'What business had the Bradshaws to talk of death at her party?'
A SUMMARY of the second half of Mrs Dalloway.
Hello friends!
We are nearing our destination! If you’ve been reading along with us, you should be finished or very close. Well done! I hope the experience has been a rewarding one.
Today, I will offer a SUMMARY of the second half of Mrs Dalloway. For obvious reasons, it can only scratch the surface of what takes place in the second half of the novel. But, if nothing else, I hope it helps you get your bearings or remind you what you read or allow you to hold forth knowledgeably about Mrs Dalloway at dinner parties without having read it. Then in two days (hopefully still in June) I’ll share some THOUGHTS and OBSERVATIONS.
If you don’t need a summary, feel free to disregard it! Or skip to the end of this post where I outline a few questions and lines of inquiry.
Key to abbreviations
D = Mrs Dalloway; PW = Peter Walsh; S = Septimus Warren Smith; R = Rezia (aka Lucrezia).
Summary of the second half
R and S visit Harley Street for a consultation with a new doctor — Sir William Bradshaw.
Sir William does not speak of ‘madness’. Rather, he refers to people not having a sense of proportion. He says that, given S’s threats to commit suicide, S should be admitted to a home Sir William runs in the country and there receive a rest cure. R is dubious — she does not like Sir William. It seems that Sir William’s treatment method involves bringing his patients forcefully into line with his way of thinking.
Meanwhile, across town Richard Dalloway attends lunch with Hugh Whitbread and the formidable Lady Bruton.
Lady Bruton has assembled the two men to assist her with writing a letter to the Times — a task she finds herself unequal to, despite her competence in other areas. She likes Richard and appreciates Hugh — though observes that Hugh is getting fat; Richard on the other hand is ‘in the pink of condition.’ Lady Bruton reports to the men that PW is back in town. Richard checks whether Lady Bruton will be attending their party, ‘whereupon Lady Bruton resumed the magnificence which letter-writing had shattered.’
Richard and Hugh leave and walk together through the city streets.
It is afternoon and a light wind blows. The two men briefly enter a shop because Hugh wishes to buy his wife a necklace. Richard leaves Hugh there and heads home. On the way, he buys a bunch of roses for D and determines to tell D he loves her, however in the event he is unable to. D and Richard chitchat, then Richard orders D to have a rest after lunch as the doctor has instructed and D reflects on Richard’s ‘adorable, divine simplicity’.
D sees Miss Kilman; there is mutual hatred between them.
D and Miss Kilman briefly cross paths as Miss Kilman and Elizabeth leave to visit the Army and Navy Stores. D laughs as she says goodbye to them which Miss Kilman takes as an insult. She despises D and feels angry and alone in the world — feels acutely the pain of being ugly, clumsy, unlovable. After buying a petticoat, Miss Kilman goes with Elizabeth to have tea. Miss Kilman loves Elizabeth and is pleased when she can take Elizabeth away from D but then pained when Elizabeth leaves her after they finish their tea.
After Elizabeth leaves the Army and Navy Stores, she takes a bus up the Strand on a whim. She is delighted to be free, and visiting that part of London makes her feel like ‘a pioneer, a stray, venturing, trusting.’
R and S are home from their appointment and S is momentarily himself again.
Back at their home, R trims a hat and S jokes about it and is momentarily himself again. There is a respite from the visions and agitation. ‘For the first time in days he was speaking as he used to.’ R feels joy — she can tell him anything now; they can poke fun privately like married people; everything is right with the world. The landlady’s grandchild comes in with the evening paper and R leaves briefly to return a child to its mother. S feels tired and wants to sleep but his agitation returns and he calls out for Evans. R returns chitchatting about this and that, not fully aware that S is again on edge. R reassures him that Bradshaw will not separate them. She goes to pack their things but, on hearing Holmes on the stairs, leaves to intercept him and stop him from seeing S.
S commits suicide.
S hears Holmes coming up the stairs and panics. He looks for options in the room and, finding none, finally ends his life by throwing himself out the window. Holmes and R burst into the room and R looks out the window and sees what has happened.
PW hears the sound of an ambulance going by and is pleased — the ambulance is a triumph of civilisation.
On returning to his hotel, PW receives a letter from D and the letter annoys him. Thinking about the mess he’s got himself into with Daisy, his fiancee, he wonders whether it might not be better for Daisy to forget him. PW goes to a restaurant for dinner. Everyone is out and about — it’s a warm evening.
At D’s, people begin to arrive for the party.
PW arrives at the party and regrets coming — here is D at her worst — effusive and insincere. D greets people but feels things are going badly and the party will be a failure. A breeze blows in and lifts the yellow curtain and, when a man beats it back and keeps talking, D takes this as a sign that the party will not be a failure.
Many different people attend the party and are announced as they enter.
Hugh Whitbread arrives. So does Sally Seton who has come along uninvited — she was passing through London and heard about the party. D does not immediately recognise her name — she is Lady Rosseter now. The Prime Minister arrives, followed soon after by Lady Bruton and the two withdraw to a smaller room. When the Prime Minister emerges, D takes him around the room. She intervenes to help with two men not getting along. She recruits PW to talk to her Aunt Helena about Burma. She is engaged in carefully orchestrating her party. And it seems to be going off well after all.
