Representative Idea In Mrs Dalloway

In Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, everything and everyone is insignificant. That is, until someone or something starts to embody a larger idea that gives that person or object significance. Throughout the entirety of the novel, characters and objects themselves only gain significance once enshrouded by a larger representative idea.
The occurrence of characters gaining significance through representative ideas can be seen when Clarissa refers to Miss Kilman and thinks “For it was not her one hated, but the idea of her, which undoubtedly had gathered into itself a great deal that was not Miss Kilman” (Woolf, 12). The passage implies that when someone represents an idea, the idea evolves to become larger, and much more different, that the
original person or thing. Miss Kilman is just an old woman, one of lesser status than Clarissa, yet she represents an idea of religiousness and connection to Elizabeth that feels threatening to Clarissa.
Shortly after speaking with Miss Kilman, Clarissa’s perception of Miss Kilman starts to deteriorate and Clarissa thinks “Odd it was, as Miss Kilman stood there (and stand there she did, with the power and taciturnity of some prehistoric monster armored for primeval warfare), how, second by second, the idea of her diminished, how hatred (which was for ideas, not people) crumbled, how she lost her malignity, her size, became second by second merely Miss Kilman…” (Woolf, 126). Without the grandiose idea threatening Clarissa, Miss Kilman becomes insignificant and powerless. All the authority that Miss Kilman held, and all the anger that Clarissa felt towards her, immediately diminished along with the ideas that she represented to Clarissa. Without being enshrouded by an idea, Miss Kilman becomes humanized in Clarissa’s eyes. The power that this idea previously held was noticeably immense, given that the destruction of it shifted Clarissa from deep anger and jealousy to pity and calmness.
In the novel, objects also have the ability to gain significance through representative ideas as well as human characters. The whole city of London becomes incredibly entranced by the possibility of royalty being inside a darkened motor vehicle, and passers-by “stopped and stared, had just time to see a face of the very greatest importance against the dove-grey upholstery…But now mystery had brushed them with her wing; they had heard the voice of authority… Was it the Prince of Wales’s, the Queen’s, the Prime Minister’s? ” (Woolf, 14). Who actually is traveling inside the car becomes insignificant; as long as the possibility of someone with high social status being in the car exists, it doesn’t matter who is actually in the car. The mysteriousness behind the idea of this unknown driver is so powerful that is causes “everything came [had come] to a standstill” (Woolf, 14). Eventually, the idea has such an impact on the populace that is it stated that “The sun became extraordinarily hot because the motor car had stopped…boys on bicycles sprang off” (Woolf, 15). Without this air of unknowingness, the car would be treated as completely insignificant, but because of this idea surrounding it, it becomes significant.
A more abstract example of this same concept occurs in the novel when an airplane writes letters in the sky that each of the characters interprets differently.
When Septimus sees the letters, he thinks that “They are signaling to me [him]. Not indeed in actual words; that is, he could not read the language yet; but it was plain enough, this beauty, this exquisite beauty, and tears filled his eyes as he looked at the smoke words languishing and melting in the sky” (Woolf, 22). Later it is discovered that “It was toffee; they were advertising toffee” (Woolf, 22). Septimus, not being able to read the words, was only able to react to his idea of what the words meant. The grand idea that was surrounding the toffee advertisement became much more significant that the toffee advertisement itself. However, part of Septimus’s extreme reaction can be attributed to his mental illness seen throughout the book. The fact that his mental illness affected his interpretation of the toffee advertisement shows that there is a heavy amount of subjectivity with the character’s interpretations of all things. Specifically, Septimus’s illness causes him to view aforementioned representative ideas in different ways; an object or person will represent something entirely different to Septimus than it does to the other
characters.