What is Clarissa's Meyer's-Briggs Personality Type?
Virginia's Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway is a novel that is meant to be more character-based than plot-based. I decided to put this to the test by seeing if I could determine Clarissa's Meyer's Briggs personality type. First I tried to guess the test and then I took a test as if I were Mrs. Dalloway herself. If you don't know whats the Meyer's Briggs Personality test is, please check the note at the end of the blog.
Before taking the test: ESTJ
Extroverted vs Introverted: I believe that Clarissa is an extrovert. I came to this conclusion because Clarissa is pretty hyped about her party and she tends to know the people around town and vise versa. Sensing vs Intuition: This one is a bit difficult to determine but I think that Clarissa is a bit more sensing than intuitive. The main reason I thought this was because she chose to marry Richard Dalloway because he would give her a reasonably secure life and it would be --at least for a neutral person-- a better marriage choice than to marry Peter who was a bit more turbulent. She made her important choices in life by mind not heart.
Thinking vs Feeling: I think that Clarissa is a bit more of a thinker than a feeler but only by a little bit because she says that she loves life but she also doesn't have a lot of "loving" relationships. The only "loving" relationship that was mentioned thus far was the one between her and Sally and that was strange for her so it seems that she isn't used to it which means that the other relationships are more logistical relationships, not caring/ "feeling" relationships.
Judging vs Perceiving: I think that Clarissa is a Judger because she doesn't like things to be improvised. One example was when Peter came and she didn't know that he was coming to visit. It was a surprise and at first she was taken aback and didn't seem very happy as "it was outrageous to be interrupted at eleven o'clock on the morning of the day she was giving a party." She likes things to be well thought out and organized, especially as she is the wife of a parliament member.
What I answered on the test:
If you disagree with anything I answered, go ahead and comment :).
*(A quick note about what is the Meyer's Briggs test:)"According to Carl G. Jung's theory of psychological types [Jung, 1971], people can be characterized by their preference of general attitude:
Before taking the test: ESTJ
Extroverted vs Introverted: I believe that Clarissa is an extrovert. I came to this conclusion because Clarissa is pretty hyped about her party and she tends to know the people around town and vise versa. Sensing vs Intuition: This one is a bit difficult to determine but I think that Clarissa is a bit more sensing than intuitive. The main reason I thought this was because she chose to marry Richard Dalloway because he would give her a reasonably secure life and it would be --at least for a neutral person-- a better marriage choice than to marry Peter who was a bit more turbulent. She made her important choices in life by mind not heart.
Thinking vs Feeling: I think that Clarissa is a bit more of a thinker than a feeler but only by a little bit because she says that she loves life but she also doesn't have a lot of "loving" relationships. The only "loving" relationship that was mentioned thus far was the one between her and Sally and that was strange for her so it seems that she isn't used to it which means that the other relationships are more logistical relationships, not caring/ "feeling" relationships.
Judging vs Perceiving: I think that Clarissa is a Judger because she doesn't like things to be improvised. One example was when Peter came and she didn't know that he was coming to visit. It was a surprise and at first she was taken aback and didn't seem very happy as "it was outrageous to be interrupted at eleven o'clock on the morning of the day she was giving a party." She likes things to be well thought out and organized, especially as she is the wife of a parliament member.
What I answered on the test:
If you disagree with anything I answered, go ahead and comment :).
*(A quick note about what is the Meyer's Briggs test:)"According to Carl G. Jung's theory of psychological types [Jung, 1971], people can be characterized by their preference of general attitude:
- Extroverted (E) vs. Introverted (I),
- Sensing (S) vs. Intuition (N),
- Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F)
- Judging (J) vs. Perceiving (P)
The first criterion, Extraversion – Introversion, signifies the source and direction of a person’s energy expression. An extravert’s source and direction of energy expression is mainly in the external world, while an introvert has a source of energy mainly in their own internal world.
The second criterion, Sensing – Intuition, represents the method by which someone perceives information. Sensing means that a person mainly believes information he or she receives directly from the external world. Intuition means that a person believes mainly information he or she receives from the internal or imaginative world.
The third criterion, Thinking – Feeling, represents how a person processes information. Thinking means that a person makes a decision mainly through logic. Feeling means that, as a rule, he or she makes a decision based on emotion, i.e. based on what they feel they should do.
The fourth criterion, Judging – Perceiving, reflects how a person implements the information he or she has processed. Judging means that a person organizes all of his life events and, as a rule, sticks to his plans. Perceiving means that he or she is inclined to improvise and explore alternative options."
For the record, I'm an ENFJ.
