Equating Performance with Identity: The Failure of Clarissa Dalloway's Victorian "Self"

in Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway"

Author(s): Shannon Forbes
Source: The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association , Spring, 2005, Vol.
38, No. 1, Special Convention Issue: Performance (Spring, 2005), pp. 38-50
Published by: Midwest Modern Language Association

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/30039298

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 Equating Performance with Identity:
The Failure of Clarissa Dalloway's
Victorian "Self" in

Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway

Shannon Forbes

Lytton Strachey wrote in A Biography of Queen Victoria that "in truth it

is difficult to trace any fundamental change in Queen Victoria's theory or
her practice in constitutional matters throughout her life. . . . [T]he girl
the wife, the aged woman were the same" (262). Robert Browning wrote
in 1864 in his famous Dramatis Personae that "My care is for myself; /
Myself am whole and sole reality" ("Mr. Sludge, The Medium" XXXVII:
32-33). John Ruskin, similarly, stated in his autobiography, Praeterita, as
he approached the age of seventy, that upon looking back on his life, "I
find myself in nothing whatsoever changed" (220). These comments are
replete with meaning because they represent the way Victorians privi-
leged what Maude Ellmann describes in The Poetics of Impersonality as
"the unified transcendent consciousness that the nineteenth century had
understood as 'personality" (16). According to Ban Wang in "'I' on th
Run: Crisis of Identity in Mrs. Dalloway," this nineteenth-century tradi-
tion of conceiving of the subject as self-contained, as independent o
social structure, incorporated terms such as "identity" and "self" to indi-
cate the aggregate and monolithic nature of the subject (177). Victorian
celebrated the idea that the subject was stable, whole, and unified to th
extent that, as Gerard Dollar explains in "Addiction and the 'Other Self,"
any deviation from one's "real" self, "which in Victorian terms is a moral
earnest, and public self," was seen as "violent, demonic, self-gratifying
yet ultimately self-destructive" (268).
This notion of the subject as stable, aggregate, and monolithic, howev-
er, has been fraught with ambiguity and evasiveness ever since Lacan's
revisions of the Freudian account of the id/ego construct minimized the
efficacy of the classic psychoanalytic movement that "had treated with
undue respect the idea that the self or the ego was the seat of personal
identity" (Bowie 75). In asserting that "no signification can be sustained
other than by reference to another signification," Lacan's subject is irre-
mediably split by language (150). Thus, both the doomed quest for fulfill
ing signifiers initiated at Lacan's mirror stage and Freud's id/ego con-
struct, even the "many part egos" to which Freud refers (150), emphasize

38 Equating Performance with Identity

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the fragmentation and conflict inherent in an individual's identity and
perception of that identity. Judith Butler, in "Imitation and Gender Insub-
ordination," states, like Lacan, that "the prospect of being anything, even
for pay, has always produced in me a certain anxiety," because "[t]o claim
that this is what I am is to suggest a provisional totalization of this 'I"'
(13-15). Butler believes, however, that meaning arises and is constituted
through performance; the predicates, in other words, precede the subject.
The connection, I believe, between the meaning constituted through per-
formance and the meaning constituted through a role one chooses to
enact is important when analyzing Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. It is
helpful to distinguish between the role Clarissa performs and her split,
fragmented self. The adult Clarissa clearly performs the role of the "per-
fect hostess," though there exists a debate among critics about why she
has chosen to enact this particular role. What I would like to address are
the consequences of Clarissa's decision to define her life in terms of her
performance as Mrs. Richard Dalloway, the perfect hostess. Clarissa per-
forms the role to the extent that it consumes her. Clarissa tries to equate
the performance of this role with her identity, but her attempts to use the
role as a substitute for the fixed-essentially the Victorian-sense of self
she covets result in emptiness, a lack of fulfillment, and ironically, virtu-
ally no self at all.
It is made evident, before one reads a single word of the novel, or even
opens the cover, that Clarissa is absolutely defined in terms of the role
she has chosen to perform. The title of the novel is a curious one. Clarissa
is introduced as "Mrs. Dalloway," a name closely signifying her chosen
role. A different title--"Clarissa's Party," "Clarissa Dalloway," or even
"Clarissa"--would suggest that her identity comprises more than this role
and that her identity is not contained exclusively within this role, but the
title indicates what Clarissa's stream of conscious articulates: "She had
the oddest sense of being herself invisible; unseen; unknown . . . t
being Mrs. Dalloway; not even Clarissa any more; this being Mrs
Richard Dalloway" (Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway 10-11). It is important to no
however, that the title of the novel is not "Mrs. Richard Dalloway," t
name most closely signifying her performed role and the name Clari
uses in the aforementioned passage when defining herself exclusively
terms of her role. It is significant not only that the name "Richard"
missing from the title, but that the name "Clarissa" is missing from t
title as well. The implication, I believe, is that there is more to Claris
than being "Mrs. Richard Dalloway," but that, paradoxically, this additio
al facet of her self, which would be signified by the inclusion of the na
"Clarissa" within the title, is one of emptiness and absence.
One wonders what constitutes this Clarissa who is so conspicuou
absent from the title but who, I would argue, is elusively present with

