The Flâneuse-ing Mind

This chapter examines mind-wandering in Virginia Woolf’s depiction of the flâneuse in Mrs. Dalloway. Contemporary cognitive research suggests that wandering thoughts have important implications for the way we think, plan, form memories, and understand our sense of self. This scientific framework offers new perspectives in considering Woolf’s exploration of the wandering mind. In Mrs. Dalloway , Woolf’s depiction of the flâneuse shows that walking shapes a mental rhythm that is crucial in developing a sense of self. As Clarissa walks in London, she makes frequent mental trips to the past and back to the present, creating an experiential sense of continuity of the self through time; when Elizabeth Dalloway journeys on the omnibus, she anticipates possible professions, venturing into a future that she actively claims and fashions for herself. For Woolf, the physical action of wandering is inextricably bound to the mental wandering of the mind. Her call for a new language and perspective for the flâneuse demonstrates that the female art of wandering is both physical and psychological: it is an active construction of the self, a personal narrative that is always in the process of becoming.