During the first panel presentation on Monday (9/11) we discussed how Woolf’s characters fight the patriarchy. Specifically, we discussed whether or not Clarissa marrying Richard and rejecting Peter was a direct hit against the patriarchy.
Personally, I do not think it was. First of all, from Clarissa’s perspective, it does not seem as though her actions are planned as a rebellion, but more importantly, I don’t believe Peter’s personality and lifestyle really fit the patriarchal mold.
From the beginning of the novel, Peter does not seem to match the “proper man” of the time. Sure, he has “nothing but the manners and breeding of an English gentleman,” as Clarissa describes him, but he also “married a woman met on the boat going to India” and has an odd habit of opening and closing his pocket knife (Woolf 6,8,39). Additionally, Peter, like Septimus, seems to lack the confidence and masculinity needed to succeed in the patriarchal world.
Also, similarly to Septimus, Peter does not bother hiding his emotions to match the stoically masculine image of a man. The section where this is the most noticeable is when he tells Clarissa he is in love with Daisy. “‘Millions of things!’ he exclaimed, and, urged by the assembly of powers which were now charging this way and that and giving him the feeling at once frightening and extremely exhilarating. . . he raised his hands to his forehead” (Woolf 43). In this situation, Peter is seemingly overcome by emotion and does not try to hide it (though one could, of course, say it is due to his familiarity with Clarissa).
On the other hand, Richard seems to be the perfect example of a polite, successfully masculine man. He is a politician, “happily” married for at least 18 years, invited out to lunch by a very politically active General’s great-granddaughter, and, possibly most importantly, he is rich. He is “made of much finer material,” as Lady Bruton says, though she is comparing him to “the admirable Hugh” (Woolf 101,5).
It seems to me, that, out of all the characters in the novel, other than maybe Hugh, Richard bears the largest resemblance to the proper patriarchal man. For this reason, I think it absurd that Clarissa would be fighting the patriarchy by marrying Richard. Quite the opposite, in fact, in my opinion, by marrying Richard and rejecting Peter, Clarissa is relinquishing her life to the patriarchy. There is no doubt in my mind Woolf has strong opinions on the patriarchal society as well as many other aspects of life depicted in “Mrs. Dalloway” and it would definitely be interesting to explore further whether Woolf intended to have Clarissa side with the patriarchy when she narrated her choice of Richard over Peter.
I have to agree with you- I think that Clarissa's marriage to Richard is a symptom, rather than a defiance. We several times see that Clarissa chose Richard for, among other things, his safety- Peter, with his unpredictable life, is far too dangerous for Clarissa's taste. In my opinion, this is very much a book about the ways in which a lifetime of patriarchal pressure has finally begun to collapse upon Clarissa, and interpreting her marriage to Richard as anything but one of many, many acquiescences to that pressure divorces the book from its core topic.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with your statement and that if it wasn't for the patriarchal society that Clarissa is living in, she probably would not have married Richard at all. Peter believed in Clarissa and thought that she was capable of doing much more than just sitting around sewing, and planning dinner parties. He was madly in love with her and even to this day thinks about her all the time. Although Richard does love Clarissa we don't see the same feelings toward Clarissa that we do with Peter. Their marriage is much more distant and very "normal". Richard brings home the money while Clarissa does the housework, Clarissa always has to "Mrs. Richard Dalloway, and Clarissa has to plan the parties for all of her husbands friends. If that doesn't scream patriarchy than I don't know what does
ReplyDeleteI don't necessarily agree with you that Peter doesn't fit the patriarchal mold: yes, he fiddles, but it's with his pocket knife, something associated with manliness. He has had many romantic relationships with women, and he doesn't seem to consider Daisy or the wife he met on the boat as whole entire people, he only conceives of them in relation to himself. The one exception to this is Clarissa for him.
ReplyDeleteI agree, however that Clarissa's rejection of him is not an act of defiance of the patriarchy: she accepts Richard because he is a far "better" match for her according to the social mores of the time, so she really just goes along with the patriarchy, not that she had a choice.
I agree that by marrying Richard, Clarissa is not outwardly defying the patriarchal society. In fact it seems that she is better fitting the mold of what is expected of her, she even considers herself Mrs. Dalloway, seeming to be an extension of Richard. Though Richard certainly appreciates and loves Clarissa, their dynamic is much different than what would've been with Peter and Clarissa. It could seem that Clarissa gave up Peter for a more "normal" life and to better fit society's mold for her.
ReplyDeleteIt's true that Clarissa's choice of Richard is more "conventional," as Peter himself puts it. And as a literal member of the British government, Richard couldn't be more fully aligned with the establishment. But the picture of the marriage that Woolf offers is surprisingly unconventional in a number of ways: Richard restricts Clarissa's freedoms recently, out of what seems like a genuine and well-founded concern for her health, but otherwise they lead quite independent lives. She has a "room of her own" (a very big deal for Woolf, the subject of her most famous essay about women writers and the need for social independence), and from what we can tell, her interest in parties is her own, something she's into that Richard is actually ambivalent about. This is her thing, and even if it takes a somewhat conventional form, her view of the parties' significance goes beyond the conventional.
ReplyDeleteNone of this, of course, amounts to a head-on challenge to the patriarchy. But there is a surprising degree of freedom in Clarissa's conventional marriage, which she's convinced she would *not* get with Peter.
I think calling her marriage "an Act of Defiance Against the Patriarchy" is a little to much, considering, as has been pointed out, it was very safe. However, I don't think that her marrying him was directly a result of the patriarchy and only the patriarchy. For me, those ideas are far too black and white. On the surface, if you could say one thing you picked up immediately about the novel it is that nothing is as it seems. Woolf makes it her goal to ignore the surface and explore what's beneath. As such, I think the only way to think of Clarissa's choice of Richard over Peter is by remembering she still had autonomy. Yes, society expected her to marry, but her choice in who she would marry, seems to be her own entirely (this is of course, barring those beneath her status). Ultimately, I believe Woolf did use her characters to fight the patriarchy but I think her ways of doing that were more subtle than in Clarissa's marriage.
ReplyDeleteWhile from a character-based point of view, I agree that Clarissa is not consciously opposing patriarchal society, but Woolf could very well be making a critique by writing this way. Even if there is absolutely no conscious effort on the characters' parts, their existence and actions could be Woolf's way of commenting on patriarchy.
ReplyDeleteHonestly I completely agree with this. I don't think Richard's at all masculine (think of his fear of saying I love you to his own wife), but the implications that marrying Richard had for Clarissa most definitely align with the patriarchy. She's been reduced to nothing but his wife, and it's because of this that I could never say choosing Richard was the act that defied the patriarchy.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Clarissa and Richard's marriage wasn't really a defiance of the patriarchy and was more of an acceptance of the societal norms of the time. Clarissa's decision on marriage wasn't really about the patriarchy, but more of a safe path. Richard was stable, rich, and supportive, and Clarissa wanted to make sure she had a smooth future. But I would argue that Richard and Clarissa did have somewhat of an unconventioanl marriage. They gave each other a lot more space than was usual, and were together in marriage but still had control of their own lives on a day-to-day basis. I think Clarissa took that aspect of Richard into account, as she mentions that she didn't like how Peter was always on her back about everything and she appreciated how Richard gave her the space she needed.
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