Mrs. Clarissa Parry Dalloway

Titles can be complicated or self-explanatory, and Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf seems to be the latter. Main character, plot covering that character's life choices, somewhat of a character sketch, obviously the should be the character's name. 

As I approached the end of the novel, I started to realize that few people called Mrs. Dalloway as such, including the narrator. She's Clarissa for the majority of the book, called Clarissa Dalloway or Mrs. Dalloway only occasionally and often in dialogue. Given this, why did Virginia Woolf title the book Mrs. Dalloway? Why not Clarissa or Clarissa or Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway? Any one of these titles that has her first name seems to be more fitting for the character. There is little mention of Clarissa's maiden name, Parry, in the novella. 

The title is, therefore, more of a statement about Mrs. Dalloway's marriage than her character. Throughout the novella, it is revealed that Clarissa was "wrong" in marrying Mr. Dalloway, or rather it is thought so by herself and others including Peter Walsh and Sally Seton. This is explicitly said in the final pages of the novella, when Sally says, "to be quite frank, then, how could Clarissa have done it?–married Richard Dalloway? a sportsman, a man who cared only for dogs. Literally when he came into the room he smelt of the stables" (167).  The distaste of Mr. Dalloway by Peter Walsh and Sally Seton occurs throughout, presumably because of the affairs in varying degrees the two have had with Clarissa in the past. It is also significant to note that both Peter and Sally were close to Clarissa before her marriage, and this encourages them to call her by her first name and not Mrs. Dalloway, as some of her and her husband's older friends do. 

The name Dalloway comes up chronologically when Clarissa incorrectly introduces Mr. Dalloway, after they've just met, to a group of people. He awkwardly corrects her, "blurting out 'My name is Dalloway!' Sally got hold of it; always after that she called him 'My name is Dalloway!'" (53). This introduction of Richard Dalloway's infatuation with his name and the pride that comes subsequently continues as a subtle theme throughout the novel. He is generally proud of being in his family, because he is very wealthy and high society. 

Clarissa Dalloway is pondering her regret when it comes to her marriage to Mr. Dalloway. By titling the book Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf is taking away the Clarissa Parry from before her marriage. This emphasizes the regret in the book and the lack of identity that Clarissa has in her marriage as well. 

If This Weren't Virginia Woolf It'd Be Easier

When you read the back cover or a plot summary of Mrs. Dalloway, it seems straightforward. Okay, you might say to yourself, this will be a book about a woman named Mrs. Dalloway and she's basically just going to sit around for the hundred and fifty pages and complain about her life decisions. Simple enough?
The thing is, this is Virginia Woolf.

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We're following a series of characters through their Saturdays, in preparation for a dinner party that night, hosted by Clarissa Dalloway. They are revealing their motivations and regrets, complications and successes, all while, in some indirect way, interacting with Mrs. Dalloway. While the title character obviously has the most time dedicated to her development as a character, the supporting characters are cumulatively extremely significant.
The thing that makes Mrs. Dalloway both challenging and brilliant is the "stream of consciousness" style and the way Woolf jumps from one character to another. There are no chapters in the novella and minimal paragraph breaks. One characters narrative will end and another's will begin with practically no transition. This causes a fluidity between the characters' narratives that foreshadows their  converging at the dinner party later in the novella. The number of characters, their complexity, and the rapidness with which the narrative changes makes it slightly difficult to follow at times, although I believe that this was intentional on Woolf's part.
Two other characteristic aspects of Woolf's writing style in Mrs. Dalloway are the use of parenthetical interjections and free indirect speech. Free indirect speech, or the use of dialogue or thoughts without quotation marks. Woolf does this to blur the lines of who is narrating the story and, to the same effect as the lack of chapters or separation, to create a fluidity with the change in focus of the novel. Something that interrupts this fluid nature and creates contrast is the parenthetical asides that occur throughout all of the characters' narratives. This breaks up the solid text and does allow for characteristic Woolf dry humor.
Mrs. Dalloway is many things, but it is not an easy to navigate, simple character sketch, as it's billed in plot summaries and in bookstores. If it were that, would it be Virginia Woolf?

The Poisonwood Bible: Jesus Christ is Bangala

"'Jesus Christ is Bangala!' declares the Reverend every Sunday at the end of his sermon. Bangala means something precious and dear. But the way he pronounces it, it means the poisonwood tree. Praise the Lord, hallelujah, my friends! for Jesus will make you itch like nobody's business" (276).

 This passage from Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible sets up the basis for the novels title. Kikongo, one of the indigenous languages of Congo, is very much based around tonality and emphasis. This makes it a language that is difficult for the casual learner to grasp. In the novel, the Reverend, who does not respect the people or the culture, does not take the time to fully understand Kikongo, and this causes comical and upsetting errors. Encounters with the poisonwood tree come up throughout the novel, but "Jesus Christ is Bangala!" is the most significant use of the tree as a symbol.

A Poisonwood Tree

Did the Reverend Nathan Price write his own Bible during the Price family mission in Africa? Were there such errors in the translation of his own sermons due to his carelessness that the Bible became convoluted to the point of being unrecognizable and even comical? The phrase "Poisonwood Bible" epitomizes the nature of the Price's mission to Africa in its misunderstanding, attempts, and failures. Adah Price speaks to this in her final narration of the novel, as she says,

"I am born of a man who believed he could tell nothing but the truth, while he set down for all time the Poisonwood Bible" (553).