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Is Clarissa Dalloway Special?
- Philosophy and Literature
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 41, Number 1A, July 2017
- pp. 233-271
- 10.1353/phl.2017.0032
- Article
- Additional Information
- Purchase/rental options available:
Clarissa Dalloway seems to hold an odd, panpsychist version of extended-mind theory; for her, consciousness can "spread out" into the world, enabling a person to think together with another mind or even feel herself within the trees she passes. If Clarissa could really do this, she would be quite special. I argue that the novel forces the question of Clarissa's exceptional psychological sensitivity onto the reader but provides seriously conflicting evidence bearing on it. Qua reader, I endorse Clarissa's special capacity on the strength of effects arising from the style of Woolf's presentation of her patterns of thought.