Characters in Joyce, Wolfe and Sillitoe Who Are Alone

James Joyce's short story, "The Dead," Virginia Wolfe's novel, Mrs. Dalloway, and Alan Sillitoe's short story, "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner," all have main characters who are very lonely. Though they interact with many other people, the characters in these works do not communicate their thoughts or feelings well, or hide them, which leaves them isolated. Joyce and Wolfe use the stream of consciousness technique to show the contrast between the inner thoughts of a person and the outside world they move in, which demonstrates how distant the main characters are from those around them. Sillitoe's main character compares his life to a long distance run. His thoughts on running and the way he interacts with people around him also show how alone he is in the world. He isolates himself and does not mind being alone.

Sillitoe's long distance runner, whom the governor calls Smith, is made into a runner while serving time at a detention camp. He runs at five o'clock every morning, a time when "all the rest still have another hour to snooze before the bells go" (8). He runs alone every morning, which makes him think, "I feel like the first and last man on the world" (8). He feels like the first man in the world because he is going into the frosty fields with hardly any clothing. He feels like the last man in the world because everyone he lives with is still asleep and could just as well be dead. But, he says running alone "makes me feel fifty times better than when I'm cooped up in that dormitory with three hundred others" (9). He does not mind being by himself with just his own thoughts to keep him company. "It's a treat, being a long-distance runner, out in the world by yourself with not a soul to make you bad-tempered or tell you what to do," he says (11). He says he never feels as free as when he is out running by himself, "when still there's not a soul in sight and not a sound" (19). He compares running to "a life as full of misery and happiness and things happening as you can ever really get around yourself" (19). If running is as real to him as his life, then he does not mind living alone and having no one to share his thoughts with.

Smith also hides his thoughts from the prison guards. He says, "they can't make an X-ray of our guts to find out what we're telling ourselves" (10). The governor tells Smith to win a cup for long distance running, and Smith replies, "'Yes, sir'" (12), even though he later thinks, "If he got ten yards into what goes on in my guts he'd drop dead as well -- with surprise" (14). Even as Smith fakes compliance, he says "it's a war between me and them" (16). Although Sillitoe does not use stream of consciousness writing, he tells the audience Smith's thoughts in order to contrast them with his actions and words.

Just as Smith runs by himself, he has no one in his life who is really close to him. He looks out only for himself. Life, like running, is an individual competition and one succeeds or fails based on one's own strength. He tells the listener of his tale to "never let any of the other runners know you are in a hurry even if you are" (41). Deception and miscommunication are necessary for getting ahead. Smith deceives the governor into thinking he will win the race, even though he sees winning the cup for the governor as "running right into their white-gloved wall-barred hands and grinning mugs and staying there for the rest of my natural long life" (45). He would rather lose the race instead of doing what the governor tells him, which shows how fiercely individualistic he is and how he refuses to work with other people, even for his own good. Smith purposely loses the race, but he feels this is a victory because he did what he wanted to do and not what someone told him to do. Smith does not tell anyone around him his thoughts or plans. He isolates himself from others and enjoys running on his own and depending on his own strength.

James Joyce's character, Gabriel, is just as alone as Smith. "The Dead" is set at a party thrown by two ladies, Miss Kate and Miss Julia. Joyce sets the story at the party, amid the bustle and confusion of a loud night, to show how the main character, Gabriel, can be alone even in the midst of a crowd. Joyce uses the stream of consciousness writing technique to bring the audience inside Gabriel's head, whose thoughts are a contrast to the outside commotion and the people constantly moving around him. He has private worries, such as his apprehension about the speech he is going to give. He ponders this towards the beginning of the story when he thinks to himself, "He would only make himself look ridiculous by quoting poetry to them which they could not understand. . . . His whole speech was a mistake from the first to the last, an utter failure" (2242). His audience is the people at the party, whom he knows intimately and has given speeches to before, so he should not be nervous unless he is really not that close to them, which shows how alienated he is from his friends. As he worries about the speech, his two aunts come out of the dressing room and pull him reluctantly into shallow conversation.

