“She and Sally fell a little behind. Then came the most exquisite moment of her whole life passing a stone urn with flowers in it. Sally stopped; picked a flower; kissed her on the lips. The whole word might have turned upside down! The others disappeared; there she was alone with Sally.” (Woolf 52).
This quote shows a very particular theme that is repeated many times in the novel, although this passage is its climax. This is the climax of, the epitome of, young love and frivolity. Flowers, throughout the book, come to represent this theme of youth and its mortality, because in their prime they are beautiful, but eventually wilt. Sally Seton picks a flower before she kisses Clarissa. The statement that this was the “most exquisite moment of her whole life” serves to say that Mrs. Dalloway could never have another moment like this one, never another kiss like this; this was true love. However, seeing as it is tied to the theme of time passing, of flowers wilting, this is probably not entirely true—Clarissa simply lives in the moment, so it seemed to her, at this point, to be entirely true.
1 comment:
and might one argue the rest of the novel is the exploration of that experience wilting?
Post a Comment