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JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
Richard thinks of telling Clarissa that he loves her, "in so many
words" (Woolf 98) in reaction to his remembering Peter Walsh
once having done so. His reactionary and romanticized version
of Peter Walsh connects him to the person in despair who lacks
of a true sense of self.
Peter Walsh! All three, Lady Bruton, Hugh Whitbread, and
Richard Dalloway, remembered the same thing—how
passionately Peter had been in love; been rejected; gone to
India; come a cropper; made a mess of things; and Richard
Dalloway had a great liking for the dear old fellow too. Milly
Brush saw that; saw a depth in the brown of his eyes; saw him
hesitate; consider; which interested her, as Mr. Dalloway always
interested her, for what was he thinking, she wondered, about
Peter Walsh? That Peter Walsh had been in love with Clarissa;
that he would go back directly after lunch and find Clarissa; that
he would tell her, in so many words, that he loved her. Yes, he
would say that. (Woolf 115-16)
Peter Walsh has not played the role in Clarissa’s everyday life
that Richard has, but Richard fails to see that. Peter Walsh and
Richard Dalloway are diametrically opposed characters in that
Peter has been a "presence while being absent" (Kierkeggard 63)
and Richard has been an “absence while being present”
(Kierkegaard 63). In contrast to the security of self one
experiences within the ethical sphere, Richard Dalloway’s
wanting to tell Clarissa that he loves her in reaction to Peter
Walsh, in Kierkegaardian terms, identifies him more with
characteristics of an individual who remains confined to the
aesthetic sphere than with the emblematic role of a faithful
husband.
In short, Kierkegaard believes that within the aesthetic sphere
"What is demonic wants to shut itself up in itself and isolate
itself from the threat of the good" (Watkin 63). Within the
context of the personality that is limited by being confined to the
aesthetic sphere, Richard's acting in resentment toward others
might ultimately become a covert way of sabotaging his
potential to become a concrete personality. Richard has lost his
success in his both private and public lives by keeping himself
in just aesthetics. He is the man of appearance not a man of
action; this is what brings him failure.
3 The Ethical Sphere
The importance of the aesthetic is acknowledged, but it is also
presented as an immature stage. "The aesthete is only concerned
with his or her personal enjoyment, and because aesthetic
pleasure is so fleeting, an aesthete has no solid framework from
which to make coherent, consistent choices" (Cole 74).
Eventually, the pleasures of the aesthetic wear thin, and one
must begin seeking the ethical pleasures instead. The ethical life
actually offers certain pleasures the aesthetic life cannot. The
aesthetic life must be subordinated to the ethical life, as the
ethical life is based on a consistent, coherent set of rules
established for the good of society. Kierkegaard puts this sphere
in terms of "exteriority" which relates to the external and social
world. Clarissa faces paradox with regard to the limit of the
ethical sphere of existence, by serving as the mediating point in
the contrasting roles of the other primary characters.
Most significant of these contrasts is her double-bladed
relationship to Peter Walsh, her adventurous suitor, and Richard,
her less-than-adventurous suitor-then-husband. In moving
beyond "defining herself narrowly in relation to limitations set
forth by her earlier rejection of Peter Walsh or her marriage to
Richard Dalloway" (Schiff 371), Clarissa acts as one who
chooses herself within the context of Kierkegaard’s ethical
sphere; she recognize that she is not "Mrs. Dalloway", nor is she
the interpretation of herself into which she is tempted to fall in
reaction to her declining health. "She stands in the position of
the individual who faces the existential limit of her
interpretation of self" (Henke 384). She faces a situation similar
to the individual who confronts the limit of the ethical sphere
and the finite nature of human existence, and she thus reaches a
place where an individual might embrace the possibility of
making a leap to faith that takes shape within the religious
sphere.
In resembling one who has reached the limit of Kierkegaard’s
ethical sphere, Clarissa also confronts the double-bladed nature
of her relationship to both Sally Seton of the past (While she
was young) and Sally Seton of the present (at her present age).
Sally Seton of the past represents the Romantic escapism
characteristic of Kierkegaard’s aesthetic sphere, in other words,
"Sally Seton symbolizes for Clarissa what she never had the
courage to become" (Cui 179). In a way that resembles Judge
William’s exhorting the aesthete of Either/Or II to embrace the
existentially rewarding responsibilities that life within the
ethical sphere might offer, the idealized Sally Seton of the past
is disrupted as the real Sally Seton re-enters Clarissa’s life. Sally
Seton of the present has “five sons and is a married woman in
her fifties, Lady Rosseter, wife of an industrialist (Woolf 204).
Sally Seton of the past, this ghostly memory to which Clarissa
retreats on occasion, represents Clarissa’s failure to find lasting
meaning within her occasional retreats to the aesthetic sphere.
Sally Seton of the present, on the other hand, is, for Clarissa, a
metaphor for personality associated with the responsibilities of
motherhood– with facing one’s place within the ethical sphere
of existence. Such an example of a connection with the ethical
might lead Clarissa naturally to thoughts of Elizabeth Dalloway,
Clarissa’s link to the future.
Lastly, Clarissa must face the double-bladed nature of her
interpretation of self in relation to Septimus Smith. This too
brings her symbolically to the limit of the ethical sphere in that
she identifies herself with Septimus when she learns that he has
just died:
Somehow it was her disaster—her disgrace. It was her
punishment to see sink and disappear here a man, there a
woman, in this profound darkness, and she forced herself to
stand here in her evening dress. She had schemed; she had
pilfered. She was never wholly admirable. She wanted success.
Lady Bexborough and the rest of it […]. (Woolf 202)
Clarissa, in thinking that she was “never wholly admirable”
(Woolf 202) and in identifying herself with Septimus Smith’s
finitude, paradoxically, faces a situation similar to the individual
who, in Kierkegaard’s schema, confronts her own limit within
the ethical sphere of existence. For Kierkegaard, recognition of
guilt before the Eternal—the limit of the ethical sphere—is
ultimately a gift of God’s grace. Kierkegaard believes that “Man
is guilty, but he is also redeemed from this guilt” (Hubben 48).
In brief, Clarissa connects the sense of duty and obligation,
characteristic of the ethical sphere, to the beauty and precious
moments of life, but this connection arises from her recognition
that, soon enough, life will have passed. Double-bladed nature
of her interpretation of self in relation to Sally Seton of the past
and present and Semtimus brings her symbolically to the
limitations of the ethical sphere.
4 The Religious Sphere
Kierkegaard considers the religious life to be the highest plane
of existence. The religious sphere is the relationship between
God and an individual standing before God. According to
Kierkegaard, the religious sphere is divided into Religiousness
A and B. Religiousness A applies to the individual who feels a
sense of guilt before God. Religiousness B is transcendental in
nature. Finally, with paradoxical optimism, Kierkegaard sees
"death for the Christian as the point at which God’s light shines
brightest" (Webb 287). Mrs. Dalloway symbolically represents
the limitations of the ethical sphere and the limitations of what
Kierkegaard refers to as Religiousness A. Based upon
Kierkegaard's belief, a good person, such as Clarissa cannot
arrive at the salvation under her own power. In this section,
finally, the possible existence of religiousness in the characters
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