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Liminal Space In Mrs. Dalloway

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SEMESTER#4
TERM PAPER

VIRGINIA WOOLF
LIMINAL SPACES IN “MRS. DALLOWAY”

SUBMITTED TO: MISS RABIA ZAHEER
SUBMITTED BY: MOMAL ZAHRA

KINNAIRD COLLEGE FOR COLLEGE LAHORE

Liminal space:
It is of relating to, or being an intermediate state, phase or condition. (Merriam Webster)
“Liminal” belongs to Latin origin and it means “threshold”- a transitional period or space which is not defined with reference to a particular place, person or thing.
These paper disuses liminal spaces in Mrs. Dalloway – how they are forming connections between people in general and with characters and how they form different perceptions despite of being the same (undefined) spaces.
The landscape of the novel is mainly mindscape of our protagonist Clarissa Dalloway but geographically it is mostly London. Where Westminster, royal parks, streets (Bond Street and Oxford Street etc) forming the linkages yet are not associated with specific character (therefore liminal), London is also portrayed as post war landscape. Where many people …show more content…

Clarissa herself is a liminal character. She feels “invisible” at times. Her profound superficiality verses individuality, her longing for communication and endeavorment to retain privacy, putting a mask for society verses rejection for convergence and switching between Clarissa and Mrs Dalloway all make her a liminal character.
Mrs Dalloway’s house represents a privileged house with respectable guests at parties and a hub of union and communication. But her narrow existence and her bed getting “narrow and narrower” represents isolation and lack of communication. Her act of putting up a mask for society and presenting her house as a perfect home brings contrast in comparison with attic of her house as a real place where she actually feels secured and become herself. So her house is a liminal

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