Later during the party, he thinks to himself, "How cool it must be outside! How pleasant it would be to walk out alone. . . How much more pleasant it would be there than at the supper-table" (2250). His thoughts are worlds away from the party and the people. Joyce again sets up the contrast between the inner thoughts of a person and his outer appearance and actions. Though Gabriel wants to be alone outside, he still cuts the goose and gives the speech, which places him at the center of the scene, shown by the way he "took his seat boldly at the head of the table" (2253). But as he eats, he still distances himself in the way he "took no part in the conversation" (2253). Even when he begins the speech and "leaned his ten trembling fingers on the tablecloth and smiled nervously at the company," his thoughts are with "the park where the trees were weighted with snow" (2256). Gabriel talks with many people and makes jokes and gives the speech praising the hostesses, which inspires a round of singing, yet he does not really want to be there interacting with those people. He feels very nervous being at the center of attention, shown by his nervous actions before he begins the speech.

Perhaps his behavior could be explained in that he is a shy person who dislikes parties, and he is unable to be close to those around him. But, the scene that closes the story, which happens away from the party, shows Gabriel's distance even from his wife. As he and Gretta prepare to leave, he sees her standing at the top of the stairs listening to distant music and the sight inspires him: "There was grace and mystery in her attitude as if she were a symbol of something" (2260). Moments later, "Gabriel saw that there was colour on her cheeks and that her eyes were shining. A sudden tide of joy went leaping out of his heart" (2261). He suddenly feels very much in love with his wife and he has many wild feelings racing around inside him: "The blood went bounding along his veins; and the thoughts went rioting through his brain, proud, joyful, tender, valorous" (2262). This is quite a departure from "the years of their dull existence together," and he is passionate for his wife and wants to be alone with her (2263). But while "the first touch of her body, musical and strange and perfumed, sent through him a keen pang of lust," (2263), her thoughts are not in line with his, as shown by her expression that "looked so serious and weary" (2264).

He learns that the music she hears takes her worlds away from his excitement. When he asks her what she is thinking about, she bursts into tears. The song she hears takes her back to her first love, a boy who died because he wanted to see her before she went away, even though he was sick. He learns that, "While he had been full of memories of their secret life together, full of tenderness and joy and desire, she had been comparing him in her mind with another" (2266). She cries herself to sleep and he watches her, wondering about her thoughts, which he can never know. His wife, whom he has made a life with, still has a secret part to her that he does not know. A dead boy inspires more passion in her than her own husband.

Gabriel is truly alone at that moment, the moment when Joyce ends the story. He tries to communicate his feelings for her, but the story ends sadly with the two having inner passions that they are unable to share with each other.

Clarissa Dalloway in Wolfe's Mrs. Dalloway is also constantly surrounded by people. She invites them into her home, so she is not shy, but she is still lonely and has secret thoughts and doubts she cannot share even with her husband. Richard also has a hard time expressing his feelings to her and for her. After he eats lunch, he rushes home to be with her and tell her that he loves her. The two are so reticent in expressing their love that "they never spoke of it; not for years had they spoken of it" (115). Richard, however, is determined to do this: "For he would say it in so many words, when he came into the room. . . . He would tell Clarissa that he loved her" (116). But, when he gets home, he gives Clarissa the flowers and "he could not bring himself to say he loved her; not in so many words" (118). He fails to tell her how he feels. He thinks that she understands, and she does appreciate the flowers, but they talk shallowly of their activities for the day and her party and Peter's visit.