I think the idea of trying to pin down Clarissa's character is really intriguing especially since there is generally a lot of ambiguity in the novel in general. Your insight into how much Clarissa likes her life to be organized and planned is really interesting because I hadn't thought of her that way but now that I think back there are multiple instances where she gets upset because her plan for the day is interrupted. I do think that in some ways Clarissa's character is more nuanced than Meyers-Briggs allows for. For example while Clarissa might make logical decisions, she thinks a lot about her feelings and might be able to follow them more if she lived in a less restrictive society so I don't think she can be categorized as thinking or feeling.
ReplyDeleteYeah I totally get where you are coming from. I found the Meyer's-Briggs Test interesting because I wanted to see if Virginia Woolf did a good job in giving me and idea of the characters and their POV's and ideologies but it would be counter intuitive to place Clarissa in a box that Virginia Woolf intended to take her out of. I am also just intrigued by the whole idea of the Meyer's- Briggs test and how the whole population as a whole can be divided in to 16 general groups that think in very similar ways though they are not the same people, it might even go back to absorption.
DeleteThis is a really creative way of looking at Mrs. Dalloway! I could especially relate to this because at home we are always talking about personality types. Often others say that certain people bond together and become friends because of their similar or different personality traits. I then started thinking of the personality traits for Richard and Peter. To me, Richard seems more introverted and Peter seems more extroverted. This may have been why Clarissa chose Richard. She may have felt more stable with him because he was the complementary half to her being an extrovert. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean she loved him but that they make a good team together. I think that it would be very interesting to take the test for Richard and Peter and compare their results to their relationship with Clarissa.
ReplyDeleteI love this idea! I think it explores Mrs. Dalloway in a way that while complex, is still digestible. I definitely don't think you simplified Mrs. Dalloway in this analysis, I think it showed a deep understanding of her character to be able to make such pointed statements and come to conclusions about what general categories she fits into, as well as to answer all those questions from her perspective. In your support you brought up points in her life where she's had to make big decisions where her character has really come through (for example Clarissa deciding who to marry) and as well you looked at smaller moments (like Peter coming to visit) where her personality shines through in more subtle ways. I think this combination of the little and the big moments in her life gives a well-rounded view. This concept is creative and smart, and I think your answers are astute!
ReplyDeleteThis was a really interesting and creative way to analyze Clarissa's personality! One of the things I found interesting was that the little cartoon on the results screen was captioned "OK, someone needs to clean up this mess!". We definitely see this turbulence and confusion when we are inside Clarissa's head, but from the point of view of other characters she appears completely calm and collected. I wonder if/how Clarissa's personality type would be different if it also took into account this disconnect and how she comes across to other people.
ReplyDeleteI love this way of thinking of Clarissa. It's really interesting how you used this modern-day quiz format and adapted it to the personality that we see through the novel. This intrigues me as you say Clarissa is extroverted and therefore she was drawn to Richard, an introvert, as they were a way of opposites attracting. This brings up the question of why she was so attracted to Sally, as she definitely also was an extrovert, and in that role we see Clarissa playing more the reserved and quiet character.
ReplyDeleteThis is a super interesting way to portray Clarissa but I think Clarissa would be more intuitive than sensory because of why she married Richard. When she was young in Bourton, she was divided between marrying Peter and Richard. But through her own speculation, she thought that marrying Richard would give her more stability and fulfilling life and so, she married a man that gives her a life that barely meets the minimum requirement of satisfaction.
ReplyDeleteWow, this is a really unique and interesting idea. I in particular was interested in the Thinking vs Feeling aspect of the test for Clarissa. On one hand, the entirety of Clarissa’s story arc is her feelings – about Peter, Richard, Sally, the party, London, and so on. Any action she did, any choice she made always had emotions attached to it, and memories from her past, which I think are also a way of feeling. But on the other hand, a lot of the things she did were very analyzed. She would do something, and then spend a lot of time thinking about it, or the other way around, she would think a lot about a choice before she made it. Based on this, I don’t know if I agree with the idea that Clarissa is a Thinker, just because she doesn’t show a lot of love, because she does show a lot of other emotions in reaction to her surrounding.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a unique and fun way of analyzing Clarissa’s character. I agree with Annemily that there is some ambiguity in interpreting Clarissa’s complex character. She seems to be a logical thinker and a pragmatist in making her decisions and a planner who gets annoyed when things don’t go according to her plan; but at the same time she is a free spirit that feels constrained by the rigid expectations of female role in society at the time. What I really like about this test is that it gives you a continuum to choose from rather than strict categorization of human attributes.
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