In Ernest; Honesty and Transparency in Brett and Jake

Two specific omissions of truth by Brett and Jake come to mind first for me, and I want to spend time unpacking both “lies” and their intentions and implications and comparing them against each other.

I’ll start with a lie that one could hardly call a lie; Jake keeping his injury hushed. This is not a direct lie, but it is the kind of omission of truth that changes some aspects of Jake and his comportment. We can see how this affects Jake as a person, how he acts and how he interacts. He feels like an outsider in a sexually driven culture, his injury affects how he interacts with Brett, and many other parts of him. I think it’s safe to assume that all the characters (like the real people we interact with every day) have similar things that they are all not always transparent about, though most likely with varying degrees in comparison to Jake, who has a large detail of his life that he keeps hidden.

We can now connect this to another omission of truth; when Brett does not tell Jake that she is going to San Sebastian with Cohn. It could be argued that Brett is not intentionally not being transparent with Jake about who is going with her to San Sebastian, but for the sake of conjecture, I will be assuming that she wasn’t mentioning Cohn to Jake on purpose.

I don’t think it’s fair to call either of these omissions of truth intentionally malicious, but there is certainly a different circumstance and motive surrounding both. Neither of them is directly asked questions where they did not tell the truth, so I don’t feel comfortable saying they are “lying” but they are certainly not being completely transparent.

Jake omits the truth to benefit himself. Not to say that Jake is being “selfish” but he deems it beneficial to himself to not tell people about his injury. With that statement about Jake, looking at Brett, her omission of truth is harder to tell who it “benefits”. On one hand, it could be argued that Brett is not telling the truth to benefit Jake because she doesn’t want to hurt Jake’s feelings. Another explanation is that Brett could be lying to protect herself, knowing that Jake would be upset with her. Personally, I think that the explanation is a mix of both.

As well, I think Brett’s lie is shallow in comparison to Jake’s in terms of pervasiveness into their lives. Jake’s  life is shaped by his “secret” and Brett’s “secret” is shaped by how she lives her life.

This is all just a simple comparison, but I think it shows something into the way that they both live their lives and on the ideas of truth and honesty in The Sun Also Rises and in Brett and Jake.

The Importance Of Big Ben in Mrs.Dalloway

Big Ben is the steady heartbeat of Mrs. Dalloway. The sounding of Big Ben indicates the time passing in the novel, and though it is not typically stated what exact time that the bell is sounding (for example Big Ben will be said to be sounding the half hour, but it will not be said which hour it is the half hour of). It gives the book a linear track not possessed in other aspects of the novel, making it more possible to follow what is the “present” in the book, because the book itself doesn’t lean towards being linear, and the actual plot points being mundane, the real significance and core of the book being stories and thoughts from the past and the present mixing together to give us a well-rounded image of the life and being of the characters. Yet, occasionally, the reader gets the tolling of the clock to surface them within the day where the book is set. The clock is an essential feature of the parts of the linear structure that Mrs. Dalloway maintains by giving a clear indication of the passage of time within the day that Mrs. Dalloway is set.

Secondly, it not only centers us in the time during the day that the novel is set over, it centers us into where the novel is located, London. Big Ben is a very recognizable London landmark. When you think of London, that’s one of the images that has been drilled into our minds. Big Ben, The London Eye, The Houses of Parliament, so every time that the novel records the tolling of the clock it assures us of the novel’s location. Mrs. Dalloway is a very British novel from the way it’s written to the fashions to the places Clarissa goes to during the day. It is, in many ways, a commentary on or at very least a reflection of British society and culture so to have that returning reminder of that central feature is an important way for the reader to center themselves within the story, and realize the significance of the story. Without the setting of London and all that post-war London implies, the book loses a large chunk of Virginia Woolf’s likely intentions when she told the story of Mrs. Dalloway.

Finally, Big Ben also serves as a subtle reminder that no matter what is happening in the novel, our perspective is only a small sliver of what is going on in the greater city of London. Woolf’s free indirect discourse goes hand in hand with this, showing the complexity and depth of a city filled with so many people, all with their own storylines that we could follow during this day. The person across from Clarissa on the street could tell as complex a story as Clarissa’s. There are millions of people in London, and thousands likely hearing that bell all at the same time that our characters do.

“Women’s Work”: Peter’s Shaming of Traditionally Feminine Tasks in Mrs. Dalloway

In Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, we see Clarissa Dalloway performing “women’s work.” By this I mean Mrs. Dalloway is doing jobs that are traditional to the gender roles assigned to women such as sewing, flower arranging, shopping, and, of course, party planning. The way that Clarissa and Peter react to and view these tasks in the novel is telling of how society views females participating in “women’s work.”

Clarissa herself seems to have little problem with the jobs she is doing, she seems to rather like planning parties. She is fulfilling a traditional and “proper” role as Mrs. Richard Dalloway, a competent wife and mother. But, we still see Clarissa thinking about how Peter would view her so willingly participating in this life. When they were younger, Peter called Clarissa “the perfect hostess”, which was meant as an insult to hurt Clarissa. This is telling of how Peter feels about women who chose to fulfill this traditional role. He sees them as lesser, not living up to their potential. He does not think that it is a good thing to be one of these women, or for Clarissa to become one.

Again, when Peter comes to see Mrs. Dalloway he looks down upon her because he thinks that she has been sitting sewing a dress. Sewing is a traditionally feminine task (“women’s work), and Peter does not see this as much of a valid task as some of its more masculine counterparts. Peter’s thoughts about sewing are not about the inherent nature of the action, sewing a dress is a task that requires a certain amount of skill nor is it a meaningless task, yet Peter does not think highly of Mrs. Dalloway when he sees her sewing because of his own views of traditionally feminine tasks. He thinks that Clarissa is above that kind of work, that she has wasted her potential.

Peter’s negative views of Clarissa’s continued voluntary participation in a traditional role for a woman as she lives her life as Mrs. Richard Dalloway is t indicative of a larger problem in society. While women continue to be liberated from the confines of gender roles, those who choose to stay in them are often scorned for their choices. Often, these women are seen as “not living up to their potential”, like Peter sees Mrs. Dalloway. In more modern discourse, it is often argued that these women are setting back the feminist movement, and people get focused on shooting women such as single mothers or stay-at-home moms down. Many would counter this ideology is very destructive because it continues to perpetuate the idea that femininity is wrong, which clashes with the ability of women to make their own decisions about how they want to live.

In Mrs. Dalloway, Clarissa fulfills a gender norm for the time and performs a few different traditionally feminine tasks. Peter Walsh looks down on her for these, thinking that she has wasted her potential. But, ultimately, it is most important to look at Clarissa’s decision about what she wants to do and about the “women’s work” she chooses to do.