Shannon Forbes 39

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the text. This is a Clarissa who is split, but who desperately desires to
possess a Victorian, stable, unified self. Clarissa recognizes the near
impossibility of this Victorian self and "would not say of any one in the
world now that they were this or were that" (8). She will not say of her-
self "I am this, I am that" either (9), yet she longs to look into the mirror
and see herself as unified, coherent, as "Clarissa Dalloway; of herself"
(37). When she looks in the mirror, however, she can only see her self as
"definite" when "some effort, some call on her to be her self, drew the
parts together" (37). She "tried to be the same always, never showing a
sign of all the other sides of her" (37), but she can only attempt to convey
this self to others through performing a role. The role of the perfect host-
ess is to serve as a substitute for what she refers to as her "incompatible"
self so that "she alone," she says, may acknowledge her split self and may
instead project to the outside world the image of one who possesses the
much-coveted, Victorian conception of the self (37).
Clarissa, during her walk down Bond Street, associates her absence of
a unified self with the vitality of the city. Immediately preceding her
refusal to say people that are "this or that," for example, Clarissa notes
that she is watching the taxi cabs in the busy London streets. At this
point, she again reflects on her "self" (8), notes again that the city was
"absolutely absorbing; all this; the cabs passing" (8), and then reflects
again that she will never say of herself that she is this or that. Similarly,
Clarissa reflects on her "oddest sense of being herself invisible; unseen;
unknown" immediately before noting "this astonishing . . . progress with
the rest of them, up Bond Street" (11). After having made this observa-
tion, Clarissa comments that being Mrs. Dalloway, and more specifically
being Mrs. Richard Dalloway, has caused her to be not even Clarissa any-
more (11). Clarissa associates the absence of a Victorian self with the
vitality of the city-a dreary association, it would seem. Yet upon seeing
Hugh Whitbread, Clarissa states, "'I love walking in London. Really it's
better than walking in the country" (6). Clarissa loves London because
the city environment provides for Clarissa a sense of the order, vitality,
and stability she lacks within her self. In addition, London validates and
celebrates Clarissa's choice of performing the role of the perfect hostess.
In doing so, London validates the only sense of identity Clarissa has aside
from her emptiness and the lack of the unified self she covets.
While in the city, Clarissa is "part" of

the house there, ugly, rambling all to bits and pieces as it was; part of
people she had never met; being laid out like a mist between the people
she knew best, who lifted her on their branches as she had seen the
trees lift the mist, but it spread ever so far, her life, herself. (9)

Clarissa at this point merges with the city environment and thereby
becomes a part of this environment. The city environment does more

