Moments of Aging: Revising Mother Nature in Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway

Summary

I WAS IN A QUEER MOOD, THINKING MYSELF VERY OLD: BUT NOW I AM A WOMAN AGAIN—AS I ALWAYS AM WHEN I WRITE. (D3: 231)

Scholars have documented and discussed well Virginia Woolf 's use of mirrors and glass as devices that key readers into what she calls moments of being. Critics from Harold Bloom to Hermione Lee have explicated her life and writing, thoroughly commenting on issues of identity, perception, and time, among others. In similar measure, feminist critics from Kathleen Woodward to Anne M. Wyatt–Brown have initiated a new conversation on Woolf that includes issues of aging in the context of Woolf 's life and work. Just as feminist scholars continue to cultivate insights on aging, so too should critics discuss the devices used by Woolf to explore, analyze, and comment on the phenomenon of aging. In Mrs. Dalloway (1925), Woolf revises the Mother Nature archetype to better fit her perceptions and experiences of aging. In doing so, she employs nature imagery as vantages into particular moments of being that portend the social retrogressions and psychological devaluations of aging women—instances we might call moments of aging.

Diverse cultures throughout prehistory and recorded history have incorporated a feminine understanding of nature and earth into their mythologies, spiritual practices, and arts. Although there are a few exceptions, dominating discourses construct the Mother Nature archetype as a young woman. For example, Tellus or Terra Mater in Roman mythology, whose name literally translates to “Mother Earth,” is painted in a fl oor mosaic inside a Roman villa in Sentinum. A youthful Tellus reclines with her off spring, the four seasons, while Aion (the god of time) stands centered inside of a golden ribbon streaming the signs of the zodiac. Th ough that's only one example, the archetype of nature as feminine pervades and crosses cultural, geographic, and chronological boundaries.

Carl Jung defines an archetype as “psychic contents that have not yet been submitted to conscious elaboration” (4). The conscious elaboration of an archetype develops into that archetype's historical formula. As Mother Nature has been associated with the earth, harvests, growth, and fertility, those psychic contents have transformed into a highly defined concept rigidly connected to the idea of youth.