"A Kind of Ecstasy": Queer Moments and the Power of the Closet in Mrs. Dalloway
Abstract
Virginia Woolf's 1925 novel Mrs. Dalloway contrasts two very dissimilar characters: the eponymous Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway, a wealthy older woman who is preparing for a party, and Septimus Smith, a young soldier who is contemplating suicide. Throughout the novel, these two characters both struggle with their recollections of past queer moments which disturb their present (straight) lives, while they attempt to find identification with other people. Woolf frames both characters within the novel as parallels, despite their different social classes and backgrounds. Both characters exist in a perpetually closeted space which requires them to conform to heteronormativity, or the assumption and need for straightness. Septimus's and Clarissa's attempts at connection are marked by past queer moments which juxtapose their past selves with their present selves, disrupting the flow of time and breaking through the walls of the closet, if only momentarily. These queer moments disrupt heterosexual performativity within the text and dramatically alter the lives of both Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Smith, bridging the gap between their differing social classes to create a single moment of queer understanding through action.
Collections
- OSU Theses [15752]