The Implications 2 Words Can Have

Butler, Camron

Mrs. Dalloway, 2 words, one name. I was staring at my word document and in the bottom left it said “2 WORDS” and I just thought “what can I do with two words?” However I think just two words can have a lot of meaning, especially when they compose somebody’s name. The Mrs. Just lets you know her status more than anything it doesn’t tell you much more unless you know her however Dalloway has some interesting etymology.

The beginning Dal is believed to come from “Dael” which meant “valley” in old 7^th century English. “Allo” started out as “abollo” which meant “apple” in 6^th century Latin. And finally way, it’s a word used commonly in modern English and part of its meaning has been retained. Way is what “weg” was changed too and “weg” meant track or path just like now you can say come this way. Put all of these together and you get “valley of the apple path” or if you’re an actual etymologist unlike me you get “dweller by the path to valley”.

This reminds me of the quote “I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” But instead of shadow of death she’s walking through the valley of apples and apples can symbolize immortality, discord, knowledge, sin, feminine beauty, rebirth, and peace. “I walk through the shadow of the valley of death” is saying that (when you look into it a little) that death is just another part of life we have to go through and there is nothing special about it. Clarissa through the novel certainly seems to struggle with some of the things represented by apple, mostly sin and peace, I don’t think she achieved immortality, maybe as the Septimus thing shows she may be supernatural but I think most would assume she’s still pretty mortal.

Clarissa as one point in her use was a symbol of feminine beauty to her friends it would seem as two of them were fighting to marry her. Around the same time period of her life she messes around a little with sally teasing a possible romantic relationship there which at this point in time, to a lot of people, would be considered a sin. Sally also seemed to be a source of discord at this time however I don’t think that greatly affected Clarissa beyond a psychological standpoint and perhaps her affections for sally that almost led to her sinning. I don’t think Clarissa was ever reborn in this book except perhaps at the end when she also seemed to have attained peace when she was alone in her room.

This is a little bit shorter blog post (or so it seemed on word) but I just thought it was interesting since it stemmed from me just trying to think of the importance of two words and what they can mean or imply. All of the connections are rather loose and we have no way of knowing if Virginia Woolf even knew any of this when she was righting Mrs. Dalloway but it’s still pretty interesting to look at.

Gregor the Bugboi

Gregor on the surface may appear to be the epitome of an average working drone however from what I've read I think Gregor has potential and he knows it. Gregor as we've seen is one of the most work oriented people I've ever seen outside of a movie. At first it appears as though he is infinitely faithful to his job, ready to sacrifice parts of his new insect body in hope of opening his door and getting to work on time. This reminds me of the character Stanly from The Stanly Parable in this game you play as a worker who had held the same job for years and did nothing but pushes buttons whenever his computer monitor told him to. Stanly never questioned his job and did it with no thoughts about why or quitting or anything.

In both Stanly and Gregor have really strange events happen to them in the midst of their average every day lives. In Gregor's case he gets turned into a bug, in the Stanly Parable commands don't come up on his screen one day and he discovers there's a strange voice narrating everything he does while he goes through his huge office building. Along his travels he can't find a single fellow human.

In the Stanly Parable the strange event opens up a plethora of new opportunities such as making his office go nuclear however I think that Gregor's opportunities are present before his transformation. Before Gregor transformed he was managing money so well or getting paid so much that he was able to comfortably support a family of 4 in a nice flat while paying off a debt when we don't know if any of the others have any source of income.

On top of Gregor's financial situation he wasn't planning on staying in his current job forever despite it's well paying qualities. Instead he was planning on quitting his job once the debt he had to the owner was paid off. We can tell from Gregor only having this job for the past 5 years and from his military service that this job isn't his whole life. I think Gregor before this transformation had a bright future.

To me the evidence is clear and I think this is pretty true, feel free to disagree in the comments with what you think, but Blogger.com hates names and it's kind of annoying.