40 Equating Performance with Identity

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than sustain and expand Clarissa's self. Merging with the city environ-
ment helps Clarissa, for a fleeting moment at least, achieve some sem-
blance of unity and stability. In doing so, the city functions as a substitute
for the unified, stable self she lacks. The city, then, as the aforementioned
quote indicates, momentarily becomes Clarissa's self.
Clarissa comments to herself "that somehow in the streets of London,
. here, there, she survived" (9). I believe that Clarissa survives specifi-
cally because the streets of London embrace her and nurture her during
the times when she feels the worst about her inability to attain a stable,
unified self. Clarissa is not comfortable with her self or with her role, but
she can be comfortable in London. On the streets of London, for exam-
ple, Clarissa, in addition to using her ability to merge with her urban
environment as a substitute for the self she desires, is an insider and wor-
thy of respect, unlike the "the veriest frumps, the most dejected of mis-
eries sitting on doorsteps" (4). Moreover, the city has sustained itself
structurally throughout the War and is still capable of providing luxuries
for its inhabitants such as gloves, pearls, tweed, salmon, and shoes.
Clarissa observes London's provisions and says to herself, "'That is all'"
(11), signifying the profusion, the "all" that London can provide for her in
abundance-not only flowers and gloves, but also strength, endurance,
and some semblance of a unified, stable self.
Perhaps most importantly, the representation of Big Ben within the
novel indicates the ordered, dominating world that urban life provides to
those like Clarissa who seek such order and stability. The sound of Big
Ben, which Rezia describes as "sensible" (150), is a dominating presence
in each character's life, a demand to adhere to one's schedule, a reminder
that life is progressing in an orderly, measurable fashion. Big Ben's domi-
nance and insistence on order interrupts numerous moments when
Clarissa either finds herself sadly contemplating her lack of a unified self
or finds herself forced to confront the unhappiness of the life she has
chosen. Big Ben strikes the half hour, for example, just as Peter seizes
Clarissa by the shoulders and cries, "'Tell me .... Are you happy, Claris-
sa? Does Richard-'" (47). The strike, along with Elizabeth's entrance into
the room, truncates Peter's words and saves Clarissa from having to
answer Peter's question. Peter's words at this moment threaten to force
Clarissa to question her choice to perform as Mrs. Richard Dalloway, the
perfect hostess; Clarissa is on the verge of being forced to attempt to
define her self outside of her role. Instead, Elizabeth, the product of
Clarissa's decision to marry Richard, enters the room as if to validate
Clarissa's chosen lifestyle, and Big Ben strikes very loudly, restoring
order by confirming that this conversation between Peter and Clarissa
absolutely will not take place. Clarissa's only response to Peter, now that
Big Ben loudly insists that Clarissa not be forced to try to define herself

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outside of her performed role, is that of a perfect hostess. Her cry of
"'Peter! Peter! . . . My party to-night! Remember my party to-night!"' is
nearly drowned out (48). A similar instance occurs when Clarissa, reflect-
ing that she was happy Septimus had killed himself, begins to compare
herself to him. At this precise instant Big Ben strikes with a "leaden"
tone, reminding her that "she must go back. She must assemble" (186).
Once again, during a moment that could potentially develop into a crisis
when Clarissa finds herself forced to question her choice to perform her
role, Big Ben overcomes, dominates Clarissa, and reinstitutes order.
It is also significant that Big Ben is gendered male. The implication is
that Mrs. Dalloway thrives in London because the patriarchal status quo
of the city validates her choice to relinquish her independence and to
become Mrs. Richard Dalloway. Big Ben interrupts, according to Clarissa,
like "a young man, strong, indifferent, inconsiderate" during moments
when she questions or doubts her choice (48). Thus, every time Clarissa
hears Big Ben she is reminded that the city validates and celebrates her
decision to perform her chosen role. There is no need to doubt, Big Ben
reminds Clarissa, because the dominating, powerful strikes--symbolic of
London's strength and ability to provide for its inhabitants--will always
protect one who abides by its male patriarchal values.
Thus, the city takes on a wonderfully complicated representation with
regard to Clarissa and performance. London is vital to Clarissa's sense of
having any self at all; without the city, Clarissa is literally selfless because
only the city provides Clarissa with the necessary validation to equate
her performance with her self. London, however, also refuses Clarissa
any uncomfortable instances during which she might be forced to
acknowledge that performing a substitute self often falls short. This is
potentially the case during her conversation with Peter. In addition, Lon-
don provides order for its inhabitants. Big Ben, for example, and clocks in
general, assure that life keeps moving in a mechanical fashion, that things
get done, that Clarissa knows she hasn't time to explore her life choices
with Peter because she must tend to the preparation necessary for her
party. Clarissa's role as a perfect hostess mirrors this orderliness provided
by the city. She knows how to act in her role, what the performance of a
perfect hostess entails, what to do at a given moment to continue the per-
formance, and the city, specifically Big Ben, helps her performance take
place in an orderly manner. Thus, finally, the city is agreeably patriarchal
to Clarissa, because only in a patriarchal environment, the city, can
Clarissa thrive as Mrs. Richard Dalloway, the perfect hostess.
Critics often perceive of Clarissa as an "outsider" in London because
she is female. I would like to suggest, however, that Clarissa is, in a sense,
an "insider" in terms of gender as well as class because she has commit-
ted her life to performing the female role that best reinforces the patriar-

