The Wall Grey, the Bananas Yellow: The Social Importance of Color in Mrs. Dalloway.
This article positions Virginia Woolf's invocation of color in Mrs. Dalloway as an aesthetic technique that has political effects at the level of narrative. Consulting Caroline Levine's recent work on Victorian forms—specifically the Dickensian social network—I argue that the network structure exten...
| Publicado en: | Studies in the Novel Vol. 57; no. 2; pp. 183 - 198 |
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| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | Literary Criticism |
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Johns Hopkins University Press
Summer2025
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=185285745&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 185285745 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00393827 SNV jtl: Studies in the Novel issn: 00393827 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Summer2025 vid: 57 iid: 2 pid: 226 pub: Johns Hopkins University Press artinfo: ui: 185285745 10.1353/sdn.2025.a959553 ppf: 183 ppct: 15 formats: tig: atl: The Wall Grey, the Bananas Yellow: The Social Importance of Color in Mrs. Dalloway. aug: au: Brickey, Alyson affil: University of Winnipeg su: Mrs. Dalloway (Book : Woolf) Color in literature Woolf, Virginia, 1882-1941 Narratology Levine, Caroline sug: subj: Mrs. Dalloway (Book : Woolf) Color in literature Woolf, Virginia, 1882-1941 Narratology Levine, Caroline keyword: Form Modernism Virginia Woolf ab: This article positions Virginia Woolf's invocation of color in Mrs. Dalloway as an aesthetic technique that has political effects at the level of narrative. Consulting Caroline Levine's recent work on Victorian forms—specifically the Dickensian social network—I argue that the network structure extends into modernism and is most visible in this text through the appearance and re-appearance of certain pigments. Woolf's experiments with color blend moments and characters into one another, resulting in the formulation of a plot that weaves "spider's thread[s] of attachment" and complicating the traditional linear model of narrative as causal chain. To support my claim, I also consult Emma Kafalenos's work on narrative causality, in which she posits that readerly interpretation of narrative events is always context-dependent and at least partially determined by the sequence in which events are presented. I suggest that Woolf's use of color actually works to lift certain moments out of their contexts and link them instead with their narrative twins, thereby re-contextualizing these events along more associational, rather than chronological, lines. Viewed in this way, the novel becomes an immense network of intersecting, colored threads: a narrative world where nothing exists in isolation; where even the smallest action or insignificant thought can have far-reaching social consequences. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Literary Criticism src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y dt: @attributes: year: 2025 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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