Mrs. Dalloway Ten

It is interesting to note the similes in Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf and how they contradict one another. Clarissa Dalloway is called "bird-like"yet earlier on the book says:

Her only gift was knowing people almost by instinct, she thought, walking on. If you put her in a room with someone, up went her back like a cat's; or she purred.

A cat's instinct is also to enjoy catching and eating birds. This contradiction makes Clarissa appear unstable. Virginia Woolf may be subtly foreshadowing in Mrs. Dalloway. By thinking about herself as a cat, it makes Clarissa think of herself as one in power. If others are reminded of birds, which are flighty and anxious- always on the lookout for danger- then it says something about her character and how mothers perceive her differently than she sees herself. Cats and birds are symbolic for two very different reasons.

Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. New York: Harcourt, Brace and, 1925. Print.