Here I’ve included content from the five sections of my master’s thesis. This project was submitted to The New School for Social Research, Liberal Studies program, on May 16, 2013. I omitted the scholarly research that encompassed the conversation within the piece, along with the original footnotes and citations so that the reader can get a sense of my writing style which can be relatable outside of the academic realm. My thesis is an analytical literary review of Oscar Wilde’s novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Virginia Woolf’s novel, Mrs. Dalloway.
Gray and Dalloway: The Temporality of Same-Sex Desire and the Self-Conceptualization of Youth, Beauty, and Aging
Same-sex desire (as demonstrated through homoeroticism), and beauty (as reflected in youth), each contribute to a unique, alternate form of temporality. This temporality dictates a break from chronological time where both protagonists escape through same-sex desire. Chronological time, in contrast, is hetero-normative, progressive, and associated with the present and the reality of aging. Both Clarissa Dalloway and Dorian Gray are opposed to the process of aging; the two aforementioned forms of time are the cause of their conflicted self-images.
The Influence of Same-Sex Desire
To begin my discussion of Wilde’s novel, I would like to establish the presence of same-sex desire, and how this desire shapes Dorian’s self-image. These influences on Dorian are rooted in homoeroticism and form his concept of beauty. First, we must examine the relationship dynamics between the male characters. Wilde’s novel centers on the young and beautiful Mr. Gray who is desired and influenced by his two friends Basil Hallward and Lord Henry Wotton. Basil is the creator of the portrait that aids in forming Dorian’s personality. It is the nature of Basil’s infatuation with Dorian, his preoccupation with Dorian’s beauty. Lord Henry shares this admiration; however, Basil simply wants to flatter Dorian where Lord Henry wants to influence him. The sentimental painter is sadly second in line for Dorian’s attention once he encounters Lord Henry.
Wilde stages the scene for Dorian’s introduction to Lord Henry in Basil’s beautifully blooming garden; once Lord Henry suggests that he and Dorian sit outside on that lovely summer afternoon, he “effortlessly seduces Dorian into a new philosophy…” A style of sensuality, where thoughts are far more literal than metaphorical. Through Lord Henry’s eyes readers see that Dorian “was certainly wonderfully handsome, with his finely curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes, his crisp gold hair…All the candour of youth was there, as well as youth’s passionate purity…No wonder Basil Hallward worshiped him.” A glimpse into Lord Henry’s mind; his desire for Dorian manifests in his very influential ideology about the importance of being young.
Because of Lord Henry’s influential words and mystifying mannerisms, Dorian is awakened to a new way of seeing himself and “finds himself powerless to resist…” At this point Dorian does not see the beauty of his own youth and cannot conceptualize what it means to age. Dorian listens as Lord Henry says, “you have the most marvelous youth, and youth is the only thing worth having. Now, wherever you go, you charm the world. Will it always be so? You have a wonderfully beautiful face, Mr. Gray.” Beneath his romantic flattery Lord Henry professes that Dorian has the power of youth to his advantage. In having Lord Henry pose this question to the impressionable Dorian, the effect of time becomes essential in its link to Dorian’s obsession with youth and beauty. Here the dynamic changes between the three men as a result of Dorian’s feelings toward Lord Henry. As Dorian “listened, open-eyed and wondering,” he is no longer content with being Basil’s artistic muse—despite how Basil worships him—and now Dorian is compelled to gravitate to Lord Henry’s desire. Basil, being the sentimental man he is, romanticizes his desire for Dorian and sees it as being more than physical attraction. Lord Henry also desires Dorian throughout their years of friendship, but sees romantic flattery in itself as being frivolous; Lord Henry’s influence over Dorian comes in his ability to express his desires more directly. Consequently, Lord Henry’s influence is stronger for Dorian, and Basil’s words, despite their being beautiful, are simply not enough. Lord Henry may be reductive in his sentiments on marriage, romance, and the idea of love, but wants to inspire Dorian in recognizing his true desires—homoerotic desires.
As the months go on, Lord Henry examines the effects of his influence. The following passage demonstrates Lord Henry’s successful way of captivating Dorian. Based on the narration, this description of Dorian echoes that of how Dorian sees Lord Henry: “Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic…And how charming he had been at dinner…as with startled eyes and lips parted in frightened pleasure he had sat opposite him at the club, the red candleshades staining to a richer rose the wakening wonder of his face. Talking to him was like playing upon an exquisite violin. He answered to every touch and thrill of the bow…” Lord Henry’s hands move like music, just as beautifully as Dorian would be a violinist’s dream in conversation. Anything tragic for Lord Henry is in its having a flaw; however, Dorian, as he is in the present, is utterly flawless according to his influential friend—specifically on a physical level. Some of the adjectives here are repeated such as “charming” and “exquisite”, both of which relate to Dorian’s beauty and Lord Henry’s ever-present desire and attraction. When we think of how the color red associates with passion, beauty, eroticism, sexuality, and desire, it is evident as to why Wilde chooses this particular color in this depiction of Dorian. The meaning, symbolism, and atmosphere of the scene would change entirely if the candleshades were blue stained to sapphire, or green stained to sage. Influence, though described on a broader level in this passage, directly reflects the sensuality of Lord Henry’s specifically influencing Dorian. Like a beautifully composed symphony, Lord Henry’s words pierce through Dorian and alter his very being.