42 Equating Performance with Identity

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chal values of her London urban environment. London, therefore,
embraces, supports, and provides for her. The stakes are high for Clarissa
because her sense of belonging as an insider within her environment
depends on her ability to perform continually the role of Mrs. Richard
Dalloway, the perfect hostess. Moreover, Clarissa can define herself only
as invisible, unseen, and unknown when she attempts to define herself
outside of her role, so failing to perform this role will inevitably force
Clarissa to succumb to her lack of a unified self, or any self at all. Claris-
sa longs for a Victorian, unified, stable, and ordered sense of self but rec-
ognizes the impossibility of achieving such a state. She therefore relies
entirely upon her performance of her role in the city to act as a substitute
for the self for which she longs.
Clarissa is ambivalent about continuing to perform the role of Mrs.
Richard Dalloway, the perfect hostess, however, because she finds that
performing this role, paradoxically, exacerbates her sense of her lack of a
unified self while simultaneously providing the only sense of stability
and order she knows. Clarissa conceives of performances as positive
means of escape. For example, upon reflecting that "[i]t was all over for
her," she cries within her mind to Peter, "Take me with you, as if he were
starting directly upon some great voyage" (47). The next moment she
imagines herself performing the role of Peter's lifetime companion "as if
the five acts of a play that had been very exciting and moving were now
over" (47). Clarissa, similarly, chooses to perform the role of Mrs. Richard
Dalloway so as to escape to a world where she will be respectable as an
"insider." Clarissa holds onto her role as Mrs. Richard Dalloway because
it is the only identity she has, yet she also simultaneously resents this
role because she recognizes the way it limits her, confines her, and func-
tions as only a superficial and ineffective substitute for the self she cov-
ets. Clarissa desperately wishes that everybody could "merely be them-
selves" (126)-be "this or that"-and she reads memoirs in bed in an effort
to find someone of whom she can actually say "he is this, he is that" (8,
31). She reads memoirs in order to confirm that people can and do pos-
sess the Victorian sense of self-that it is possible to be "this" or "that" as
one stable, unified identity. Clarissa still, however, finds her own self to
be "invisible" and "incompatible" (11, 37). As a result, Clarissa "does
things," including performing the role of the perfect hostess, "not simply,
not for themselves; but to make people think [she is] this or that" (10).
Performing this role, however, always falls short as a substitute for the
self she covets. Clarissa realizes that performing a role to make people
think she is "this or that" is "perfect idiocy . . . for no one was ever for a
second taken in. Oh if she could have had her life over again!" (10).
Parties are absolutely essential to Clarissa's sense that she has any self
at all. Moreover, Clarissa attempts to convince herself that she has a

