‘A novel that paints a despairing view of humanity.’ How far do you agree with this view of ‘Mrs Dalloway’?

A reason one would think that ‘Mrs Dalloway’ presents a despairing view of humanity could be due to the free indirect discourse. By writing the novel as such, Woolf allows the text (and in turn, the reader) to capture the innermost feelings of her characters. This was a popular style of writing, for many authors at the time were trying to recreate the way in which people think (an example of this being ‘Ulysses’ by James Joyce, although, that is written as a stream of consciousness, making it much harder to separate the relevant and the irrelevant). The result of this is that the reader is given the privilege to see all the fluctuations of a character’s emotions, and as every small moment is blown up, it can be seen that a lot of the characters are very depressed. A common example where this is an easy misinterpretation is when Clarissa finds out that Lady Bruton has not invited her for lunch:‘narrower and narrower would her bed be.’The repetition used here is very common of Virginia Woolf, and emphasises the claustrophobia she is feeling. The sudden mood change and, what some may perceive as, drastic reaction, does make Clarissa seem depressed, causing some to think that the novel paints a despairing view. David Lodge in ‘The Art of Fiction’ states a possible reason for this:‘[free indirect discourse] tends to generate sympathy for the characters.’Whilst agreeing with this statement, it is easy to get caught up in certain parts of the book and forget what came before, due to the sympathy generated. For this reason, a more wildly accepted view is that Clarissa’s reaction does not portray a despairing impression at all. Instead, it shows more the flexible nature of human emotions, and the only reason that it does seem as if she is depressed was because, through her style, Woolf manages to elongate moments that probably only last a few minutes in real time, to ones that appear to have considerable impacts. This point can be backed up by remembering, first, how happy and alive she felt at the start of the novel, as well as the contrast between the repetition of the word, ‘love,’used there, and the repetition of, ‘narrower,’here; and last and foremost, this novel spans the length of only one day, so although some acts are life-changing, a lot (such as this one here) are simply snapshots explored in great detail.