Kritik Sastra

 Name               : ALFITRI MAULINA

NIM                : 2317075

Class                : PBI- 3B

Text                 : “ Mrs. Dalloway “ (Virginia Woolf )

Theory             : FEMINIST CRITICISM

            Mrs. Dalloway, novel by Virginia Woolf published in 1925. The novel examines one day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, an upperclass Londoner married to a member of Parliament. Mrs. Dalloway is essentially plotless, what action there is takes place mainly in the characters consciousness.
The novel addresses the nature of time in personal experience through multiple interwoven stories, particulary that of Clarissa as she prepares for and hosts a party and that of the mentally damaged war veteran Septimus Warren Smith. The two characters can be seen as foils for each other. Mrs. Dalloway begins with Clarissa’s preparatory errand to buy flowers. Unexpected events occur a car emits an explosive noise and a plane writers in the sky and incite different reactions in different people. Soon after she returns home, her former lover Peter arrives. The two converse, and it becomes clear that they still have strong feelings for each other. In a moment of shared vulnerability, Peter asks Clarissa if she is happy. Before Clarissa can answer, her daughter, Elizabeth, interrupts them. The perspective shifts to Richard, Clarissa’s husband. In a fit of passion, Richard wants to run home and tell Clarissa he loves her. However, he finds himself unable to do more than give her fllowers. Clarissa acknowledges that she respects the gulf between herself and Richard, as it gives both of them freedom and independence while also relieving them of paying attention to certain aspects of life. The novel’s perspective shifts back to Septimus, who has been told that he is to be taken to a psychiatric hospital. Septimus would rather die than see himself inside such a place, so he throws himself out of a window and becomes impaled on a fence. Mrs. Dalloway, through its depiction of Clarissa and Septimus, who can be seen as foils for each other, and of the politial atmosphere in Britain during the 1920s, explores the fragmented yet fluid nature of time and interconnectedness of perception and reality across individuals and social spheres.

            Mrs. Dalloway is a nuanced novel that can be read and reread from various critical perspectives. Written in the stream of consciousness technique with a constant change of narrator, the novel present the reader with an opportunity to enter the minds and share the thoughts and actions of its characters. The reason for choosing the feminist criticism is because this novel is to bring out the female aspect, to evalute the representation of women and qualities that are commonly stated as feminine. I want to center this approach on three main topics, first is the social sphere, the authority exerted in marriage and the different kinds of sexism between men and women.

            For instance, at the beginning of the novel, Clarissa is told thather husband is going to attend a meeting with Lady Bruton. Instinctively, she feels a tremendous loneliness and digsust about it

“ There was no fumbling no hesitation. Sweeping and swerving, accurately,punctually, noiselessly, there, precisely at the right instant, the motor car stopped at the door“

She does not express it openly to Richard, she rather cares for her reputation and gets nostalgic about her past. She remember that she youth, because it was the time when she was truly free.

Nevertheless, when it comes to the authority that they have towards Elizabeth Dalloway, their daughter, both care of her equally. During that period, the mother was in charge of teaching good manners to their daughters whereas the husband had no kind of indoctrination towards their daughter because of her female gender. It can be illustrated by the thoughts of Richard when he sattes that

“ If he’d had a boy he’d said, Work, Work. But he had his Elizabeth “

This quote implies that as Elizabeth is a women, she cannot work as men would, but at least, her father acknowledge her with. As a woman, she is only allowed to know how to behave and socialize as her mother does, what implies, that all the education she received was centered towards marriage. The next character that i want to mention is Peter Walsh. He is Clarissa Dalloway’s best friend, and he keep respecting her, even after she rejects him when he reveals her his love. We know that he is a divorced man who has returned to his chilhood location by the thoughts of Clarissa, who feels sorry about him and his bad luck in love

“ What a waste! What a folly! All his life long Peter had been fooled like that, first getting sent down from Oxford, next marrying the girl on the boat going out to india , now the wife of a major”

