Virginia Woolf grants us access to a new concept of time in “Mrs. Dalloway”, through which temporality-moment is investigated in two contradictory ways: one is continuous, mortal, dissolving while the other is placid, immortal, infinite; thus their combination created a new type of temporality: androgynous time. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The deadly and dissolving moment, belonging to physical time, is fully represented through the Big Ben clock. The Big Ben clock, with its appearance throughout the novel, reminds people of the time in the real world, the past that will never return “Big Ben struck the half hour” (Mrs. Dalloway, 119) . And the moments are like “circles of lead dissolved in the air” (Woolf, 2). Because each moment appears out of nowhere and then disappears into nothingness, leaving no trace (Kuhlken, p357), incessantly, as a raindrop diminishes when it coincides with the ground, it does not seem so significant. However, that insignificance is significant to everyone, including Clarissa, as every moment is attributed to their deaths. If even a moment can disappear, then “did it matter that she must inevitably cease altogether[?]”, thought Clarissa (Woolf, p.6). The disappearance of the moment represents Clarissa's own disappearance, because time can never return, and so is she. In contrast to the time of the clock there is the time of the mind, with its placid, immortal, infinite temporality as seen in the party organized by Clarissa. As in Kuhlken's approach, the feast is shown as a patina, hiding clock time behind the posture of mind time, and the guests are gradually dying (356); however, the significance of the holiday to Clarissa renders it irrelevant. For Clarissa, the holiday is a revolt against the authority of physical time, as it denotes a moment, freezes the lead circle or raindrop, and extends it to infinity. She is not subject to the uniformity of clock time, so she has absolute authority in the party. As a result, she gains true freedom and true self, as she says “everyone [is] unreal in one way, much more real in another” (160) – “unreal” because she and everyone are no longer in the same space- time. , and “much more real” because that space-time is his own space-time, where his inner self shows itself. But then that moment cannot last forever, because the clock's time will not stop ticking. That special moment collapses when Clarissa learns of Septimus' death. Death – the depiction of the cruelty of clock time, as in the suicidal time of Clarissa and Cleo Enduree, “[threatens] every act that is creative and alive” (Kuhlken, 344). While death has undeniably robbed her momentary freedom, it is also the catalyst that allows Clarissa to combine two contradictory temporalities into one, achieving a new space-time, a new life in which every moment is special: an androgynous time. Because life exists only because death exists, and only through death can one live again. That androgynous time, the combination of two contradictory types of time, is experienced by Mrs. Dalloway through a special event: meeting Septimus' death right in the middle of the party, in her space-time. Although initially held back by the intrusion of the clock: "What business did the Bradshaws have talking about death at his party?" (172), then he understands it, somehow sees himself in Septimus and then experiences his death. In the conjunction between her space-time – the party and the space-time of the clock – the old woman next door and the Big Ben clock, Clarissa stands by the window – the border between two worlds, with the help of”