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unified, ordered, and stable self because she gives parties. She reflects the
morning before her party, for example, that it is possible, "collecting the
whole of her at one point, . . . seeing the delicate pink face of the woman
who was that very night to give a party," to see "Clarissa Dalloway; her-
self" (37). This sense of Victorian unity and wholeness, however, is fleet-
ing. Clarissa reflects later that evening that "every time she gave a party
she had this feeling of being something not herself" (170-01). The afore-
mentioned statement is disturbing because if Clarissa feels that perform-
ing her role causes her to be not herself, then she is composed of
absolutely nothing since she has no identity outside of the confines of the
role she performs. Her sense of loss of self is exacerbated when she sees
Peter and knows that he is criticizing her as she performs her role, which
is the only identity onto which she can at least sometimes grasp for some
semblance of unity, order, and stability (168).
Clarissa thinks to herself at the party that performing the role of the
hostess "was too much of an effort. She was not enjoying it" (170). Claris-
sa, however, in hopes of finding some semblance of consolation, once
again decides to hold on to her faith in the efficacy of performing roles:
"This anybody she did a little admire, couldn't help feeling that she had,
anyhow, made this happen, that it marked a stage (170, emphasis added)."
Clarissa's parties also provide her with the opportunity to attempt to
immunize herself from the threat of having no self. Clarissa, for example,
though she cannot locate a stable, unified self within the confines of her
performance as a perfect hostess because "it was too much like being-
just anybody, standing there; anybody could do it" (170), seeks solace
through her observations that everyone else at her party is doing the same
thing. Clarissa reflects at this moment that her party seems a stage on
which each of her guests, like actors in a play, are taken out of their ordi-
nary worlds and placed in different clothes against a different back-
ground while they enact a specific role. This role-playing, Clarissa
observes, causes her guests, like herself, to seem split and unreal, and yet
the performing, Clarissa tells herself, in some sense, causes her guests to
seem even more real. Clarissa cannot locate the self she desires within
the confines of her performance, but perhaps, as her experiences at
party reveal, she can at least observe that she is no different, no mo
"unreal" as she performs her role than is anyone else. Moreover, if h
guests seem in some way "more real" as they perform their roles, th
perhaps performing her role, similarly, would make her, in some wa
seem "more real."
Consequently, Clarissa spends the remainder of the party going
through the motions of performance, though she does so "seek[ing] pinna-
cles and stand[ing] in fire. Might it consume her anyhow! Burn her to cin-
ders!" (167). Clarissa's final chosen predicate, therefore, returning to her

44 Equating Performance with Identity

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party to assemble after her momentary reprieve upstairs, is a tragic one.
Clarissa holds onto this role to the extent that she cannot be defined or
define herself outside of her performed role. Clarissa's identity, therefore
aside from the role she performs, is not only split, but also consists of a
self that is empty and absent though desperately longing to be unified.
Clarissa is not the only Dalloway hostess who is not enjoying the party.
Elizabeth, who is "rather glad" when the party is over (194), initially
seems to take steps to secure for herself a future quite different from that
of her mother. There is certainly much to celebrate about Elizabeth as sh
seems to set out to reject London's patriarchal status quo. Her ride on the
omnibus down the Strand reveals her to be a promising, aspiring woman.
Elizabeth "most competently" boards the omnibus "in front of everybody
and takes a seat on top during which "[s]he was delighted to be free"
(135). She decides while on the omnibus that she "would like to have
profession" and contemplates her future as a doctor, farmer, or a promi-
nent figure in Parliament (136). She "liked the feeling of people working"
and feels assured that a woman of her generation may pursue any profes
sion (136). She pushes on farther during her ride down the Strand into
new parts of the city as if conquering them, and she acknowledges her
strength and ambition as a pioneer in the Dalloway family who is ventur
ing into unknown worlds (137). Moreover, Elizabeth's rejection of th
city-"London was so dreary compared with being alone in the country"
(135)-signifies a rejection of the patriarchal world where clocks that are
gendered male keep order and where only women who adopt the role of
the perfect hostess receive validation for their services.
Elizabeth, in this sense, seems, as Peter comments several times
throughout the novel, to have "nothing of her mother in her" (78). More-
over, critics suggest the parallels between Richard and Elizabeth seem to
secure a promising future for Elizabeth. Both Richard and Elizabeth
demonstrate concern for living creatures--Richard for the Albanians (or
was it the Armenians?) and Elizabeth for her dog and her guinea pigs.
Both aspire to enter the public sphere in an effort to improve conditions
for these living creatures. It is indeed appealing to contrast Elizabeth to
Clarissa and to compare her instead with Richard, because doing so sug-
gests Woolf's revision in Mrs. Dalloway of the claim she makes in "A
Room of One's Own" that "[w]omen have served all these centuries as
looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the
figure of man at twice its natural size" (35). Luce Irigaray adopts this
metaphor of the woman-as-mirror and connects it to woman's sense of
fragmentation resulting from such a performance: "The rejection, the
exclusion of a female imaginary undoubtedly places woman in a position
where she can experience herself only fragmentarily as waste or as an
excess in the little structured margins of a dominant ideology, this mirror

