Clarissa’s Quest For An Ideal Individuation

Mrs. Dalloway is one of the most representative works of English famous writerVirginia Woolf in the20thcentury，marking her success of full-length stream ofconsciousness novel. According to Mrs. Dalloway’s living experience in a single day,Woolf depicts various upper and middle bourgeoisie characters, and successfullyfigures the protagonist Mrs. Dalloway in the pursuit of ideal individuation by theintricate relations and conflicts between these characters, as well as the mentalsituation of upper and middle classes in Britain after the First World War. Thepsychological description of the main character has close relations with Jung’spsychological theory, which also has intimate connection with literature. Jungbelieves that personality is composed of consciousness, individual unconsciousnessand collective unconsciousness. The collective unconsciousness exists congenitallyand its content is known as archetype. Everyone’s personality consists of fivesignificant archetypes: persona，anima or animus，shadow and self. The conflictsbetween the factors exist everywhere in the personality. The overdevelopment of asingle archetype will lead to the collapse of personality eventually. People can onlyachieve an ideal individuation by balancing the relations between archetypes andmaking them develop harmoniously. Jung’s psychological theories explain reasonablythe origin and content of the literary works, and reveal the inner relation betweenliterature and archetype, which provide methodological basis for literary criticism.If we capture the party as the main clue, we will find that the process thatClarissa gives the party during the initial stage of planning the party, the preparationstage of the party, the beginning stage of the party and the ending stage of the partyhierarchically and innovatively has subtle relationship with Clarissa’s mental changes. Meanwhile, other characters that have some relations with Clarissa in the novel arejust the different aspects of Clarissa’s inner personal archetypes, and these charactersjust project Clarissa’s complicated and various archetypes. For example, Sir WilliamBradshaw, Hugh and Mr. Dalloway are the projection of persona in Clarissa’spersonality. And it is just persona that drives Mrs. Dalloway to initiate the idea tohave a party. At the preparation stage, Clarissa’s old lover Peter who is the projectionof shadow hidden in her heart comes and wakes up the shadow aspect of Clarissa’spersonality. At the beginning of the party, the arrival of her old best friend Sally Setonwhom she has not seen for years makes Clarissa’s animus emerge; so Sally Seton isjust the projection of Clarissa’ hidden animus. At the end of the party, all kinds ofarchetypes are inseparably woven together, and Clarissa finally realizes that she canfind an ideal individuation only when she has balanced the conflicts between variouskinds of personal archetypes. Through the analyses of these figures, including SirWilliam Bradshaw, Mr. Dalloway，Peter and Sally Seton, it can reveal Clarissa’scomplicated inner personal archetypes and the balance or conflicts between them.At the beginning of the party, driven by persona, Clarissa initiates the idea ofhaving a party. According to Jung, persona is a personal facade that one presents tothe world in order to leave a good impression on the public to gain social respect andacceptance. Mrs. Dalloway lives in British higher class all the time; having a party isa social activity generally recognized in the upper class. Hence, she wants to gain therecognition and acceptance of the upper class by the party. Her idea and behavior arejust driven by her inner persona. Clarissa wears the “mask”—persona every day, actsthe image as the “perfect hostess”. Besides Clarissa who is driven by persona, in thisnovel, Woolf also depicts Sir William Bradshaw, Hugh Whitbread, Mr. Dalloway andother nobles who are also deeply influenced by persona. These characters especiallySir William Bradshaw wears the mask and pursuits “a sense of proportion” all days.On the surface, he is scrupulous and gentle; actually he has become insensitive,cruelly proposes to separate people who suffer from mental disease. These charactersare just the projection of Clarissa’s persona. Meanwhile, the tragic character Septimusoverly develops his persona during the war, and then suffers from the kickback of other archetypes, which finally leads to the collapse of various archetypes and hissuicide. Through the above analysis, we can find that if the persona developsexcessively, the other sections of personality will be excluded; and the shadow andanimus etc. will be in a weak position. This unbalanced personality will make peoplebecome the callous and indifferent puppet like Sir William Bradshaw, or the victim ofthe overdevelopment of persona like Septimus.During the preparation process of the party, Clarissa’s shadow is awoken.Clarissa hides shadow