Learning Paths » 5A Interacting
MSuppan - 5A - Moment of Being
by - (2012-02-01)
Up to 5 A - Modernist Fiction: V. Woolf and J. Joyce
Woolf asserts that these moments of being, these flashes of awareness, reveal a patternhidden behind the cotton wool of daily life, and that we, "I mean all human beings areconnected with this; that the whole world is a work of art; that we are parts of the work ofart." But the individual artist is not important in this work. Instead she says of all people, "Weare the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself".Thus for Woolf a moment of being is a moment when an individual is fully conscious of hisexperience, a moment when he is not only aware of himself but catches a glimpse of hisconnection to a larger pattern hidden behind the opaque surface of daily life. Unlike momentsof non-being, when the individual lives and acts without awareness, performing acts as ifasleep, the moment of being opens up a hidden reality.Moments of being can be found throughout Woolf's fiction. Examine examples from hernovels, Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse and Between the Acts. These are often moments ofintense power and beauty. Unlike Joyce's epiphanies, these moments do not lead to decisiverevelations for her characters. But they provide moments of energy and awareness that allowthe character who experiences them to see life more clearly and more fully, if only briefly. Andsome of the characters try to share the vision that they glimpse, making the work of art that islife visible to others.Mrs. Dalloway presents the two characters who are most receptive to moments of being in allof Woolf's fiction: Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Warren Smith. Clarissa experiences hermoments of being while in the middle of what appear to be trivial acts, indicating that it is notthe action, but her awareness that sets a moment of being apart from her other experiences.For example, as Clarissa watches taxi cabs pass by she finds them "absolutely absorbing." Herthoughts reveal that "what she loved was this, here, now, in front of her, the fat lady in thecab . . . Did it matter that she must inevitably cease completely . . . or did it not becomeconsoling to believe that somehow in the streets of London, on the ebb and flow of things,here, there, she survived," . Throughout the day Clarissa is particularly aware of thesethreads of connection between herself and her surroundings. The moments of being are marked by particularly vivid and powerful language. Because these are moments of exact feeling, the language used to convey them must naturally be precise and evocative. The form and content must be in perfect symmetry. In her moments of being Woolf uses a language that approaches poetry. Clarity is precisely what Woolf achieves in a moment of being.