In thinking of Dorian toward the end of the novel (at age thirty-eight) after twenty years of fulfilling his same-sex desires, it is important to examine when and why he rejects the idea of hetero-normative relationships. Sitting in Lord Henry’s house two decades before, Dorian first tells Lord Henry about a beautiful actress, Sybil Vane, who Dorian claims to love. As a reflection on his own marriage, Lord Henry responds, “Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.” Even though Dorian thinks he is in love, he tells Lord Henry that he is not “likely to marry.” When Dorian says this relationship is “the greatest romance” of his life, Lord Henry laughs at the idea. Lord Henry feels that Dorian should only consider this as the “first romance” of his life, that he should not “be afraid” to embrace the “exquisite things in store for” him. At first Dorian regrets telling Lord Henry about Sybil Vane, but then admits: “I cannot help telling you things. You have a curious influence over me.” Dorian discusses his admiration for Sybil as an actress, and his captivation while seeing her perform. When Lord Henry asks, “When is she Sybil Vane?” Dorian responds: “Never.” With a laugh Lord Henry sees how Dorian’s romance is merely an infatuation. Within a few days, Dorian announces his engagement to Miss Vane; at this point Dorian still looks to the prospect of marriage for a sense of fulfillment and love. Lord Henry internalizes Dorian’s decision; in thinking of Dorian’s engagement as an “experiment” and a “desire for new experiences,” Lord Henry knows that he can still influence his young friend against the idea of marriage—after all, “It was the passions about whose origin we deceived ourselves that tyrannized most strongly over us.” Lord Henry succeeds once Dorian sees how he is misled by his infatuation once the actress gives a terrible stage performance. As they sit in the theatre, Lord Henry sees how little Dorian knows about Miss Vane herself, and after this terrible performance, Dorian ends the engagement.
Though both protagonists are partial to their same-sex desire, Clarissa views her marriage retrospectively at the age of fifty-two, where Dorian rejects the idea of marriage at the age of eighteen. Clarissa is a living example of Dorian’s worst fear: how time takes away one’s youth and (in Clarissa’s case) the ability to see one’s own beauty. As she looks at the plateau of her marriage, Clarissa Dalloway continuously reflects on her past during the summer when she was eighteen, vacationing at Bourton. There is a great deal of emphasis on certain moments and specific times in her life, and Clarissa’s memories are predominantly about Sally Seton. Clarissa’s conflict lies in her inability to find in her husband the same fulfillment that comes from the desire she feels for Sally. Since her recent bad case of influenza, Clarissa sleeps in a room in the attic of her home. While discussing Woolf’s novel it is important to note her complex narrative style, “free indirect style”, using a third-person narrative voice to present a first-person point of view. The attic scene discloses a variety of Clarissa’s conflicted emotions, and is the most explicit example of same-sex desire in the narrative. The atmosphere of the room affects Clarissa’s thoughts, and symbolizes “an emptiness about the heart of life.” As Clarissa “laid her feathered yellow hat on the bed”, we are given a sense of how she lives in this room, and for Clarissa in the present, we see that, “Narrower and narrower would her bed be.
Clarissa expresses a discontented point of view of a middle-aged woman. She is caught in between the past and the present and cannot find a sense of fulfillment in her marriage. While confined to her room she tries to think of something comforting. Here, Woolf gives readers a glimpse of Clarissa’s inner desires: “Lovely in girlhood, suddenly there came a moment…when, through some contraction of this cold spirit, she had failed him…again and again…She resented it…and yet she could not resist sometimes yielding to the charm of a woman…and whether it was pity, or their beauty, or that she was older, or some accident like a faint scent, or a violin next door.” The “contradiction” for Clarissa is her same-sex desire lingering in her life in the present. In thinking of how she “failed” her husband, her consolation is that she can remember her past with Sally. Woolf describes this moment of reflection as Clarissa having “seen an illumination…and inner meaning almost expressed. But the close withdrew; the hard softened. It was over—the moment.” Sally is infused with this present experience and makes Clarissa reflect on her desires—when a youthful Clarissa felt a sense of beauty. Although her thoughts of Sally and Richard run simultaneously, there is no mention of Clarissa’s desire for her husband. Temporarily she is put at ease and her emotions are “softened.”
