Mrs. Dalloway and Pride and Prejudice: comparative literary analysis

Mrs.Dalloway/Pride & Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice and Mrs. Dalloway are both British novels written by women during times of great change. Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf each address the rules and social order and their effect on human relationships, but the novels are separated by more than a century and by very different styles. In each novel, a fascinating woman chooses to reject a serious marriage offer. Mr. Darcy endures a rejection from Elizabeth Bennett bravely and is rewarded in the end by her change of heart and a change of circumstances. Peter Walsh suffers from his rejection from Clarissa Dalloway all of his life and it colors his achievements and relationships. Why does Mr. Darcy's rejection meet with stoicism and a happy ending while Peter Walsh's reinforces his weak and vacillating character? The time period in which the novels take place affects the action. Although Jane Austen's time period had seen social change in Europe as a result of the not-too-distant French Revolution, the old rules were still fairly firm. Post WWI England was a much less certain time and the characters are part of the ebb and flow. Peter Walsh does not know himself and is far less certain of himself than is Mr. Darcy. Therefore, although a powerful rejection sets Mr. Darcy firmly on a path to earning redemption in Elizabeth's eyes, a powerful rejection from Clarissa sets Peter Walsh adrift. Happy endings are not simply a matter of clearing up misunderstandings; in fact, there is no hope at all for a happy ending of the relationship between Peter and Clarissa in post WWI London.

Pride and Prejudice is widely known as a social novel and for its strong characters. As a novel that addresses social behavior, Austen's work poses questions regarding marriage as a social tool from the very first page. The knowledge that a wealthy gentleman has leased a local estate fills Mrs. Bennett with presumptions and delight. As the mother of five marriageable daughters, she would, of course, agree that "a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife" (5). It is no surprise that the rest of the novel follows the entertaining stories of some of her daughters as they make steps and missteps in the realm of romance. The juxtaposition of the two couples, Jane Bennett and Charles Bingley and Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy, allows the author to comment on the nature of relationships and their pitfalls. One of these potential pitfalls is a reflection of the time period in which the novel is set.

While the French Revolution had a powerful and lasting effect on the role of the monarchy and old ideas about the landed gentry, its influence is a gentle one in Pride and Prejudice. Bingley and Darcy are both heirs to wealth and members of families that have long commanded money and titles. Bingley's temptation to marry outside of his social class and status becomes evident when he first lays eyes on Jane Bennett, the eldest of the five Bennett sisters. The Bennett family's financial status and situation is bleak because of the economic system of entailments. Mr. Bennett's home and modest estate will belong to the nearest male relative, a cousin named Mr. Collins, upon Mr. Bennett's death. Jane Austen suggests the unfairness of such an antiquated system by showing the ill effects on sympathetic characters. Mrs. Bennett, to be sure, is not willing to go quietly, and her daughters face a bleak future and few prospects because of their financial status. Pride and Prejudice does not advocate an overthrow of the system, though, instead it actually shows how tweaking one's ideas and prejudices can lead to a happy ending.

The character of Mr. Darcy is misunderstood by the Bennetts and their friends from the beginning. His apparent cold behavior at the dance leads others to a false assumption about his excessive pride. Elizabeth and Darcy's first meeting results in hurt and slighted feelings for her and the dawning of confusion for him. He declares Elizabeth, "tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me" (12).

Such an inauspicious beginning eventually blossoms into a full-scale misunderstanding between them. Because they are thrown together in various social circumstances, Darcy and Elizabeth have many opportunities to observe each other, converse, and sometimes dance. Because they are from different economic classes -- he has 10,000 pounds a year at his disposal and she will be homeless upon the death of her father -- their relationship faces an obstacle. Another obstacle is the behavior of Elizabeth's parents and some sisters that is a source of embarrassment. While it is true that Austen comments on the changing nature of the time period that might be more welcoming to cross-class marriages, she also suggests it is often more than just a matter of money that separates people.

As the relationship between Elizabeth and Darcy evolves, Darcy's feelings can no longer be concealed. He does, as a matter of fact, despise concealment or art of any kind. The proposal he delivers to Elizabeth is so painfully honest and, as a result, offensive, that she turns him down immediately. Darcy speaks openly of the "sense of her inferiority -- of its being a degradation -- of the family obstacles which judgment had always opposed to inclination" (161). Elizabeth also speaks openly of her reasons for the rejection: his coldness and his treatment of her friend George Wickham. She explains, "I have every reason in the world to think ill of you" (163). He seems to be most hurt by the fact that she believes he has not behaved in a "gentlemanlike" manner. Rejected, he coldly leaves, but goes home to write a lengthy letter explaining his behavior and refuting her charges against him and her reasons for the rejection. Although he makes it clear that the letter is not a renewal of his suit, he does intend to use the letter to reassert his position as being blameless and correct in his actions. Darcy's writing of such a letter shows his self-confidence and the fact that he knows where he belongs in the social scheme of things. He had questioned his judgment in loving a woman beneath him socially, but he does not question himself or his power. At the time period, it was clear that he had all the power to control his life, and it is a shock to him that he was refused by Elizabeth Bennett. Being a man of purpose, though, he does not lapse into despair. He writes the letter, and then renews his suit at a more opportune time.

