Evaluation of Mrs. Dalloway According to Felski's Book "What Is Literature For?"

In her book What Is Literature For?, Rita Felski discusses four functions of literature: recognition, knowledge, enchantment, and shock. Recognition is an effect that arises in the reader when they form a close relationship with the text. By establishing connections between what we read and our own identities, we come to know ourselves anew through the text. When we identify with characters in the text, we become immersed in it and experience their lives alongside them. In Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway, Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Warren Smith are two central characters. The novel generates all four of these effects in the reader, albeit to varying degrees. However, one effect emerges more intensely than the others. Mrs. Dalloway strongly reflects the process of “recognition” as described by Rita Felski in What Is Literature For?.

The process of “estrangement,” which is part of “recognition,”^【1】 is treated with great intensity in the novel. “Recognition” begins above all with the process of “estrangement.” This is especially evident in the character of Septimus Warren Smith. Septimus, a veteran of the war, has never been able to escape the psychological impact of his wartime experiences. He sees visions of Evans, a fellow officer who died in battle. Evans’s death marked a turning point in Septimus’s life; after this event, Septimus became emotionally numb.^【2】 He feels alienated from the world, loses interest in everyday events, and becomes detached from his surroundings. According to Felski, “when a person feels estranged from or at odds with their environment,” literature becomes effective in the process of “recognition.”^【3】 Septimus is, as it were, entirely at odds with the world. His persistent negative perception of reality is evidence of this. He experiences the world as dark and oppressive. The confusion brought on by the pain of his past has left him utterly disoriented. Felski notes that “recognition” has a “paradoxical, mind-shattering” quality.^【4】 The process of “estrangement” that overwhelms Septimus, drives him to despair, and ultimately leads to his suicide is precisely what Felski describes as “mind-shattering.” So much so that Septimus can no longer recognize himself or his surroundings; he has been fundamentally changed. “It was not becoming of a man to say he would kill himself, yet Septimus had been in the war; he had been brave; but he was no longer the old Septimus.”^【5】 This sentence, viewed through the mind of Lucrezia Warren Smith, illustrates how Septimus has changed through the process of “estrangement”—an effect of “recognition.”

Alongside “estrangement,” the novel also gives significant space to “self-reflection,”^【6】 which aligns with the concept of “recognition.” In the novel, we frequently observe Clarissa Dalloway, Septimus Warren Smith, and Peter Walsh engaging in self-assessment and introspection. According to Felski, “novels that depict characters engaging in inward reflection and self-examination encourage their readers to undertake similar acts of self-examination.”^【7】 Thus, a reader encountering the character of Clarissa begins to empathize with her, thinking as she does and reflecting on themselves in the same way she reflects on herself. The novel describes Clarissa Dalloway as feeling, “at every party she became a different creature outside herself.”^【8】 That is, during parties, Clarissa feels as though she is no longer herself. The sense of not belonging to the place she is in, of not feeling like herself, is a feeling readers often experience themselves. For this reason, the reader finds themselves in Clarissa, redefines themselves, and comes to recognize themselves anew.