As she prepares for her afternoon nap, the narrator shows Clarissa internally debating her feelings from thirty years before: “But this question of love (she thought putting her coat away), this falling in love with women. Take Sally Seton; her relation in the old days with Sally Seton. Had that, after all, been love?” Clarissa, a shy young girl, was very moved by the vivacious Sally, and found that their differences made Sally even more desirable. Clarissa sees in Sally everything that she lacks herself. Clarissa’s first memory of meeting such an impressionable lady is when Sally, ‘“sat on the floor with her arms around her knees smoking a cigarette…Where could she have been?...At some party (where, she could not be certain), for she had a distinct recollection of saying to the man she was with, “Who is that?”…But all that evening she could not take her eyes off Sally.”’ This first impression leaves Clarissa with a curious desire. Sally comes to fill Clarissa with excitement and “made her feel, for the first time, how sheltered life at Bourton was.” The innocent Clarissa is awakened to a new sensation as Sally teaches her about “sex” and “social issues” and makes Clarissa feel that she has a purpose in life beyond that of a rich young lady who is expected to marry.
Sally’s power over Clarissa helps to shape Clarissa’s personality, and is the basis for Clarissa’s conceptualization of the beautiful. The irony is seen again in the fact that Clarissa is a politician’s wife, yet Mr. and Mrs. Dalloway to not discuss his work. Sally sparked Clarissa’s interest in literature and politics. Woolf emphasizes Clarissa’s love for reading which adds to the feeling of disdain Clarissa now has for her husband in the present. Quite simply, Richard does not encourage Clarissa to seek fulfillment as Sally did. Both Clarissa and Sally “spoke of marriage always as a catastrophe,” and at that time Clarissa did not realize how much her life would change after her marriage to Richard. The spark that Sally ignites in the eighteen-year-old Clarissa is sadly diminished after three decades of living out Clarissa’s “catastrophe” called marriage. Three decades before, Sally’s charm was “overbearing, to her at least, so that” Clarissa ‘“could remember standing in her bedroom at the top of the house holding the hot-water can in her hands and saying aloud, “She is beneath this roof…She is beneath this roof!”’ The love and desire between the two echo from Clarissa’s words in her room that summer; Sally’s very presence is important to Clarissa who wanted to be the object of Sally’s affection.
Clarissa admits that the summer of her eighteenth year in its entirety (including meeting Richard) “was all a background for Sally.” Clarissa pictures Sally “by the fireplace talking, in that beautiful voice which made everything sound like a caress.” Here we see that same-sex desire has had a greater impact on Clarissa’s life; her used of the word “caress” is a clear indication of how she yearns for that old desire. Clarissa’s reflecting on her past with Sally thus far leads to this much anticipated moment. Their relationship dynamic is already established, and so it becomes the most beautiful love scene in the novel. This memory is described as “the most exquisite moment of her whole life, passing a stone urn with flowers in it. Sally stopped; picked a flower; kissed her on the lips. The whole world might have turned upside down!...there she was alone with Sally. And she felt that she had been given a present, wrapped up, and told just to keep it, not to look at it—a diamond, something infinitely precious, wrapped up, which as they walked (up and down, up and down), she uncovered, or the radiance burnt through, the revelation…” This treasurable moment alters Clarissa’s life as she knew it. It is interesting to note that there is no description of intimacy between Clarissa and her husband in the novel. Clarissa is enamored by Sally’s kiss; the kiss alters Clarissa’s world.
To see the entirety of Sally’s impact on Clarissa, we must delve into the world of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Dalloway, and examine their relationship. Richard Dalloway is first introduced to readers through the message he leaves Clarissa early in the afternoon: he would dine without her. While Richard is at a luncheon given by a lady who is not fond of Clarissa, he “had a sudden vision…of himself and Clarissa; of their life together…” Before he goes home to see her, he walks through London and reflects on their marriage. While at the florist (buying flowers for his wife who had already bought her own earlier that day) he thinks of the small but significant phrase that he plans to say: “‘I love you.’ Why not?”’ The implication here is that they have not shared these words with one another in quite some time. He is unsure of how Clarissa will react to him and questions why he should tell her he loves her; it does not seem to come naturally for him, as it did for Sally. We get a sense of their life together in the present and how Richard does not understand his wife’s unhappiness. The present for Richard is different than for Clarissa because he cannot see beyond them as a married couple, content or not. These thoughts contrast with Clarissa’s form of emotionally rejecting being Mrs. Dalloway. Richard feels that “it was difficult to think of her except in starts, as at luncheon, when he saw her quite distinctly; their whole life.” The word “starts” stands out in this passage; is it that Richard has trouble thinking more deeply about his wife? Does he not know or understand her well enough to be able to do so? Richard arrives at their home, and “Bearing his flowers like a weapon” he ascends the stairs to Clarissa’s drawing room. Richard does not need a “weapon,” for there is no war—his internal battle is to discover if “there was time for a spark between them.” The effort is lost because “he could not tell her he loved her,” but instead, “He held her hand. Happiness is this he thought.” This form of happiness may be enough for Richard, but certainly not for his wife. This scene provides the feelings of both Mr. and Mrs. Dalloway, but they are not shared between husband and wife.
