Virginia Woolf gives us access to a new concept of time in “Mrs. Dalloway”, through which the temporality-instant is studied in two contradictory ways: one is continuous, mortal, dissolving while the other is placid, immortal, infinite; their combination therefore created a new type of temporality: androgynous time. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essayThe deadly and dissolving moment, belonging to physical time, is fully represented through the clock of Big Ben. Big Ben's clock, which appears throughout the novel, reminds people of the time of the real world, the past that will never return "Big Ben struck the half hour" (Mrs. Dalloway, 119). And moments are like “circles of lead dissolved in the air” (Woolf, 2). For each moment appears from nothing and then disappears into nothingness, leaving no trace (Kuhlken, p357), over and over again, as a drop of rain diminishes when it coincides with the ground, it does not seem so significant. However, this insignificance is significant to everyone, including Clarissa, as every moment is attributed to their deaths. If even a moment can disappear, then “does it matter that it must inevitably cease entirely[?],” Clarissa thought (Woolf, p.6). The disappearance of the moment represents Clarissa's own disappearance, for time can never return, and neither can she. Unlike the time of the clock, it is the time of the spirit, with its placid, immortal, infinite temporality as shown by the party organized by Clarissa. As in Kuhlken's approach, the party is presented as a veneer, hiding the time of the clock behind the time posture of the mind, and the guests gradually die (356); nevertheless, the significance of the holiday to Clarissa renders it unimportant. For Clarissa, a festival is a revolt against the authority of physical time, because it denotes a moment, freezes the circle of lead or the drop of rain and extends it to infinity. She is not subject to the uniformity of the times and therefore has absolute authority in the party. Therefore, she obtains true freedom and the true self, as she says: “each [is] unreal in one way, much more real in another” (160) – “unreal” because she and all the world is no longer in the same space-time. , and “much more real” because this space-time is his own space-time, where his inner self is shown. But such a moment cannot last forever, because the clock's time will never stop running. This special moment collapses when Clarissa learns of Septimus' death. Death – the representation of the cruelty of clock time, as in the suicidal time of Clarissa and Cleo Enduree, “[threatens] every creative and living act” (Kuhlken, 344). While death undeniably deprived her of her momentary freedom, it is also the catalyst that allows Clarissa to combine two contradictory temporalities into one, reaching a new space-time, a new life where every moment is special – androgynous time. Because life only exists because death exists, and it is only through death that we can become alive again. This androgynous time, the combination of two contradictory types of time, is experienced by Mrs. Dalloway through a particular event: the encounter with the death of Septimus in the middle of the party, in her own space-time. Although initially held back by the intrusion of the clock: “Why had the Bradshaws talked about death at his party? (172), she then understands it, sees herself in some way in Septimus and therefore experiences his death. In the conjunction between her own space-time – the party and the space-time of the clock – the old woman next door and the clock of Big Ben, Clarissa stands by the window – the.”