Mr. Darcy's behavior shows his position as a man of power in his time and place. Because he has wealth and influence, he arranges a delicate matter for Elizabeth's family. Having thus proven his devotion for her and improved his character in her eyes, his next proposal meets with a positive result. For a man like Darcy with 10,000 a year at the turn of the 19th century, wandering about in confusion and dragging around the specter of a failed love affair is unthinkable. For Jane Austen, writing social novels for an early 19th century audience, ending a book with the romance unsatisfied and the hero desperate was also unthinkable. Austen wrote for a time period that did not necessarily always expect a happy ending, but readers were perfectly willing to believe that a happy ending was possible. After a century and a horrific war would pass, the belief in firm ground and happy endings was shaken.

Virginia Woolf's modernist novel Mrs. Dalloway has a very different tone from that of Jane Austen's novel. The specter of The Great War hangs over the characters as they go about their lives in London in the summer of 1923. The action takes place in the course of only one day, but the use of flashback shows that there are characters who are greatly affected by the past. Peter Walsh is one such character. His whole life, as he admits, has been a failure. He blames this failure, at least partly, on the rejection of a woman whom he had (and still) loved: Clarissa Dalloway. His attachment to her as a young man never came to fruition because Clarissa chose, instead, to marry Richard Dalloway. When he visits Clarissa after having been away in India for years, a fragment of their conversation reminds them both of the earlier rejection. Peter thinks, "it almost broke my heart" and "I was more unhappy than I've ever been since." He also wonders, "why go back like this to the past?" (62-3). The crushing defeat of his hopes stayed with Peter for more than thirty years and deepens the modernist theme of the novel by showing how people struggle to find meaning in a world that is in flux.

The effect of Clarissa's refusal is not limited entirely to Peter. The title character of the novel also considers many times what her life would have been like if she had married Peter Walsh instead of Richard Dalloway. Her remembrances of Peter, though, are different because they have the effect of affirming for her that she made the right decision in rejecting him. As she thinks of him, her conflict is not that she regrets not marrying him. Instead, the conflict for her is that it underscores how it is hard to actually know oneself and others. She calls him "her dear Peter" and says "he could be intolerable; he could be impossible; but adorable to walk with on a morning like this." She also remarks that "they might be parted for hundreds of years, she and Peter; she never wrote a letter and his were dry sticks; but suddenly it would come over her, If he were with me now what would he say?" (8-9). The past has a powerful effect on Clarissa Dalloway, but the effect is not the same as it is on Peter. Perhaps the reason for this is that she was the one in control of the decision regarding her marriage.

The world of flux in which post-WWI Britain found itself shows in Clarissa's thoughts. In considering her life and how she had gotten by with her amount of knowledge, she thinks, "She would not say of any one in the world now that they were this or were that [...] and she would not say of Peter, she would not say of herself, I am this, I am that" (11). Like Peter, Clarissa is not entirely sure that she knows herself. Clarissa is more in control of her own life than Peter is, though. When she thinks of Peter, she thinks of his foolishness. Clarissa considers her irritation with Peter and reflects that "it was his silly unconventionality, his weakness; his lack of the ghost of a notion what any one else was feeling that annoyed her, had always annoyed her; and now at his age, how silly!" (69). Yet, her feelings for him show the flux of the time period.

Despite her assertions that she is glad she did not accept and marry him thirty years ago, she has moments where she considers how she feels "extraordinarily at her ease with him and light-hearted, all in a clap it came over her, If I had married him, this gaiety would have been mine all day!" (70). She even has a romanticized notion of Peter going on a heroic voyage and impulsively wishes he would take her, too. The feelings subside as quickly as they came, though, and Peter is left to wonder how "she still had the power, as she came tinkling, rustling, still had the power as she came across the room, to make the moon, which he detested, rise at Bourton on the terrace in the summer sky" (71). It is no wonder that Peter could not get over his rejection from Clarissa, he had not been able to replace her affection and esteem with anything else throughout his half a century of life.

The time period of the setting has a great effect upon Peter and his way of dealing with the losses of the past. England suffered greatly during WWI and the society was profoundly affected. Peter Walsh had been away for five years following the Great War, and, as an indication of its impact on him, he says, "Those five years -- 1918 to 1923 -- had been, he suspected, somehow very important. People looked different" (108). Although Peter cannot come to grips with the idea of loss, he also recognizes what he has gained in his life. He considers it "the compensation of growing old" that "the passions remain as strong as ever, but one has gained -- at last! -- the power which adds the supreme flavour to existence, -- the power of taking hold of experience, of turning it round, slowly, in the light. A terrible confession it was...at the age of fifty-three one scarcely needed people any more. Life itself, every moment of it...was enough" (119-120). For him, though, Clarissa is like the life that had eluded him.