Framing Temporality: The Wrath of the Clock
Woolf’s theme of temporality is psychologically based. In middle age, Clarissa’s preoccupation with time is experienced. Dorian does not look to chronological temporal movement to express the same phenomenological experience of time because he cannot foresee how the passing of time will change his perspective. For the purposes of this discussion, I shall try to validate my correlating Mrs. Dalloway and The Picture of Dorian Gray, because in both narratives there are two kinds of time. We see chronological time which I am connecting with the hetero-normative constructs throughout the lives of both protagonists.
Chronological time is framed differently in the narratives, with Mrs. Dalloway taking place in a single day and projecting back to thirty years before, while The Picture of Dorian Gray’s narrative spans two decades. While they internalize the process of aging, Clarissa and Dorian are obsessed with the passing of time as it is dictated by London clocks. Because of this fixation, an alternate sense of temporality is formed; this form of temporality, associated with youth, opposes time in the present. This influence, rooted in homoeroticism, is the way in which both protagonists escape the prospect of aging: For Clarissa, it is keeping her moments with Sally Seton in the present, and for Dorian, it is fulfilling his same-sex desires throughout his life. Dorian associates the process of aging with the years one lives during married life; this we see in Clarissa after thirty years of being Mrs. Richard Dalloway.
The striking of Big Ben throughout Clarissa’s day disrupts her homoerotic projections into the past and is a constant reminder of her married life in the present, while establishing a sense of movement in the narrative. Because the novel only takes place in one day, Woolf emphasizes certain moments that preoccupy Clarissa’s mind. As Clarissa begins her day walking through London to buy flowers for her party, we see the power of the clock: “Big Ben strikes. There! Out it boomed. First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable. The leaden circles dissolved into the air.” Another hour passes that Clarissa cannot take back—like all other hours, it keeps moving and leads her closer to the dreaded aspect of aging. In the same passage, while “crossing Victoria Street,” she thinks, “Such fools we are,” perhaps to be so shaken by the striking of the clock. The narrative voice immediately continues with, “For Heaven only knows why one loves it so, how one sees it so, making it up, building it round one, tumbling it, creating it every moment afresh…” Clarissa may sense that her preoccupation with time is dubious, but in reality, it is nonetheless beyond her control: Her memories “built round one,” (Sally) conflict with the present time.
The clock strikes twice in the section involving a conversation between Clarissa and Richard. Richard walks home to see his wife in the afternoon, and at the same moment, “The sound of Big Ben flooded Clarissa’s drawing-room, where she sat, ever so annoyed, at her writing-table; worried; annoyed,” at frivolous details for her party that evening. Soon after, as Richard walks into their home, “the sound of the bell flooded the room with its melancholy wave which receded, and gathered itself together to fall once more…” The striking of the clock is troubling for Clarissa who feels this “melancholy wave.” Time keeps moving toward a place where she must confront the somber reality of her life, brought on by the authority of the clock that strikes “with overpowering directness and dignity.” Clarissa cannot help but to think of her shortcomings. She is caught between two forms of temporality. The two temporal movements contribute to her self-conceptualization as she associates Sally with youth and a sense of beauty, and Richard with the reality of aging and a feeling of incompleteness.
As in Mrs. Dalloway, there are moments in The Picture of Dorian Gray that are signaled at specific times; Wilde’s the use of a clock is similar to Woolf’s in showing when explicit events occur, and constitute movement in the characters’ lives. Dorian is in a way scorned by Lord Henry’s dismal realistic depiction of what no one can prevent…growing old—however, Lord Henry is essential in Dorian’s developing his own self-image. With the passing of a few months, we see Dorian’s fixation with chronological time after he breaks his engagement to Sybil Vane: As he sits in his study, “Three o’clock struck, and four, and the half-hour rang its double chime…” The narrative voice tells us that Dorian “was trying to gather up the scarlet threads of life, and weave them into a pattern; to find his way through the sanguine labyrinth of passion through which he was wandering. He did not know what to do, or what to think.” Here we are given the same visual of the chiming clock as Dorian examines his engagement to Miss Vane. Dorian’s confusion lays his true desire to live his life by Lord Henry’s opposing ideology to marriage. Immediately after this moment, Lord Henry visits Dorian and tells Dorian that Sybil Vane committed suicide: Dorian blames himself for her tragic death until Lord Henry convinces him otherwise. Dorian never marries, and follows Lord Henry’s mentality on heterosexual relationships throughout the novel. Lord Henry solves Dorian’s confusion, and disassociates his young and beautiful friend from the passing of time. Dorian equates married life with the reality of aging and thus, he becomes partial to living by an alternate (Lord Henry’s) sense of time.