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entrusted by the (masculine) 'subject' with the task of reflecting and
redoubling himself" (104). In this mirror analogy, both Woolf and Irigaray
assert that the performance of woman-as-mirror has throughout time
existed as an identity women have felt compelled to enact. According to
Woolf and Irigaray, the consequence of women performing their identity
as a mirror has been that women view themselves as inferior to men in
order to reflect men as twice as excellent as they are. What is wonderful
about noting the similarities between Elizabeth and Richard, as critics
tend to do, is that the connection of Elizabeth to her father suggests that
Woolf represents Elizabeth not as a mirror intended to double Richard at
the expense of her own self but, rather, as a woman who is equal t
Richard. If Elizabeth follows in the path of her father rather than her
mother, then she deconstructs both the importance of the performance o
the perfect hostess role and the performance of woman-as-mirror.
Sadly, however, there is no indication that Richard plans to foster such
career ambitions within his daughter. Richard thinks that "[i]f he'd had
boy he'd have said, Work, work. But he had his Elizabeth" (114).
Richard's thought implies that Elizabeth, because she is not a boy, will no
be told by her father to "Work, work." Instead, Richard perceives of his
daughter only in marriageable terms as she helps host Clarissa's party.
Elizabeth is dressed in pink, a symbol of her emerging sexuality an
promise as a wife and mother. Richard notes that "she looked so lovely in
her pink frock!" and tells Elizabeth that he had just looked at her and
thought her "lovely" (194). Richard thinks of his daughter in terms of he
looks rather than her capability to pursue professional ambitions similar
to his own. Moreover, Elizabeth contemplates performing a role very dif
ferent from that of a perfect hostess, but several instances throughout the
novel show how similar she is to Clarissa, thus undermining Elizabeth's
choice to perform any role but that of a perfect hostess. In choosing to
perform this role, Elizabeth secures for herself a future as dismal and
unfulfilling as Clarissa's life as a perfect hostess has proven to be.
Clarissa continually refers to Elizabeth as "my Elizabeth" as if Eliza-
beth is Clarissa's possession to mold and shape. Clarissa does what sh
can to make certain that Elizabeth performs the role Clarissa herself has
chosen. Clarissa worries that Elizabeth seems uninterested in clothes, her
appearance, and the fact that "the compliments were beginning" (135).
Clarissa experiences "violent anguish" because Miss Kilman, who encour-
ages Elizabeth to become a professional rather than a hostess, "was taking
her daughter from her" (126). Clarissa cries out to Elizabeth to "'Remem-
ber the party! Remember our party to-night!" in an attempt to remind
Elizabeth as she walks out the door with Miss Kilman that Elizabeth's
performance as a perfect hostess should take precedence over Miss Kil-
man's attempted "conversion" (126). Elizabeth claims that she finds