PW and Sally Seton settle down together to gossip and reminisce about the past.
D has hardly spoken to either of them all night but tells them to wait, by which she means that they should wait until everyone else is gone.
The Bradshaws arrive late. Lady Bradshaw apologises for being late and explains that a young man has killed himself.
D is struck by the arrival of death in the middle of her party. She withdraws into the small room that the Prime Minister was previously in to absorb this information. In thinking about Bradshaw, D realises that she does not like him and imagines him ‘capable of some outrage’. She imagines the death of the man and feels it nearly bodily.
PW and Sally Seton continue to gossip.
They spot Hugh and Sally confirms that he did kiss her on the lips in the smoking room all those years ago. Sally also comments that D is a snob and believes Sally married beneath her for, although her husband is rich, he is also a miner’s son; his fortune is self-made. People are leaving and still D hasn’t come and spoken to PW and Sally. PW admits to Sally that his relations with D have not been simple and, frankly, it has spoilt his life. The Bradshaws are leaving.
Sally goes to speak to Richard whom she feels has improved with time. PW will join them but before he can go, there is Clarissa.
A few things to think about
So, now that we’ve reached the end of the novel, what are your first thoughts? What is this novel about? If you’re looking for lines of inquiry, you could take up any of the following:
What are the parallels and disparities between the two main story lines — the lead up to Septimus’s death and the lead up to Clarissa’s party?
Who is Bradshaw? How does the portrayal of Bradshaw serve the wider depiction of mental illness and the treatment of mental illness?
What are the various power relations in play during the lunch with Lady Bruton? How do they ebb and flow over the course of the meal?
Are Miss Kilman and Clarissa opposites? What role does Miss Kilman play in the story?
What do we know about Richard Dalloway, by the end of the novel?
What do we know about Peter Walsh, by the end of the novel?
What is going on at the party? What is Clarissa’s role? What does the party represent — literally, figuratively, allegorically? What is the significance of Clarissa finding out about Septimus’s death during her party?
Anything else to say about representations of time and memory?
What’s next?
Two days hence, I will post some THOUGHTS and OBSERVATIONS about the second half of the book. Please feel free to wait for that post before adding your own thoughts. Or just go ahead and add your thoughts to the comments below. Whatever you prefer! I’m so interested to hear what you think!
Until very soon!
I'm so glad I joined this group because now I have finally read a novel that has sat on my shelf, unread, for years and years. I've a feeling I'll be thinking about this one for a long time. One thing I have to say, is that I did not find it all an easy read. So many people have told me they loved this book and as i read i wondered if they, like me, loved having read it as opposed to the moment of actually reading--which took effort. But now that I am done, I feel the book was glorious. And I know i will read it again and the next time it will be so much easier to read. Anyway, you ask what we think the book is about? And I hesitate to attempt an answer as i think I will find that the book was about so many things. But in this moment, i will say that I think the book is about how each life is important, how we don't know what anyone else is going through at any time, how a so-called small life is not small at all, how time and memory fool with us, how we struggle to think clearly, to see clearly, to see outside of ourselves, how we are all bundles of emotion, how time beats on, terrible things happen, love is elusive, there's always mending to do. etc.
Clarissa seems to be caught off guard and momentarily disconcerted when the Bradshaws arrive at her party, bearing with them, in a sense, the mangled body of Septimus Smith. From one of Peter’s earlier reveries, we learn that Clarissa has a “horror of death”, which she copes with by indulging in a “transcendental theory” that something—“the unseen part of us”—survives death and attaches “to this person or that, or even haunting certain places, after death. Perhaps—perhaps.” This is the psychological defense mechanism that allows Clarissa to entertain thoughts of her death occasionally throughout the novel, but on her own terms and at times of her own choosing.
Clarissa is unprepared, however, when Mrs. Bradshaw greets her with news of Septimus’s suicide, and she has to retreat to a small private room to absorb the news, and with it, the sudden reminder that “there was in the depths of her heart an awful fear”; that is, the fear of her own death. But in a moment, Clarissa rebounds: “Odd, incredible; she had never been so happy.” The beauty of the evening sky viewed out a window has a restorative effect upon her spirits, particularly because, “[i]t held, foolish as the idea was, something of her own in it, this country sky …”
Septimus shares Clarissa’s appreciation of beauty, whether expressed in the works of Shakespeare or manifested in the wonders of the natural world. The critical difference between them, I think, is that the experiences of the war have taken a coarse grit belt sander to Septimus’s psychological defenses and shorn away his ability to sleepwalk through daily life without being paralyzed by the fear of his own inevitable death in the way that Clarissa is able to; or, for that matter, that I’m able to, sitting here pecking away at the keyboard, knowing full well that when I’m lying on my deathbed—assuming I have one—it’s highly unlikely that my last thoughts will be, “Oh, if only I’d spent more time online!”
Septimus’s sensibilities are fully exposed to and totally overwhelmed by the beauty and terror of the world—'beauty and terror'; I think I may have read that phrase somewhere—and he kills himself when he is unable to withstand the unbearable effect they have upon his thoughts and feelings.