All the relationships in the book are like Clarissa's and Richard's. The characters are distant from each other. Wolfe demonstrates this by telling the reader the inner thoughts of each person, which contrast with each person's actions and words. Clarissa and Miss Kilman intensely dislike each other. Miss Kilman loves Clarissa's daughter, Elizabeth Dalloway, but Elizabeth thinks Miss Kilman "made one feel small" (131), and she is somewhat repulsed by her. Elizabeth and her mother are equally foreign to each other. Richard loves Elizabeth, but when he sees her at the party, "he had thought to himself, Who is that lovely girl? And suddenly he realised that is was his Elizabeth, and he had not recognised her, she looked so lovely in her pink frock!" (194). It is almost as if he does not even take the time to look closely at his own daughter very often. Peter and Clarissa share many memories, but Peter is still smarting from Clarissa's rejection of him, evidenced by the way he relives the scene in his head after he visits her. His visit is very awkward. Septimus and Rezia Smith are extremely distant from each other, though they are married. Of course, Septimus has troubles of his own, which does not help. But Rezia and he barely communicate with each other and she does not know him anymore. All of these people are alienated from those around them.

The book climaxes at Clarissa's party, thrown at the end of the day that spans the novel. Everyone dear to Clarissa, from her family to her close friends like Peter Walsh and Sally Seton, are at the party. Characters are there from her past and her present, which makes the party almost a snapshot of who she is. Like Joyce's party scene, it is loud and crowded. Yet, in the midst of this crowd she should feel most comfortable with, she is worried and alone. At one point, she thinks of the party, "Oh dear, it was going to be a failure; a complete failure, Clarissa felt it in her bones" (167). Clarissa later decides her party is a success after all, but of it she thinks: "these semblances, these triumphs. . . had a hollowness; at arm's length they were, not in the heart" (174). Though she is surrounded by friends, she still finds her interaction with them not quite satisfying.

When she hears about Septimus' suicide, it shakes her. While she is alone during the party, she realizes that she is growing old and she thinks over her own life. With all her friends and family nearby, she is by herself wrestling with heavy thoughts of life and death and suicide. These are thoughts she will never share with anyone there at the party. She understands why Septimus killed himself: "Death was defiance. Death was an attempt to communicate" (184). Finally, she concludes that "She must go back to them" and rejoin her party and her friends (186). While she is alone, she comes to the realization that her life is precious. This comes after she thinks of Septimus' death: "Somehow it was her disaster -- her disgrace" (185) and "She felt somehow very like him -- the young man who had killed himself" (186). She connects with Septimus, understands what he did, and relates to him. She is closer to a person who is now dead that she has never met than she is to the crowds of people waiting for her in the next room.

Stevie Smith's character in "Not Waving but Drowning" is also unable to communicate, with unfortunate results. The drowning person is "not waving but drowning," but the people on shore watching think, "Poor chap, he always loved larking / And now he's dead / It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way" (2452). In the man's time of crisis, his friends miss his cries completely and do not even know he needs help. The drowning man says he was "much too far out all my life," meaning that he never felt like he really belonged and could not communicate his feelings to his friends (2452).

Although Clarissa catches up with her friends and the party ends a success, she weathered a pivotal moment of crisis and soul searching alone. She does not have a strong enough connection with any of the other characters in the book, even her husband, to share that moment with them.

All the main characters in "The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner," "The Dead," and Mrs. Dalloway are isolated from the people around them. The long-distance runner purposely distances himself from the people telling him what to do and he prefers to live his life on his own, like a long-distance run. His inner thoughts differ from his outer actions because he deceives the governor into thinking he will win the race. Gabriel would rather be alone than at the party he goes to, as shown by his thoughts. These contrast with his actions as the person at the center of attention. He is very distant from his wife, and the story ends with her thinking more of a dead boy than of him, despite his love for her and his desire for her affection. Mrs. Dalloway is also closer to a dead boy than to her husband. Her thoughts about Septimus' suicide prompt her to rejoin her party. Even so, she spends the entire book bustling in a busy household in a huge city, but without anyone close to her to open up to. Like the other characters, she keeps all her inner thoughts to herself.