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Clarissa's influence over her to be stifling. Elizabeth complains to herself,
for example, that despite the fact that "she so much preferred being left
alone to do what she liked in the country," "she had to go to parties" at
her mother's insistence (134-5). Similarly, Elizabeth tells herself that she
will pursue whatever profession she wants in spite of "whatever her
mother might say" (137). When all is said and done, however, Elizabeth,
though she tells Miss Kilman that "[s]he did not much like parties," "sup-
pose[s] she was going" primarily because "her mother wanted her to go"
(131). Elizabeth at this point consciously decides to adopt her mother's
performance as her own. Clarissa's attempts to coerce her daughter into
performing the role of the perfect hostess have been successful. Elizabeth
decides to attend her mother's party as the next-generation Dalloway
hostess. "Mrs. Dalloway had triumphed" (133).
Elizabeth entertains ideas of having professional aspirations, but what
is disconcerting is that Elizabeth, "in many ways [as] her mother felt"
(137), shows a lack of mature decision-making skills when it comes to
thinking about where her future will take her. She cannot even decide
which bus to board, for example, because "[s]he had no preferences. Of
course, she would not push her way. She inclined to be passive" (135).
She lacks "expression" (135), and her decision possibly to be a doctor
stems only from Miss Kilman's assurance that it would be feasible for her
to do so-not her own faith in herself. Similarly, Elizabeth's decision to be
a farmer, though somewhat based on Miss Kilman's opinion, is "almost
entirely" due to how "splendid" Somerset House looks (136). Her "deter-
mination" to pursue a profession is undercut because, she thinks, "she
was, of course, rather lazy" (137).
Moreover, Elizabeth thinks of herself as a "pioneer" because no Dal-
loways came down the Strand daily (137), but once again, this positive
conception of herself is undercut. The Dalloways do not come down the
Strand daily, but the narrative gives no indication that they do not come
down at all. Elizabeth does not travel down the Strand daily either, and in
this sense, she differs little from any of the other Dalloways. Elizabeth is
timid as she walks down the Strand "shyly, like some one penetrating on
tiptoe" (137). She is not much of a pioneer in that she did not "dare wan-
der off into queer alleys, tempting bye-streets, any more than in a strange
house open doors which might be bedroom doors, or sitting-room doors,
or lead straight to the larder" (137).
She is also hardly a pioneer in her aspirations to enter the public
sphere so as to improve social conditions, because her mother was once
dedicated to the same ambitions. In actuality, therefore, Elizabeth's per-
formance is in this sense more that of a younger version of her mother
than it is that of a pioneer. Elizabeth's experience with her career aspira-
tions very much parallels Clarissa's experience when she was just about

Shannon Forbes 47

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Elizabeth's age. Clarissa, when she was younger, meant to found a society
to abolish private property (33). Clarissa at least actively took steps to
realize her desire to effect change through entering the public sphere.
Clarissa helped Sally write a letter aiming to abolish private property and
inexhaustibly read Plato, Morris, and Shelley. Elizabeth's professional
aspirations, however, are even more fleeting than were Clarissa's. Eliza-
beth contemplates a career and acknowledges her laziness in the same
instant. Immediately preceding this instant, Elizabeth decides that map-
ping out a career for herself "seemed so silly" (137). Elizabeth decides
that "it was the sort of thing that did sometimes happen, when one was
alone" (137). It would be best, Elizabeth decides, "to say nothing about it"
(137). Elizabeth disregards her earlier idea about pursuing a career, noting
to herself that it was nothing more than "a sigh, a stretch of the arms, an
impulse, a revelation, which has its effects for ever, and then down again
it went to the sandy floor" (137). Elizabeth takes no active steps to secure
her future as a woman with a profession. Instead, though she initially
seems to set out on the omnibus to conquer the city's patriarchal status
quo, Elizabeth eventually relies upon the city to validate her choice to
perform the role of a perfect hostess. After deciding her professional aspi-
rations were nothing but an impulse, Elizabeth tells herself that "[s]he
must go home. She must dress for dinner. But what was the time?-where
was a clock?" (137).
Elizabeth looks for a clock-the urban patriarchal symbol in the
novel-as if searching for the same validation of her decision to perform
the role of the perfect hostess that Big Ben provides for Clarissa. Eliza-
beth apparently finds this validation, because she realizes that "it was
later than she thought" (138). Elizabeth notes that her mother would not
like her "wandering off alone" like a pioneer (like a professional woman),
and after watching the city lose its luster, Elizabeth turns away from the
Strand and from her professional aspirations in order to board an
omnibus that will take her to Westminster to engage in the performance
(138). The city, while momentarily perceived by Elizabeth as alive, loud,
and exciting, ultimately shows Elizabeth that she is an outsider so long as
she entertains professional aspirations. The city then coaxes her into per-
forming the role of a perfect hostess by reminding her of her duties back
in Westminster at her mother's party. Elizabeth consciously decides to
adhere to the city's patriarchal dictates by leaving the Strand in order to
prepare for the party.
As Judith Butler underlines, identity is constructed through perform-
ance. The act of repetition, however, is required for a subject to maintain
its identity, and if an identity "is compelled to repeat itself in order to estab-
lish the illusion of its own uniformity and identity, then this is an identity
permanently at risk, for what if it fails to repeat, or if the very exercise of