In a later passage involving Dorian’s last conversation with Basil Hallward, the narrative voice shows how the passing of a large span of time is condensed when more emphasis is coupled with a particular moment: “It was on the ninth of November, the eve of his own thirty-eighth birthday, as he often remembered afterwards. He was walking home about eleven-o’clock from Lord Henry’s.” Here we see that twenty years pass, and that this particular evening will burden Dorian for the remainder of his life. Dorian murders Basil to try and rid himself of the reminder of time’s continuous movement: In wanting to eternally preserve his youth, Dorian sees that he can never fully escape Basil’s role in his self-conceptualization because of the lingering presence of the picture. Immediately following, we see that Dorian reflects on his life with Basil, while he is expected to meet Lord Henry at a party. As Dorian sits in his study, he must come up with a way to rid himself of Basil’s corpse in the attic. As he waits for the man who will remove the body, “Every second he kept glancing at the clock. As the minutes went by he became horribly agitated. At last, he got up, and began to pace up and down the room, looking like a beautifully caged thing.” This image of Dorian, like Clarissa in her drawing room, shows how he is pained in the present. He must find a way to disassociate himself from Basil’s murder in order to keep living by how he conceptualizes his beautiful life: However, Dorian inevitably must remember the man who created the physical object of his self-identity in forming a sense of beauty.
The Two Faces of the Mirror and the Picture
Both Mr. Gray and Mrs. Dalloway internalize the passing of time both similarly and differently at two different stages of life, but their views correlate when Dorian is twenty years older. In analyzing Clarissa and Dorian in the present, we must continue to consider how the passing of time affects their concepts of youth and beauty from a retrospective look at their own reflections. An actual mirror is a falsity for Dorian as it will always show his young and beautiful face. At the very end of the novel we see the heart of his self-conceptualization as Dorian looks into a mirror that Lord Henry gave him twenty years earlier. While gazing, he thinks: “The world had changed because you’re made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history. The phrases came back to his memory, and he repeated them over and over to himself.” The romanticism of this passage stems from how Dorian’s beauty has transcended ordinary temporal movement. He has kept his “rose-white boyhood, as Lord Henry had once called it.” In portraying romanticism as a mode of existence for Dorian, mainly as an idealization of himself based on Lord Henry’s influence, Dorian must find a way to cope with the nostalgia he feels. We are told that after this glance into the mirror Dorian “loathed his own beauty.” With the dramatic image of Dorian “flinging the mirror onto the floor,” we see the reality that “his beauty that had ruined him…His beauty had been to him but a mask, his youth but a mockery. What was youth at best? A green, and unripe time, a time of shallow moods, and sickly thoughts…Youth had spoiled him.” Dorian reflects on his life and realizes that despite all his efforts to defy the passing of time, he cannot fully escape the reality of aging. When thinking of his escapades with Lord Henry over the last twenty years as being in an alternate sense of temporality, we see that his sense of time is only borrowed against ordinary time. After spending the second half of his life obsessed with youth, Dorian’s conception of the beautiful is revealed. Metaphorically speaking his youth spoils like an apple (even though he does not actually age) and he inevitably looks back on his youth as an enemy. His breaking the mirror symbolizes his sever from Lord Henry’s influence: Dorian no longer desires to be exquisite, perfect, or beautiful.
Clarissa’s mirror is the reminder of time having passed as she examines her appearance from middle-age. She has difficulty in forming a self-image and defining her own beauty. Early in Woolf’s novel the narrator provides Clarissa’s view of her physical self in the present: “Oh if she could have had her life over again! she thought” she “could have looked even differently!”, rather than having “a narrow pea-stick figure; a ridiculous little face, beaked like a bird’s. That she held herself well was true…But often now this body she wore…this body, with all its capacities, seemed nothing—nothing at all. She had the oddest sense of being herself invisible, unseen; unknown…” At this point of her life, despite her high-society profile in London, she feels that many people do not notice her; she is constantly surrounded by people and yet she feels utterly indistinguishable, plain, and ordinary. Her sense of self over the last thirty years has come from her husband who has not made her feel any sense of beauty.
The first time Woolf has Clarissa use a mirror, Clarissa thinks back to the same summer at Bourton when “she could remember going cold with excitement, and doing her hair in a kind of ecstasy (now the old feeling began to come back to her, as she took out her hairpins, laid them on the dressing -table, and began to do her hair), with the rooks flaunting up and down in the pink evening light, and dressing, and going downstairs…all because she was coming down to dinner in a white frock to meet Sally Seton!” Clarissa’s feeling of joy and fulfillment again connects to Sally, and Clarissa yearns for that same “excitement” in the present. Clarissa dissolves into her past, and this projection serves as a break from chronological time throughout the course of her day. Even though Clarissa fixates on the signs of aging in her reflection, she still can evaluate what can satisfy her in the present. Here we see Clarissa’s actual method of conceptualizing her image, and how this gaze into the mirror relates to her role in life, in this concentrated moment of recognition: “How many million times she had seen her face, and always with the same imperceptible contraction! She pursed her lips when she looked into the glass. It was to give her face point.” Her “contradiction” is at the center of her life in the present, and the image of herself in the past constantly prevents her from bringing all the “parts together”. In the present, we see the image of her as the magnanimous hostess who continuously entertains because she feels it is her duty. None of the people she sees know of her difficulty to form her self-image, and we get an idea of how isolated this process is for her.
