LITERATURE AND THE CITY

            As a renowned modernist feminist writer, Woolf compellingly constructs early 20th century modernist London from the eyes of a “flaneuse” in Mrs. Dalloway and “Street Haunting: A London Adventure”. This paper aims to scrutinize the relation between the female protagonists in two of Woolf’s texts: Clarissa Dalloway in Mrs. Dalloway and the narrator in “Street Haunting: A London Adventure,” and their urban presences in the form of city strolling in early 20th century London. Initiated by domestic purposes from a “flaneuse” point of view, the physical journeys of the female protagonists are where the two texts resemble. In the parallels of the female protagonists as observers, these works of fiction convey how modernist “flaneuse” embeds mental journeys in the pleasant physical journeys they take. Woolf’s compelling depictions of their physical experiences of walking in the city subsequently influence how the female protagonists perceive the city. The female protagonists take gradual turns and transitions into the mental journeys where contradictions arise, as they confront the shift between the private and public space in urban settings. Woolf portrays a collective and shared experience of women as “flanuese” in early modernist London across different texts. Their urban presences are put under the spotlight in the modernist metropolitan context in respect of the clash between rising mobility of women in public space and confinement of women in domestic sphere.

            In light of the socio-historical context of early modernist London, the concept of “flaneuse” originates from the figure “flaneur” coined by Charles Baudelaire in the 18th century. “Flaneur” denotes a male city stroller who observes the city in a distanced, objective manner through the idle wandering in the city. Women are excluded from the category, as strolling in public spaces were privileges of men in the Victorian times. It was not considered to be a woman’s privilege to be able to freely walk in pubic spaces of a city until the late 19th century. Yet, with the rising physical mobility of women in public space, the purposes of their walks in the city are inevitably tied to domestic purposes. In light of the concept of the “flaneur,” I would like to employ the socio-historical context that aligns with it to elucidate the presence of the “flaneuse”.

            “Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.” (3) Woolf sets forth the journey of Clarissa Dalloway with this straightforward, yet particularly feminized opening in Mrs. Dalloway. At the very start, the narrative is situated in the city stroll initiated by the domestic shopping for flowers for a party in which Clarissa is the host. The nature of flower shopping is considered to be a highly feminine symbol. What prompts her to the public space is the domestic task of shopping that revolved a symbolization of femininity. Clarissa is introduced as Mrs. Dalloway, and is entitled after her husband’s family name throughout the narrative. Her identity as a married woman is the mark of her place in the society. What sets the female narrator in “Street Haunting” side by side with Clarissa is the parallel nature of the beginnings of the narratives, which revolved the domestic errands of the heroines in the familiar streets of London. Woolf makes an explicit effort in expressing that the narrator is able to indulge in a walk around the city in light of the domestic errand of buying a pencil being an excuse:“…So when the desire comes upon us to go street rambling the pencil does for pretext, and getting up we say: “Really I must buy a pencil,” as if under cover of this excuse we could indulge safely in the greatest pleasure of town life in winter – rambling the streets of London.” (1)

            Crafted in the consciousness of the two female protagonists who take up the role of a city stroller, the two texts share a common sentiment of pleasure towards their strolls in the city through a “flaneuse” point of view. In Mrs. Dalloway, Clarissa manifests her admiration towards city strolling in London and the “divine vitality” of the city landscape. (7) The vital dynamics of the city landscape “was what she loved; life; London; this moment of June”. (4) From Clarissa’s point of view, the physical features and visual details of London give the impression of liveliness with “the ebb and flow of things”. (9) On the other hand, the narrator in “Street Haunting” is amazed at “how beautiful a street is in winter”. Contrary to common beliefs of winter in London being harsh and dull, the narrator speaks highly of the winter scenery in London “for in winter the champagne brightness of the air and the sociability of the streets are grateful”. From the visual sights and representations depicted by the third-person narrations of the female protagonists, the imagery employed reflects the pleasure they enjoy while walking in London. The narrator offers her version of the London that she loves: “with its islands of light, and its long groves of darkness”. The light imagery that Woolf depicts and the parts of the city she chooses to portray reveal a different picture of London from the usual urban setting.

