I wasted time, and now time doth waste me.

This is a post about Mrs. Dalloway and clocks.

The unkinged Richard sits in prison. His cousin, Henry Bolingbroke has stolen his crown, and thrown him, unceremoniously in prison. He sits, quietly at first. Until he begins to hear music wafting into his cell. The music breaks time, and seems disordered. Richard remarks "How sour sweet music is when time is broke and no proportion kept." He pauses. "So is it in the music of mens lives / and I have the daintiness of ear / to check time broke in a disordered string." He begins to become more agitated. "But for the concord of my state and time / Had not an ear to hear my true time broke," he yells. Calming slightly, yet sadly he concludes. "I wasted time, and now time doth waste me / For now time hath made me his numbering clock / my thoughts are minutes and with sighs / they jar their watches unto mine eyes." He thinks about this further, and, in his insanity, begins with: "the sounds that tells what hour it is / are clamourous groans which strike upon my heart / which is the bell: So sighs and tears and groans / show minutes and times and hours but my time / runs posting on in Bolingbroke's proud joy / while I stand fooling here, his Jack o' the clock" At this point he whirls around to the window in his room and shouts "This music mads me; let it sound no more; / For though it have holp madmen to their wits, / In me it seems it will make wise men mad." This poor man has been driven mad by a ticking clock and some music. He has lost everything, and now, alone, loses his mind to the ticking of a clock. (This is one of the last scenes in Shakespeare's history Richard II. 

One image that is continuously recurring in Mrs. Dalloway is clocks. Virginia Woolf continuously refers to clocks keeping time. Clanging, bong-ing and ticking. Indeed, one of the central themes of the novel is the effect of time. It controls our lives. There is a sense, in the novel, of time being controlling. It dictates and connects the actions of the characters. For example, on page 82, Woolf writes:

"It was precisely twelve o'clock; twelve by Big Ben, whose stroke was wafted across the northern part London; blent with that of other clocks, mixed in a thin ethereal way with the clouds and whisps of smoke ... twelve o'clock struck as Clarissa Dalloway laid her green dress on her bed, and the Warren Smiths walked down Harley Street."

Not only is this a beautiful description of the sound of a clock, but it ties these two characters across London together. Woolf doesn't just use similar characteristics, but uses time to unite them.
Additionally, and the reason for Shakespeare being quoted at the beginning, is the maddening effects of clocks. There is a constant repetition, that I believe is supposed to remind the reader of the monotony, the continuous rhythm and the control clocks have over our lives. People's lives are dictated by these clocks, controlled completley, and it is enough to make "a wise [man] mad."

The Vagina Monologues 1

This post is about my opening reactions to The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler:

I think The Vagina Monologues is a brilliant play. Eve Ensler, the playwright, has managed to walk the line between funny, charming stories and side notes, to incredibly poignant tales. These are really eye opening, and in some cases, upsetting stories.

The Bosnian story, "My vagina was a village" specifically was shocking. It's position in the play, directly following two heartwarming stories about women finding love for their vagina, either due to a class or a man, was powerful, as it was so jarring and abrupt. From a happy home in the United States, you were dragged to another part of the world, and forced to witness horrible acts. This woman's vagina was turned from "green, water soft pink fields," to "a dead animal sewn in down there with thick black fishing line," (61-62). This is an incredibly powerful, and upsetting passage. This woman has lost a massive part of her. She lost something that, as described in the previous monologue is "who you are," (56). She has lost herself when she was tortured. She lost everything. She says that "My vagina a live wet watery village. They butchered it and burned it down," (63). She goes on to talk about how she lives somewhere else afterwards but "[She doesn't] know where that is," (63). Also, it is written in the most clever way. Jumping from the past to the present, only using italics to differentiate the two, there is the incredible sense of loss every time you go to another paragraph. Each time she begins to speak again in non-italic text, there is a slim chance of hope. A chance of reconciliation and peace. Then, it is quickly matched by more italic, upsetting text. Then, in the final few lines, she describes, in non-italic text, a finality to the destruction. It has happened, and this is the reality now. This process was incredible, and, sorry to be clichéd, took me on a journey with this woman.

"I was twelve. My mother slapped me" is a monologue about menstruating for the first time. This is a subject, that I, as an adolescent boy, was very unfamiliar with. I knew the generalities from health class; when it should start, what you should do when it does, etc. and what was actually, biologically going on. But, I had no idea about the physical, or personal impact that that event can have on young girls. That seems shortsighted and foolish now, obviously, it impacts your life, but I couldn't imagine it. I think that is why this monologue was powerful to me. It showed me a world about which, I was hopelessly misinformed. Some were funny and silly, the story of the girl thinking she was bleeding to death so she "rolled up [her] underwear and threw them in a corner. Didn't want to worry [her] parents," (39). It was a really interesting chapter, and, like Ensler says in the introduction, I too "got lost in the bleeding," (33). I think she wrote it well, because she didn't differentiate the girls, there was this overwhelming sense of repetition and shared experience. One woman was channeling all the others as the told these stories. This chapter illustrated how powerful this "coming of age", a shared experience for all women, was. I really had no idea.