Time in Emma and Mrs. Dalloway

Upon my arrival to college last fall, the sounding of the Georgia Tech steam whistle has become a timepiece for me.  I always listen for the familiar sound as I walk to class throughout my day.  This is an example of public time I encounter.  Opposite to public time, there is private time that is more specific to a group of people.   Jane Austen’s Emma and Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway  are examples of how these time styles are unique.  Time in Emma is linear and marked by private events while time in Mrs. Dalloway is contorted and marked by public events.

Time in Emma is linear and chronological, while the representation of time in Mrs. Dalloway is distorted, and is expanded and contracted throughout the novel. In Emma, time only travels forward. The audience experiences the character’s actions and thoughts in the present. Characters do not reminisce or relive past experiences. Since time is represented in such a chronological way, it allows the reader to have a firm grasp on what literally happened. In a way dissimilar from the way Austen represented time in Emma, Woolf manipulated the structure of time in Mrs. Dalloway. Unlike Austen, Woolf used flashbacks to reveal details about the characters in Mrs. Dalloway. Such flashbacks allowed the reader to learn about Clarissa Dalloway’s past interactions and friendship with Peter Walsh. The use of non-chronological time in Mrs. Dalloway gives the reader insight into the character’s feelings that readers do not have the ability to experience in Emma. Different representations of time in the two novels offer the reader very different experiences.

In Emma, time is mostly identified by private events, and in Mrs. Dalloway, time is mostly marked by public events. The passing of time in Emma is measured by social events, and encounters with other people. Hardly ever do the characters in Emma refer to an actual time, or make a reference to a timepiece. Readers are rarely aware of the actual time of day and are more focused on the sequence of interactions between the characters. In Mrs. Dalloway, the reader is frequently aware of time of day by the chimes of the clock tower Big Ben. Throughout the novel, Clarissa Dalloway mentioned hearing the bell, and this gives readers a sense of time. This sense of public, segmented time gives the reader a standard perspective in comparison to the rest of the novel. The fact that Emma is focused on private time corresponds with the feelings of the time it is set in, and Mrs. Dalloway centered around public time correlates with the era and the setting of the novel.

Even though time in Emma is one-directional and more natural, I feel as though I experience time in a way more similar to how it is represented in Mrs. Dalloway. The public time in Mrs. Dalloway, as shown by the chiming of Big Ben, is similar to the public time I experience at Georgia Tech. There is a whistle that sounds five minutes before the hour, and this allows me to be aware of the passage of time. Similar to Clarissa Dalloway, I reminisce over past experiences and those thoughts often affect my actions in the present. The depiction of time in novels and in real life can and does affect a person’s experience of the novel and of one’s life.

Andrew Corbitt

Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. Orlando: Harcourt, Inc. 1925. Print.

Austen, Jane. Emma. New York: Penguin. 1815.