             The domestic errands slowly intersect with the mental journeys that reveal the anonymity as a woman in the public space of a metropolitan setting. The physical journey submerges among the desires of the heroines to ramble the streets and run free in their imaginations. In the portraits of one day in the heroines’ lives, the female protagonists share anonymity as a woman in the midst of a metropolitan setting, which is painted in different ways, yet with converging intents. Woolf deliberately characterizes the narrator as an unnamed protagonist in “Street Haunting”. From that, the unnamed narrator is masked with a figurative sense of anonymity that extends to the metaphor of losing one’s individuality amid the journey in the city: “We are no longer quite ourselves. As we step out of the house on a fine evening between four and six, we shed the self our friends know us by and become part of that vast republican army of anonymous trampers, whose society is so agreeable after the solitude of one’s own room” (1-2). Woolf suggests that, upon the start of the stroll, the narrator sheds her usual self that is recognized by society in “one’s own room” symbolizing domestic sphere. She takes on an anonymous identity, which appears to liberate her to traverse the “agreeable” public space. The anonymity she undertakes differentiates how she positions herself and acts in the public space and the private space. Here we see that Woolf’s portrayal in establishing the distinctions between the attitudes of the narrator in the two separate spheres.

             Woolf further builds on the narrator’s encounter with the public space and progresses with a more compelling portrayal of the conflicts between the female protagonist and the public space:“One must, one always must, do something or other; it is not allowed one simply to enjoy oneself. Was it not for this reason that, some time ago, we fabricated the excuse, and invented the necessity of buying something? But what was it?” (13)The pleasure depicted by the narrator in the initial part of the physical journey forms a stark contrast with this part of the journey. Woolf portrays the constraints the narrator confronts with in taking a journey in the city, and sheds light on the necessity of forging a domestic excuse for the sake of taking a stroll. Imaginations of the narrator are allowed to run free and are portrayed throughout the course of narratives. Yet, there is a repressed desire of hers amid the urban setting that is brought about by the pressure of situating oneself as a “flaneuse” among the public space and the private space.

             Clarissa in Mrs. Dalloway shares the anonymity in a figurative sense of being prominently identified as Mrs. Dalloway, as suggested by the novella’s title. In contrast to the narrator in “Street Haunting”, Clarissa is constrained by her identity that she has to take on in both public and private spheres: “She had the oddest sense of being herself invisible, unseen; unknown, there being no more marrying, no more having of children now, but only with this astonishing and rather solemn progress with the rest of them, up Bond Street, this being Mrs. Dalloway; not even Clarissa any more; this being Mrs. Richard Dalloway.” (11) Not only is Clarissa being confined by her identity as Mrs. Dalloway, she yearns for being anonymous and freed from all the restrictions the society imposes on her. As a “flaneuse,” she longs for invisibility and not being noticed by others. In contrary to her explicit expression of her love towards walking around London in June, her mind is an entangled mess of pessimistic and distresses over her psychological encounters with the city. Despite the domestic errand that she is able to participate in, she is ultimately bound by her identity as a married woman and the constraints that follow.

             Through the eyes of the narrator in “Street Haunting” and Clarissa Dalloway in Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf envisions the city through a female optic that uncovers the internal struggles of a female subject through the pleasant walks around the city and develops portrayals of the contradictions between private life and public life of a female in the rise of modernity.On the one hand, the physical journeys structure the narratives from a female perspective through the shared experiences of the domesticity-bound errands and initiate mental journeys of the two female protagonists. The two female protagonists as “flaneuse” in the early modernist London are given rooms for their imaginations of the city that forms mental pictures. From the figurative anonymity the female protagonists share, their identities as women come into conflicts with the private space and the public space as the societal constraints on women gradually take place in the narratives. Woolf offers captivating depictions of the shared experience of city strolling of “flaneuse” that both start with a domestic and feminine purpose.