrs. Dalloway, pp. 94-194

1. Early in the novel, Clarissa thinks, “She would not say of any one in the world now that they were this or were that” (8).  Is this an accurate self-assessment?  Does she avoid making definite judgments about others?
2. do Dr. Bradshaw’s medical observations dovetail with or deviate from those of Dr. Holmes?
3. Is the novel's attitude towards the quantifying power of Time hostile, conciliatory, or resigned?
4. What of the narrator's own attitude towards Dr. Bradshaw and his theory of "proportion"?
5. Does Woolf take unwavering aim at the wealthy in this novel?
6. Are Hugh Whitbread and Richard Dalloway cut from the same cloth?
7. REDUX: do the glimpses we get of Richard Dalloway suggest a better man than the Richard Dalloway we met in The Voyage Out?
8. Woolf describes Richard’s and Hugh’s time together in terms of “tides of the body” (113).  What point is she making?
9. Do Clarissa and Richard care for one another equally?
10. What is the “supreme mystery” Clarissa believes neither love nor religion can solve (127 ), and do any other characters share her position on this issue? [Natalie K]
11. Does Woolf place Christianity squarely in her sights and fire away? Is her criticism of Miss Kilman, for instance, more about the ideology Miss Kilman represents than her individual character traits?
12. Is Elizabeth Dalloway her mother in miniature?
13. Does Clarissa delight in the same things in which Peter revels?
14. Is Clarissa right to imagine a connection between herself and Septimus?  Does the narrator provide ties between the two of which she remains unaware?
15. Why does Septimus commit such an irrevocable act as he does in today’s reading? [Hannah H]
16. What drew Lucrezia to Septimus in the past, early in their relationship, and what sometimes delights her about their relationship in the present?
17. What contrary responses does the ambulance evoke in Peter?
18. What theory did Clarissa generate in the past to account for the dissatisfaction many feel with not being fully, completely known (152)?
19. Is Peter correct in his assumption (155) that Clarissa was upset by his visit?
20. What is the “other thing” (156), the “it” (157) which comes so naturally, from Peter’s point of view?
21. What attracts Daisy to Peter?
22. Peter considers being content with isolation, “sufficient to himself,” yet recognizes “nobody of course was more dependent upon others” (158).  Does this contradiction apply equally well to Clarissa?
23. What does Peter mean when he tells himself he has difficult coming “up to the scratch” in romantic relationships (158, 159)?
24. Peter thinks British society does not press down quite so firmly on women as it once did, that they have more freedom of movement and thought (162, etc.).  Does the novel support his conclusion?  Do young women like Elizabeth and Lucrezia appear to have more autonomy than their older female counterparts?
25. What reactions does Ellie Henderson’s presence provoke at Clarissa’s party?
26. Does the appearance of Lady Rosseter (Sally Seton) alter your understanding of either Clarissa or Sally?
27. What does Peter mean by the thought that “rascals who get hanged for battering the brains of a girl out in a train do less harm on the whole than Hugh Whitbread and his kindness” (173)?
28. How has Septimus's experience in the Great War changed his perspective on life, art, etc.?
29. Is Clarissa a tragic heroine?

Kate Haffey's Literary Modernism, Queer Temporality (2019), chp. 2 (pp.31-48)

1. How does Kate Haffey’s reading of Clarissa’s and Sally’s kiss differ from that of other literary critics?
2. What image in Nature does Haffey adopt to illustrate what she calls “queer temporality,” and why?
3. The relationship between Elizabeth and Miss Kilman, described by Richard Dalloway as “a phase [. . .] such as all girls go through,” primarily concerns what according to K. Haffey’s reading?
4. Haffey configures this non-linear temporality that avoids the “easy division between adulthood and adolescence” as particularly queer.  Why?  Do you agree?
5. Haffey follows many other critics in suggesting that Clarissa has an epiphany soon after overhearing someone talk about Septimus (Haffey 44, 48).  Is this reading valid?  One way to approach this question involves analysis of Clarissa’s assumptions about Septimus, and whether she’s right to draw the conclusions she reaches.
6. Do you concur with Haffey’s close reading of a passage in Mrs. Dalloway that hinges on a semi-colon and the word “it” (Haffey 45-48)?

Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu