Alcohol and Irony

In The Sun Also Rises, alcohol is used in every single scene except maybe one or two unimportant ones. You always see all the characters together with a drink (or more usually a lot of drinks) and it is always accompanied by witty banter and for the most part a good time. In my recent search for a panel presentation article, I came across one suggesting that all the characters are major alcoholics. But with recent classroom talks focusing on irony and one important passage I believe that there may be a connection between the drinking everyone does and their senses of humor.

"Mike was a bad drunk. Brett was a good drunk. Bill was a good drunk. Cohn was never drunk." (SAR 153). 

Based on recent class discussion it is apparent that Cohn doesn't have the same sense of ironical humor as all the other characters. He gets offended easily at things that are meant to be jokes and never makes any jokes himself. He is a very straight and literal person, and that personality doesn't seem to fit with everyone else's carefree attitude. He isn't able to see underneath someone else's comment to see the ironic joke that everyone else gets. This lack of irony estranges him from the rest of the group. They just don't like him. It's hard to say if getting Cohn drunk would actually solve this problem and give him a sense of irony, since some people are bad drunks, but maybe getting drunk would help him to relax and see the comedy in the jokes that everyone else make.

The direct opposite of Cohn, I think is Bill. He is probably the closest we have to someone that is an actual alcoholic in the book, but he is also the one with the largest sense of humor. Bill is the epitome of irony, everything he says has to be ironic. "Irony and pity" is his motto, and the pity part is likely ironic too. But more often than not he is completely wasted. Take his trip to Vienna for example. He doesn't remember anything about it, except for one story that is probably only loosely true, but hilarious nonetheless.

Before Mike had his outburst at Cohn, the group of friends gathered together to drink and talk. The alcohol helped them to feel more relaxed and enjoy each other more. The irony is the culture that they are a part of and the style in which they find their humor. I think that getting at least a little tipsy might be conducive to ironic humor the way it is portrayed in The Sun Also Rises.

Opinions of Woolf and Dalloway

Mrs. Dalloway, is a modern novel created by Vriginia Woolf in her efforts to move away from the pre-modern era and into the people-focused modern era. Her idea of the modern novel is completely focused on the characters. It should be about how the characters think and react to other characters. The progression of time to a certain goal is not important. This is shown by how the entirety of Mrs. Dalloway is contained within an approximately 12 hour period. Even though this is true, there is still a lot that goes on within the book. As readers we get to know each major character from viewpoints both internal and external allowing for a fairly complete view of the characters. To accomplish this task, Woolf uses free indirect discourse to move fluidly through each character. I really liked the way that the free indirect discourse works. It feels almost like a sort of puzzle as you try to track who gets the point of view. Its feels like a cinematography effect where the camera looks at other characters while simultaneously changing the character whose view is being shown by the camera.

Going into Mrs. Dalloway, I was expecting a sort of Pride and Prejudice type book: so terribly boring and focused on romance to the point that I couldn't read it. While I didn't get exactly what I expected, I still got the Pride and Prejudice feeling of a bunch of stuffy old white people doing stuffy old white people stuff. At the same time though, I did find that I was able to read through the entire book and not completely hate it. There was a lot of interesting points of view (especially Septimus') that Mrs. Dalloway gives.

Clarissa is the most viewed character in Mrs. Dalloway - probably because she is the main character. But I enjoyed seeing the many different perspectives on her that give a very rounded out depiction. There are those who are just acquaintances with her (most of the people she invites to her party) who think of her as nice and likable. Then there are people like Peter, Sally, and Richard who know her better, and while they still like, her, they think of her as a bit pretentious (especially Peter and Sally). She appears to always be occupied with her parties, and being the perfect hostess. But when you get Clarissa's point of view, you find out a lot more about her that she can't exactly share. She thinks a lot about death for example, and the beauty of life. She shares a bit of Septimus' ideas on life and death, just not to the same extent. She does like to host parties, but at the same time, they stress her out because she wants to make sure that they are perfect. I think that all these viewpoints are valid and necessary to have a complete picture of Clarissa. To me, Clarissa is a rich old lady who, while seeming at least a bit pretentious, has very valid and interesting views on life that maybe not so many people share. She keeps on hosting parties because that is both what she enjoys and what people expect of her. She is unfortunately a bit estranged from her daughter who spends time with a devout Christian, against her very atheist mother's wishes and she likes bringing people together because it allows people to get to know each other and experience each other's "unseen" selves - the part that sticks in memory as opposed to the fleeting physical "apparition." Her friends enjoy seeing her and talking to her even if they have some slight negative opinions. Clarissa is an extraordinary person. She goes through much of the same as everybody else, and that makes it all the more impressive that Woolf made an entire novel focused most of the time on her character.