48 Equating Performance with Identity

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repetition is redeployed for a very different performative purpose?" (24).
Moreover, according to Butler, "that there is a need for repetition at all is a
sign that identity is not self-identical. It requires to be instituted again and
again, which is to say that it runs the risk of becoming de-instituted at
every interval" (24). Thus, people who desperately need to grasp onto any
secure, static identity will find themselves constantly in despair. Even if
one is able to consistently, repeatedly behave in a way that confirms a cer-
tain identity-this in itself is a wretchedly difficult task-the simple nature
of this need for repetition indicates the vulnerability of that identity. But-
ler's theory offers little hope to those who spend their lives striving to be
something, or who find that they finally are something, for it only takes
one action to shatter the much-coveted stable identity.
The fascinating thing about Clarissa, however, is that she actually does
seem to perform consistently in a way that confirms her identity as a per-
fect hostess. Even Clarissa's very last action in the book involves return-
ing to "assemble" at her party immediately after Big Ben interrupts her
attempt to identify with Septimus. Each time Clarissa finds her perform-
ance threatened-that is to say, each time she runs the risk of having her
identity de-instituted-Big Ben interrupts the threat and successfully
insists that Clarissa immediately return to the confines of her role.
Elizabeth may be able to de-institute her identity as a perfect hostess if
she finds some way to prevent herself from repeatedly performing this
role; her identity is precarious because it relies on the repetition of which
Butler speaks. It is troubling, therefore, that Elizabeth depends on a clock
to validate her decision to return home so as to perform the role of the
perfect hostess. The problem is that while Big Ben only interrupts the
moments when Clarissa's identity as a perfect hostess is threatened, Eliz-
abeth actually seeks out the guidance of a clock during moments when
she finds herself fleetingly entertaining the idea of enacting any other
role. Elizabeth therefore relies on Big Ben even more than Clarissa does.
Big Ben, like the city itself, has proven himself strong-even in the face of
War-and capable of sustaining his authority. By the end of the novel
Elizabeth has consciously chosen to perform the role of the perfect host-
ess and is entirely committed to performing this role. While this identity
is precarious, one can be certain that Big Ben-representative and sym-
bolic of patriarchal urban authority within the novel-will sustain his
ability throughout Elizabeth's life to interrupt moments when Elizabeth's
identity as a perfect hostess is in danger of being de-instituted. Elizabeth
thinks "how much nicer" it would be "to be in the country and do what
she liked!" (188), but she is trapped within the city. The city, therefore,
ensures that Elizabeth will never be able to question successfully or ever-
lastingly her decision to perform this role. Elizabeth, therefore, secures
for herself a future very much like that of her mother.

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 Thus, in conclusion, the concept of performance is key to understand-
ing the way gender for Woolf is a social construct stemming for women
from their struggle to identify and simultaneously oppose the Victorian
ideology forcing them to equate their identity with a corresponding and
acceptable Victorian role. It is a theme that so concerned Woolf that she
would also make it a central focus of To the Lighthouse, The Waves, Orlan-
do, and finally, Between the Acts. These later novels extend the discussion
Woolf began in Mrs. Dalloway; while Mrs. Dalloway is preoccupied with
emptiness and absence, this essential novel sets the necessary ground-
work for Woolf's thinking about performance to evolve to the extent that
Woolf in her later novels explores how crucial it is for women to perceive
of performance as a celebration of the necessity of enacting not one, con-
fining role, as is the case with Clarissa, but rather, the multifarious roles
that constitute their sense of self.

University of St. Thomas

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50 Equating Performance with Identity

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