LITERATURE AND THE CITY

             In the famous essay The Metropolis and Mental Life, Simmel begins by stating that “the deepest problems of modern life flow from the attempt of the individual to maintain the independence and individuality of his existence against the sovereign powers of society, against the weight of the historical heritage and the external culture and technique of life” (11). In this essay, by examining how the narrator in Virginia Woolf’s Street Haunting wrestles with such kind of modern life’s problem during her pursuit of identity, I will argue that twentieth century London depicted in Street Haunting performs the roles of the metropolis stated in The Metropolis and Mental Life.

Conflict: Independence V.S. Individuality 

             First of all, I will identify the two roles of the metropolis proposed by Simmel which are central to this essay, followed by my interpretation of how the two roles can be mapped onto twentieth century London in Street Haunting. According to Simmel, the first role of the city is to “make a place for the conflict” whereas the other role is to act as a platform for the individual’s “attempts at unification” of “the conflict”(19). As Simmel employs the word “the conflict”, he is pointing to a particular conflict rather than any conflict. He implies that the conflict derives from the constantly shifting criteria of an individual’s value. Simmel refers the conflict to the two conflicting “ways of defining the position of the individual” within society: namely, by “general human quality”, addressing “the full freedom of movement of the individual in all his social and intellectual relationships”; by “qualitative uniqueness and irreplaceability”, meaning individuality or a person’s distinctive quality (19). Put simply, a person seeks to define his position in city by becoming a free, independent individual emancipated from the grip of powerful historical bonds, known as “general human quality” and/or by seeking to “distinguish themselves from another”, known as “qualitative uniqueness and irreplaceability”(Simmel 19). 

Struggles in the Quest for Identity

             On the other hand, in Street Haunting, Woolf probes the question of how characters experience confusion about self and resolve identity crisis in city. Woolf shows how the narrator struggles in her search of identity and how she resolves in the end through putting the narrator into others’ shoes as she strolls along London’s streets. The moment the narrator steps on the streets, the moment she decides to break away from her known, masked self that her friends know her by, she departs on an adventure of exploring her identity through self-reflection upon observation of what and whom she encounters in the city. Woolf places several unique characters such as the dwarf, the blind brothers, a starved Jew, an abandoned woman and arguing couple along the journey to delineate how the narrator’s self accommodates itself while interacting with sights and people and how she adjusts her self-positioning in the city. In other words, Woolf presents city as a place of negotiating one’s identity by means of pursuing independence and/or maintaining individuality; hence fulfilling the roles of the metropolis stated by Simmel.

             Through exploring the psychological aspects of urban existence of an individual, Simmel’s essay is an analysis of urban experience accounted through the eyes of the necessarily male flâneur figure in opposition to the account in female perspective in Street Haunting. According to Baudelaire’s depiction, flâneur is a man of the street who enjoys modern life of anonymous nature. “The street becomes a dwelling for the flâneur;” writes the German critic Walter Benjamin, “[flâneur] is as much at home among the facades of houses as a citizen is in his four walls” (36-37). In an essay titled "The Invisible Flâneuse”, scholar Janet Wolff introduces a characteristic of the typical urban dweller – “being accustomed to a state of anonymity” (19). However, the state of anonymity with which the flâneur is familiar is in fact a luxury unknown to, yet desired by women who are confined in the private sphere. Speaking of which, in Street Haunting, as the narrator craves freedom and is inclined to “become part of that vast republican army of anonymous trampers” (Woolf 1-2), it indicates her preference for pursuing independence as the way of defining her position in city (Simmel 19). 

             Besides, the narrator describes her room as one in which she sits “surrounded by objects which perpetually express the oddity of [her] own temperaments and enforce the memories of [her] own experience”(Woolf 2). For instance, the sight of “the bowl on the mantelpiece” and of “the stain on the carpet” triggers her to recall suffocating past memories. Those objects within the confined interior space appear to restrict the development of her character and narrowly define her identity. Hence, she wishes to leave behind her overly-defined self and is drawn by the appeal of the city—numerous possibilities in self-discovery. Considering her eagerness to be rid of the entanglement of self in domestic space, and her determined pursuit of liberation from her historical bonds, it unveils again her preference for independence as her value. Moreover, given the broken “shell–like covering which [their] souls have excreted to house themselves, to make for themselves a shape distinct from others” (Woolf 2), it implies that the “qualitative uniqueness” – the society’s criterion of one’s value has been imposed on her and constantly oppressing her, leading to the conflict of whether to maintain individuality of her existence or pursue independence (Simmel 19). As a result, Woolf’s representation of city as a place of negotiating one’s identity by means of pursuing independence and/or maintaining individuality corresponds to the roles of the metropolis asserted by Simmel.

The Shell-less Eye V.S. The Protection Bubble 

             Furthermore, to better understand the conflicting criteria of an individual’s value, I would like to shed light upon a fascinating comparison between two contrasting symbols below identified in Simmel and Woolf’s essays. In Street Haunting, Woolf employs an imagery of “a central oyster of perceptiveness, an enormous eye” to help us visualise the desire of the narrator to see, to perceive and to understand the world as well as herself (2). ‘The eye’ is an embodiment of the human mind (replacing the ‘I’) which takes up the duty of perception and interpretation, thus it plays a crucial role in determining which criterion to define one’s position within society. On the other hand, Simmel describes the intellectualistic quality as “a protection of the inner life” which I visualise as a hermetically sealed glass bubble as if that particular quality creates an invisible membrane enclosing the self (12). That glass frame is in fact comparable to the broken “shell–like covering which our souls have excreted to house themselves, to make for themselves a shape distinct from others” in Street Haunting (Woolf 2). Whereas the symbol of ‘the eye’ introduces an idea of gazing outward, the protection glass suggests the opposite. My point to highlight here is that even the directions of investigating the self are presented in two contrasting ways in the two essays: determine one’s identity from within in contrast to receiving influence from the external world.

