Peculiarly Festooned with Prepositions: Aspects of Liminality in Mrs Dalloway

Abstract

In this essay, Turner’s conceptual framework of social analysis – involving the ideas of liminality, the hierarchy system and communitas – has been employed to direct attention onto the dominant meaning system in Mrs Dalloway, complicit as it is with political power, moral value, private ownership, definitions of mental health and the construction of gender. London society of 1923 – it is contended – is a single organism with effective mechanisms for maintenance and the expulsion of pathological components. The aim of this anthropological approach to the text is to foreground the singularity of the social corpus, one in which characters are to be seen as elements, effects and agents of conformity or disruption rather than individuals with a high degree of volition and independence. The text is thus viewed as an instance of the enactment of social drama.

Opsomming

In hierdie artikel word Turner se konseptuele raamwerk van sosiale analise – wat die idees van liminaliteit, die hiërargiestelsel en communitas behels – aangewend om die aandag te vestig op die dominante betekenissisteem in Mrs Dalloway), medepligtig soos die roman is aan politieke mag, private besitreg, definisies van geestes­gesondheid en die konstruksie van geslag. Die Londense samelewing van 1923 – dit word aangevoer – is ‘n enkele organisme met effektiewe meganismes vir die onderhoud en verdrywing van patologiese komponente. Die doel van hierdie antropologiese benadering tot die teks is om die merkwaardigheid van die sosiale korpus op die voorgrond te plaas, ‘n korpus waarin die karakters gesien moet word as elemente, effekte en agente van konformiteit of disrupsie, eerder as individue met ‘n hoë graad van wilskrag en onafhanklikheid. Die teks word dus beskou as ‘n voorbeeld van die afspeel van sosiale drama.