1
MRS. DALLOWAY VIRGINIA WOOLFS REDEMPTIVE
CYCLE

• by Douglas L. Howard
• Literature Theology, 12. 2 (1998) 149-58.
• Presented by
  Sarita Chuang

2

• Virginia Woolf was taught from a very early age
  to deny religious dogmatism and to reject the
  spiritual offerings of Christianity.
• (Howard 149)
• 1893, Agnostics Apology by Leslie Stephen
  (Howard 149)

3

• Christianity and the Bible, with its patriarchal
  power structures, were unacceptable alternatives
  to her in this ongoing spiritual journey. (Howard
  149)
• Her consistent use of Christian symbolism
  Biblical history in her novels suggest that they
  provide her with a point of departure through
  which she could define the nature of her own
  beliefs. (Howard 149)

4
The Edenic State

• the state of youth and human potential, the equal
  capacity for future greatness or failure that is
  fulfilled through the exercise of choice and that
  exists beyond the confines of death and time.
  (Howard 150)
• ex.) Elizabeth Dalloway
• The young Septimus Smith

5

• The limitless potential of youth, for some of the
  other characters in the novel, is connected to an
  actual Earthly Paradise. (Howard )
• ex.) Lady Bruton daydreams of her childhood in
  the fields of Devonshire
• ex.) For Peter Walsh and Clarissa, the Eden that
  they would recover is recalled through comparable
  visions of Bourton. (Howard )

6
Oneness

• If solitude isolation constitute existence in
  the fallen world, then the Edenic state is
  defined by the union or communion of
  consciousness into oneness
• (Howard 151)

7

• That summer at Bourton brings together a group
  of distinct personalities with different
  backgrounds. (Howard 151)
• The dreary loneliness of the present
• The group is reunited in Edenic oneness in
  Clarissas party.

8
The Fall

• for Clarissa
• her fall into experience loss of
• innocence (Howard 153)
• the First World War (Howard 153-54)
• Along with the loss of potential, the fall
  initiates the unrelenting progress of time.
  (Howard 154)
• another kind of falling The protagonists
  descend into a world of isolation and into a
  sense of modern alienation. (Howard 154)

9
Christ Christess

• Septimus Christ comes to repair the damage that
  is caused by the fall.
• ? Death is not the end of life.
• (Howard 155)
• The figure of Christ is not only split, but
  feminized. In the final scene, Christ becomes
  Christess. (Septimus vision completed by his
  double Clarissa. He dies so that Clarissa may
  live.) (Howard 156)