in her personality when she chooses to marry Mr. Dalloway.During the preparation of the party, the memories about her old lover Peter come outfrom time to time which implies the revival of shadow in her mind. When thefreewheeling and uninhibited Peter appears in front of her, then she realizes that theshadow hidden in her heart revives gradually. Different from Richard Dalloway andother upper class nobles who are sophisticated and hypocritical, Peter is frank andstraightforward. He never hides his true feelings, and always expresses his affectiontowards Clarissa directly. As a matter of fact, in Peter’s personality, shadow aspect hasmore advantages than other aspects. So he can obtain a special but enchantingcharacteristic that most gentlemen do not possess. And just because of this, Clarissaand some other women love him so much. However the overdevelopment of shadowmay also bring some negative effects. Although Peter is enchanting under theinfluence of shadow, he never represses its overdevelopment. Finally shadow leadsPeter to fail in his social life and be unacceptable socially. For this reason, it is alsonot an ideal personality status. The influence of shadow may be positive or negative;therefore, we should absorb its positive elements into our practical experience, andtreat its negative factors rationally. Only can we balance the relation of variousarchetypes, we can get a harmonious personality.At the beginning of the party, Sally Seton’s arrival without invitation makesClarissa’s animus emerge. Animus in Jung’s archetype theory refers to the masculineinner personality in women. This theoretical concept and Woolf’s androgyny aresimilar. The main female character Sally Seton is just the projection of animus andWoolf’s created thought, androgyny. When Sally is young, she is courageous and daring; she always does things as her please. While in the temporary society, onlymen have the right to do what they like as their will. After getting married, the femalefeatures gradually regain; male and female personalities coexist in Sally harmoniously.Actually Sally Seton is just the projection of Clarissa’ hidden animus, therefore,Clarissa can be deeply attracted by Sally’s special male features. However, anotherfemale character Lady Bruton is just a counter-example of animus’ overexpansion.Lady Bruton is fond of politics just like a man; she excludes other women and dislikesto communicate with female. The overdeveloped animus make Lady Bruton lose heressential female personality. She apparently revolts the male-dominated society;actually she abandons her female personality completely and becomes the victim ofcatering to the male-dominated society. Sally and Lady Bruton remind Clarissa thatit’s important to balance her inner animus and female personality.At the end of the party that evening, Dr. Bradshaw and Mr. Dallowayrepresenting persona, Peter representing shadow and Sally representing animus allappear at the party, which implies all kinds of archetypes are inseparably woventogether. After receiving Septimus’ suicide message, Clarissa finally realizes that shecan find a harmonious, complete and ideal individuation under the function of selfonly when she has balanced the conflicts between various kinds of personalarchetypes. Actually, the process that Clarissa gives the party is just a completeprocess of individuation. The individuation process begins with becoming consciousof persona, the mask we take on in our everyday life. After this we are conscious ofshadow, the repressed characteristics of ego. Then we become conscious of anima, theinner woman in each man, or animus, the inner man in each woman. Then the imageof the old wise man or the old wise mother appears. The overdevelopment of personamay lead to the alienation of personality or collapse of mind, while theoverindulgence of shadow or anima/animus will make people separate from thesociety and be excluded by others. People can only achieve an ideal individuation bybalancing the relations between archetypes under the influence of self. At the end ofthe novel, Clarissa has finished her ideal individuation.Although the study of Mrs. Dalloway is extensive at home and abroad, but most of them focus on the stream of consciousness, temporality, androgyny,post-colonialism, intertexuality and other aspects. And in the psychological researchabout it, the approaches of Freud’s psychological theory is used generally. However,the research using Jung’s psychological theory is not comprehensive and specific.Abroad, there are researches analyzing Woolf’s works by using Jung’s psychologicaltheory instead of the archetypical theory. In China, only He Yuwei uses Jung’sarchetypical theory to analyze Mrs. Dalloway simply. Therefore, to analyzes the maincharacter Clarissa by using Jung’s archetype and individuation theory provides a newperspective to the research of this novel, and brings enlightenment for the individualpsychological maturity.