In relating Dorian’s picture to Clarissa’s mirror, I am suggesting that the picture serves as a sort of reverse mirror for Dorian; Dorian examines and internalizes the signs of aging in his portrait, and compares it to how he does not physically age. Like Clarissa’s preoccupation with the past, Dorian comes to rely on retrospection to fully internalize the significant presence of his portrait along the twenty years of the narrative. Not long after the completion of the picture, the narrative voice tells us that it “would be to him the most magical of mirrors…,” because the picture would take on the physical effects of aging. In contrast, at the novel’s end, the narrative voice calls the picture “an unjust mirror, this mirror of his soul he was looking at.” The first time he sees his portrait we get an idea of how he feels “as he stood gazing at the shadow of his own loveliness,” when “the full reality of the description flashed across him.” Dorian’s ultimate “reality” is the fear of how he would appear aged, and loathes the image of his face “wrinkled and wizen, his eyes dim and colourless,” with “the grace of his figure broken and deformed”—the day when “The scarlet would pass away from his lips, and the gold steal from his hair…” The “shadow”, the reflection, is what comes to haunt Dorian as twenty years pass. We see how this projection into the future immensely affects the youthfully striking Mr. Gray, and “As he thought of it, a sharp pang of pain struck through him like a knife, and made the delicate fibre of his nature quiver. His eyes deepened into amethyst, and across them came a mist of tears. He felt as if a hand of ice had been laid upon his heart.” This is the basis of Dorian’s newly discovered self-interpretation. To be truly beautiful, Dorian must live by Lord Henry’s concept of beauty; this is what I have established as the alternate sense of temporality in the novel that works against chronological time. The picture captures all his beauty and before he wishes otherwise, the picture will remain untouched by time. Dorian is vain and focused on the aesthetic of beauty, the surface—his obsession with time.
Compared to Mrs. Dalloway looking back on her youth, Dorian is the same age as the adolescent Clarissa she remembers. When we examine Clarissa’s next glance into the mirror, despite the difference in the temporal framework, we see that she is also feels the same chill on a morning in June: “Laying her brooch on the table, she had a sudden spasm, as it, while she mused, the icy claws had had their chance to fix in her. She was not old yet. She had just broken her fifty-second year…(as she looked into the glass) seeing the delicate pink face of the woman who was that very night to give a party; of Clarissa Dalloway; of herself.” The “hand of ice” for Dorian is the same as the “icy claws” that touch Clarissa in this moment. We see another detailed moment for the complex Mrs. Dalloway as she examines herself and her life. The emphasis here is on the time; the passing of the months and how they will never stop progressing. I admire Clarissa’s ability to face the reality of aging and attempt to self-conceptualize; her careful analysis of her reflection demonstrates her vanity, but also shows how she can persevere.
Opposing Forces, Similar Dynamics
In establishing the contrasts in the relationship dynamics of both protagonists, the main distinction is that Clarissa is separated from both Sally Seton and Peter Walsh for thirty years, while Lord Henry and Basil Hallward are present in Dorian’s life over the course of two decades. Similarly to how Dorian forms his self-identity based on the ideologies of Lord Henry and Basil, Clarissa is betwixt the contrasting influences of Peter Walsh and Sally Seton. Clarissa is affected differently by Peter and Sally because of the variance in their views of her; Clarissa’s thoughts about Peter, as we see them through both herself and the narrative voice, associate with the passing of time and how she internalizes the aging process.
One of the most striking passages about how Clarissa views Peter and Sally differently is when Peter interrupts the kiss between Clarissa and Sally. This section exemplifies the complex narrative style as the narrative voice simultaneously gives Clarissa’s thoughts in the past and present. The emphasis here is placed on the tone of voice, and how Clarissa internalizes this dramatic moment of her youth. For Clarissa, the reality of Peter witnessing the kiss, “was like running one’s face against a granite wall in the darkness! It was shocking! It was horrible!...she felt his hostility; his jealousy; his determination to break into their companionship.” At the time, Clarissa conceives that in some way, she and Sally can be together forever. She sees this moment in her past “as one sees a landscape in a flash of lightening.” To juxtapose her negative thoughts of Peter she imagines “Sally (never had she admired her so much!) gallantly taking her away unvanquished.” Presently, at the same time, Clarissa thinks ‘“Oh this horror!”, with the somber reflection that perhaps “she had known all along that something would interrupt, would embitter her moment of happiness.” Clarissa keeps this image of Sally, and sees Sally as a source of happiness. Clarissa still feels a sense of “horror” as she reproduces this moment—the most amazing moment of her life.
