Throughout Mrs. Dalloway I noticed two threads that are metaphorically as well as literally connected, those being roots and trees. Although the appearance of trees was more prevalent in the beginning of the book, it still appeared in some way through the entirety of the story. The root and tree references sometimes referred to them as part of the landscape, but more often than not they were referred to in a bigger sense. Often they are brought up when talking about Septimus and his disgust in cutting down trees and ending life, this being a large obsession with him due to the fact that he was responsible for watching lives being taken away, some of those lives, being his closest friends. In other passages we see it through the thoughts of a tree and roots as a symbol of life.
“It was her life, and bending her head over the hall table, she bowed beneath the influence, felt blessed and purified, saying to herself, as she took the pad with the telephone message on it, how many moments like this are buds on the tree of life, flowers of darkness they are, she thought (as if some lovely rose had blossomed for her eyes only)….” (pg. 29)
Also seen (12, 15,22, 23, 29, 76, 83, 98, 121, 134, 154)
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Meghan,
ReplyDeleteI think this is one of the subtler themes in this novel, and you've picked up on it well. Certainly trees are frequent representations of life (or death), and the way that Virginia Woolf uses them in this novel as a connection between Septimus and Clarissa is quite interesting.
Abby