As we can see, he is portrayed as a sensitive man who leads his life by his passions rather than his reason. In fact, this obsessive behavior can be understood as a necessity to marry in order to fill the void ofsolitude he possesses. He behaves as a conservative man who needs to marry to achieve a happy life, instead of breaking with those conventions and manage to be happy on his own. He always cares about both, her feelings and her opinions, rather than thinking of his own benefit and what is best for him. Next, I am going to explain the cases of Richard Dalloway and Septimus Warren Smith. In the case Of Richard Dalloway, he only cares for Clarissa in the same way as she cares of him, as a mere role that they have fulfil. They only expect that their partner maintains the composure in front of people so as to confrim the good status of their realtionship. Hence, in this case both objectify each other. Septimus, he objectifies her as he uses Lucrezia as a sort of remedy for his problem. He marries her even when he knows that he does not love her and he is significantly older than she is. However, he only cares about his own benefit and, as a result, he somehow feels that he is going to die because of the mischievous way in which he has behaved

“How he had married his wife without loving her, had lied to her, seduced her (...). the verdict of human nature on such a wretch was death”

The sexism between women is mostly portrayed by Clarissa Dalloway, she constantly criticies otther women, the way they dress, their behavior and she always compares them to her, particulary, both lady Brutton and Doris Kilman. In reality, as they are devoted to their passion for reading and politics, she feels inferior to them, although she is not able to recognize it. In fact, the main problem that Clarissa has with Lady Brutton is that her husband meets with her, instead of passing time with her actual wife. Similary, she compares to Doris Kilman and highly criticizes her because she passes a lot of time with her daughter Elizabeth. She describes her with some attributes such as the following

“Hot, hypoctrical, corrupt, with all that power, Elizabeth’s seducer “

In fact, both Clarissa and Doris Kilman are engaged in akind of constant argument for obtaining the affection of Elizabeth. With such behavior, unconsciouly, they objectify Elizabeth because they make their lives a competition is highly symbolic because, in my opinion Virginia Woolf is critiizing the attitude of those women who waste their time in devaluing the worth of others rather than trying to empower aech other. In fact, in this case, if Clarissa and Doris Kilman promoted an atsmpohere of sisterhood instead of rivalry, paradoxically, Elizabeth would obtain a better moral and intellectual education.

To conclude, the main intention of Virginia Woolf in Mrs. Dalloway is to offer a highly detailed depiction of the society of the beginning of the 20th century. This fact suggest that she wrote her work with an androgynous mind, as her style completely neutral. We can see how men were destined to the army with the only aim of becoming great officers to fight on behalf of their society, whereas women had to reamin at home, taking care of their children and other domestic issues. Furthermore, Woolf emphasizes the misconception of marriage as a social chain rather than either being a possibility, or at least, marrying with someone they truly love. Once again, she present a variety of such as married, unmarried or divorced. We can conclude that most of the couples were dominated by the male, which implies that women wetre submitted somehow to their husbands and limited to the household. However, the only ones who truly hold their whole authority without being bound to face any kind of social constraint were the unmarried women such as Doris Kilman or Lady Bruton. In addition, Woolf criticizes how marriage made people unhappy and imposed on them boundaries that psychologically oppressed them, and even in some cases, led them to commit suicide, as was the case with Septimus. On the other hand, she also implicity highlights that not only men promote the existence of sexism because, unfortunately, in some caseswomen also promote the kind of issue as we can see, essentially, with the senseless competition between Clarissa and Doris Kilman. The novel presents a significantly realistic contrast of feminism and sexism, which makes it particularly interesting.

BIBILIOGRAPHY

Ediyen, Agseora. Teaching materials foundation of literature. Bukittinggi, 2018.

Klarer, Mario. An introduction to literary studies. English, Routledge, 1999.

Hjersing, Charlotte. Representations of Clarissa and Septimus in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway. Spring, 2009.

Woolf, Virginia. Mrs Dalloway. London : Penguin, 1996. Print

Montashery, Iraj. “A Feminist Reading of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway.”

International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature. Web. 5 may. 2017.

Alvarez, Cristina Vallejo. Feminist Approach to Mrs Dalloway : Social Spheres, marriage and sexism. Universidad de Valladolid, 2016-2017. Jurnal