Despite the thirty years apart, Peter Walsh brings all of Clarissa’s negative qualities to the surface. In the present, as he sits in her drawing room, Clarissa thinks of how Peter would perceive how time has changed her appearance: after thirty years apart, he did indeed think she grew older. Peter, once a suitor to Clarissa (deemed quite unsuitable compared to the wealthy Richard), internalizes his feelings on the Dalloway’s marriage, and the somewhat ridiculous role Clarissa has come to play in the center of her confined world: “With twice his wits, she had to see things through his eyes—one of the tragedies of married life. With a mind of her own she must always be quoting Richard…These parties for example were all for him, or for her idea of him…” In this section we also see the contrast in Clarissa’s outer reserve compared with her inner thoughts; her future is void of love and companionship. This grouping of associations includes Clarissa’s lingering preoccupation with not being asked to lunch with her husband. This, combined with Peter’s unsettling presence (while Richard is dining out) makes for a very apoplectic Mrs. Dalloway.
At the party in the end of the novel, the conclusion of a day in the life of Mrs. Dalloway, we see how she is at the center of bringing together who she has been deeply reflecting on. This final scene unites the past and the present where the opposing forces of Peter and Sally affect Clarissa. The narrative voice reveals how Clarissa “could see Peter out of the tail of her eye, criticizing her, there, in that corner” perhaps questioning, “Why, after all, did she do these things?” Soon after, we learn that “Peter put her into these states just by coming and standing in a corner.” The reality for Clarissa is that Peter “made her see herself; exaggerate. It was idiotic.” In order to justify her role in life, and maintain any sense of joy Clarissa must dismiss Peter’s judgments. Knowing Peter’s character so well, Clarissa is agitated here—mainly because she knows and despises how he can affect her. As the scene continues, Clarissa is uninterested and not excited to see anyone—nothing dazzles her anymore. Hosting the party for Clarissa “was too much of an effort. She was not enjoying it.” The narrative voice demonstrates Clarissa’s self-conceptualization as this point in her life, saying that she “couldn’t help feeling that she had, anyhow, made this happen, that it marked a stage, this post that she felt herself to have become, for oddly enough she had quite forgotten what she looked like, but felt herself a stake driven in at the top of the stairs.” This “post” is how she identifies herself, and the “stage” is where she looks toward the future with uncertainty, while turning to the past for comfort as she lives “year in year out…this vow; this van; this life; this procession…” Clarissa keeps her moments with Sally through this ongoing “procession” within her emotionally and physically distant marriage. The desire for the intimacy of her youth is what makes Clarissa wonder: If she could have been with Sally; if she did not become Mrs. Richard Dalloway; how different her life would have been.
The decline of this legendary party hostess is remedied by a spark from the past. Sally’s unexpected visit to Clarissa’s home that evening phases the two forms of temporality for the conflicted and confused Clarissa. As her guests enjoy the party, Clarissa is suddenly struck by hearing her name: ‘“Clarissa!”, Sally exclaims, and then we shift to how Clarissa internalizes this wonderful moment: “That voice! It was Sally Seton! Sally Seton! after all these years! She loomed through a mist.” This “mist” is the combining of Clarissa’s image of Sally in the past with the effects of time, and how after thirty years, “she hadn’t looked like that, Sally Seton, when Clarissa grasped the hot water can, to think of her under this roof, under this roof! Not like that!...” Clarissa still feels the same in Sally’s presence—from the summer of living under the same roof. Even though “The lustre had gone out of her”, for Clarissa “it was extraordinary to see her again, older, happier, less lovely.” After this moving encounter, “They kissed each other, first this cheek then that, by the drawing-room door, and Clarissa turned, with Sally’s hand in hers, and saw her rooms full, heard the roar of voices.” Time stands still in this moment for Clarissa who sees the beauty in Sally: Sally’s voice is still the same, and we can envision Clarissa, elated with joy, holding Sally’s hand: ‘“I can’t believe it!” she cried, kindling all over with pleasure at the thought of the past.”’ No span of time can diminish the feeling Sally brings to Clarissa. After internalizing her moment with Sally in the present, we see a vivacious Clarissa as she “escorted her Prime Minister down the room, prancing, sparkling,” combining this youthful image “with the stateliness of her grey hair...” The passage continues with Clarissa “walking down the room with him,” and how, “with Sally there…she had felt the intoxication of the moment, that dilatation of the nerves at the heart of itself till it seemed to quiver…” Sally is still the “heart” of Clarissa’s most important moments; with this “intoxication” Sally penetrates Clarissa’s very being, and now Clarissa can combine the scattered pieces that comprise her self-image. After seeing Sally again, Clarissa maintains a sense of her youth, and can feel beautiful once again.