Fluidity

             Moreover, one significant feature of ‘the eye’ is its physical and metaphorical fluidity. While its watery jelly-like texture enables it to “[float] smoothly down a stream” and “[glide] smoothly on the surface” (Woolf 3), there is a considerable presence of free flowing course of thoughts prompted by vision of ‘the eye’. With the help of ‘the eye’ element, Woolf shows that 20th century London provides an arena for the struggle about exploration of the self and one’s values. A representative scene in which the narrator experiences identity confusion occurs while she is walking on the pavement in January, mistaken, however, with the impression of her past self standing on a balcony in June.  Puzzled, she wonders: 
 

             The quote above displays her questioning of the true self and the conflict of identity within herself. What’s more, it is at the Embankment of river Thames that the narrator contemplates her ‘self’ crossing over time while she relives the past moment and compares it to the present. While self-examination takes place besides the river Thames, the narrator’s struggling thoughts on identity is often mentioned together with words like “river” and “tide” (Woolf 13). On top of that, Woolf’s literary technique, stream of consciousness aligns with the idea of fluidity as well. In view of the fact that the self is repeatedly adjusting to the surrounding environment as she comes into contact with different characters, the concept of fluidity not only echoes the nature of continually evolving self of the narrator in Street Haunting but also accords with that of individual’s constantly changing value in Simmel’s essay. 

Narrator in the Shoes of the Dwarf

             Among many characters the narrator comes across, I would like to focus on the dwarf. In the encounter with the dwarf, city is also portrayed as a place of exploring one’s identity through struggling to remain independent from the powers of society. The self-conscious dwarf displays excessive concern about others’ gaze and is tortured by her socially constructed aspiration to be normal as well as to fit in with the world’s standard of beauty. The world teaches her that the self is defined by appearance. As the narrator evaluates the dwarf, she perceives a sense of inferiority in her about her height, but conceit regarding her feet. Inside the boot shop the dwarf’s known, burdened self disappears, meanwhile a mask of charisma and confidence takes its place: “Her whole manner [changes] as she [looks] at it resting on the stand. She [looks] soothed and satisfied. Her manner [becomes] full of self-confidence” (Woolf 5). She could only feel the sense of confidence while trying on shoes; only then, can she be recognised and gazed at with admiration. It flatters the dwarf’s vanity to think that she can escape her ill fate for a while. We see her attempt 

in overthrowing the society’s norm as she imagines “feet are the most important part of the whole person” and indulges in the idea that “women… have been loved for their feet alone” (Woolf 5). The fantasy of a new self that the city offers is, however, ephemeral. As soon as she leaves the boot shop, “the ecstasy faded, knowledge returned, the old peevishness, the old apology came back, and by the time she had reached the street again she had become a dwarf only” (Woolf 6). Returning to reality, conflicts between individuals and the metropolis persist. Despite acknowledgement of her pitiful original self, the dwarf “[has] changed the mood” and begins to dance, radiating a gleam of positive light in her quest for identity (Woolf 6). Yet, the dance that the dwarf initiates is described as of the “hobbling grotesque” kind and the spectacle is represented as absurd. I discern tension between the lines. However, Woolf presents city as a place which embraces the tattered souls by appreciating beauty and variety within ‘the deformed’, and portrays how city receives and accommodates all kinds of people. Indeed, the dance might be a grotesque one but it is also one “to which everybody in the street now [conforms]” including those ordinary people who are flawed in one way or another such as the stout lady, the feeble-minded boy and the old man. On account of the harmony exhibited in the final scene, we can infer that the dwarf has reached the state of self-acceptance. If this is the case, city will then be depicted as a place for the reconciliation of the two conflicting ways of defining self.

             Likewise, city is also portrayed as a place for reconciliation at the end of Street Haunting. After rambling the streets of London, putting on briefly other’s bodies and minds imagining what their lives are like, the narrator unconsciously ponders the question of her life and values. Observing others prompts her to examine herself. Approaching home, the narrator finds it “comforting to feel the old possessions, the old prejudices” that fold her round and feels at ease to have her shattered self “sheltered and enclosed” (Woolf 15). Words like “fold … round”, “sheltered”, “enclosed” point to the idea of rapprochement within an individual and reconciliation with city. Therefore, the city is represented as a place for the attempts at unification of the conflict between the pursuit of independence and the maintenance of the individuality of one’s existence against the external world. 

             To conclude, one might say that the realization of individuality as the criteria of value at the end retorts her initial aim of going after independence. Nevertheless, after struggling between the two seemingly conflicting self-positioning values, the narrator recognises that the two should be complementary to each other. “Circumstances compel unity; for convenience sake a man must be a whole” (Woolf 9): this quote suggests that apart from independence obtained from the journey on street, she also understands the importance of preserving her “qualitative uniqueness” so that reconciliation of the conflict could be achieved (Simmel 19). Hence, after allowing her ‘self’ some adventurous exposure to the outside world, she eventually returns home and settles with her original known self. In the pursuit of identity, we see how the narrator confronts challenges of her values. Notwithstanding, she demonstrates successful attempts in pursuing independence and maintaining unique individuality against the powers and culture of the external world. Consequently, we can say that twentieth century London illustrated in Street Haunting performs the roles of the metropolis: (1) as a place for the conflict and (2) a place for the “attempts at unification” of “the conflict” mentioned in The Metropolis and Mental Life (Simmel 19).