While examining the progression of Dorian’s forming a self-image we must return to the other source of his influence—the despairing Basil Hallward. Basil only wants to see the good in Dorian and preserve the image of Dorian’s innocence from twenty years before. In contrast, Lord Henry cherishes the innocence of Dorian’s youth in a physical sense. Early in the novel when Basil reveals his feelings for Dorian to Lord Henry, Basil is given a glimpse of reality when Lord Henry responds: “Those who are faithful only know the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love’s tragedies.” In his own way, Basil takes a leap of faith by confessing his feelings for Dorian; however, only Lord Henry can see the “tragedies” in his new and beautiful friend. Consequently, Basil sees the surface level of Dorian, whose real pleasures and desires are shared with Lord Henry; these conflicted ideologies form Dorian’s concept of beauty. Both men have an idealized version of Mr. Gray, despite their opposing opinions of his character, and they both succeed in forming Dorian’s self-image over a period of two decades. For Lord Henry, the spirit of the age lays in Dorian, whose “passion and youth” become his obsession to defy the aging process. Lord Henry’s influence in this respect necessitates a break from the ordinary temporal movement in the present—Dorian is on his own time, a time constituted by Lord Henry’s desire. Despite Basil’s unyielding efforts to sway Dorian from Lord Henry’s influence, Dorian is partisan in his choice between the two. Basil’s presence makes Dorian think of the progression of temporality which contrasts with the desirable sense of time that Lord Henry provides for the young and very vain Dorian.
After the same twenty years of friendship, Lord Henry’s view of Dorian remains unchanged. As the two sit in Lord Henry’s home, Dorian contemplates what his life has become, and how so many of his choices have been rooted in vanity. In fulfilling his desires and pleasures with handsome young men, Mr. Gray has quite forgotten himself. During this final conversation with Lord Henry, Dorian tries to explain his feelings of regret: Lord Henry dismisses the idea and simply responds, says: “You are quite perfect. Pray, don’t change.” Dorian’s newly discovered opposition comes from knowing the truth: his youthful face is simply a lie: He does not feel like the “rather cheeky, very shy, and absolutely extraordinary” young man who Lord Henry treasures. Dorian is not the same internally having aged twenty years; he may be “exquisite” to desiring eyes, but he now manifests his own views on the passing of time and the process of aging—that is, based on the aging that occurs in the picture. The untroubled nature of his youth has faded, and Dorian no longer wishes to fulfill his desires or seek new sensations.
What is to be Accepted or Rejected: Aging
It is not until the end of Wilde’s novel that we see a similar reflection on the effects of temporality in the two protagonists. Clarissa has been without a true sense of purpose for thirty years, and in seeking fulfillment, she struggles to cope with continuing this course of life with feelings of inadequacy. Here we have an imagery of opposites: being in the middle of everything yet being on the outside, feeling both young and aged—the only reality is to find a middle ground. The narrative voice tells us that for Clarissa Dalloway, “Nothing could be slow enough; nothing last too long,” and in constantly moving from “the triumphs of youth,” she has “lost herself in the process of living.” In thinking of Clarissa’s yearning for the past, she appears to find a way to persevere in the present: “to find it, with a shock of delight, as the sun rose, as the day sank.” Clarissa delights in seeing Sally again, and through the narrative voice, we get the sense that chronological time is no longer unsettling. No single clock can move too fast or too slow until it is compared with another; in this case, it is that the striking of Big Ben cannot be compared to how Clarissa internalizes time between the past and the present.
Here we see opposing ideologies of the two protagonists: Ultimately, Clarissa can cope with aging and life in the present, whereas Dorian remains “saddened by the reflection of the ruin that Time brought upon beautiful and wonderful things.” With the passing of time the narrative voice shows Dorian facing “The one reality” of “ugliness”; “Ugliness that had once been hateful to him because it made things real, became dear to him now for that very reason…” With a feeling of dissatisfaction, Dorian regrets being a vessel of Lord Henry’s ideologies on love, desire, and what is truly beautiful. We see in the end of the narrative that Dorian “began to think over some of the things that Lord Henry had said to him…He felt a wild longing for the unstained purity of his boyhood…” Like Clarissa, Dorian yearns for his youth—a time when he was not burdened by retrospection, and the regret of past experiences. He could neither deny, nor give up living by an alternate sense of time because of his desire to escape the reality of aging. In thinking of his misbegotten yesterdays, Dorian realizes that he cannot cope with the reality of aging. In contrast, the narrative voice in Mrs. Dalloway shows how she realistically views her life in the present: “it was this; it was middle age; it was mediocrity; then forced herself with her indomitable vitality to put all that aside…” She can embrace the aging process and look toward a brighter future. In destroying the picture, Dorian kills himself, while Clarissa will remain the “one diamond, one woman who sat in her drawing-room and made a meeting-point, a radiancy…”
Wilde, Oscar. “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” Norton Critical Edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Ed. Michael Patrick Gillespie. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007. 5-184. Print.
Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. London: Harcourt, Inc., 1981. Print.