[Vwoolf] "Mrs. Dalloway" crux

[Neverow, Vara S.]

I like the parody option.

Vara

Vara Neverow
Department of English
Southern Connecticut State University
New Haven, CT 06515
203-392-6717
neverowv1 at southernct.edu

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From: Vwoolf <vwoolf-bounces+neverowv1=southernct.edu at lists.osu.edu> on behalf of Stuart N. Clarke via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
Sent: Sunday, November 22, 2020 11:53 AM
To: vwoolf at lists.osu.edu <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
Subject: [Vwoolf] "Mrs. Dalloway" crux

Edgar J. Watkiss, with his roll of lead piping round his arm, said audibly, humorously of course: "The Proime Minister's kyar."

Leaving aside the ramifications and peculiarities of his name, what is his accent?  This has subconsciously bothered me for years.  It has been suggested that it is Irish.  “Proime” sounds Southern Irish; alternatively, very Birmingham to me.  Is “kyar” Irish?   It doesn’t sound like any accent I can readily think of.

Woolf wrote in “Memories of a Working Women’s Guild” (1930):

“to deride ladies and to imitate, as some of the speakers did,
their mincing speech and little knowledge of what it pleases them to
call ‘reality’ is not merely bad manners, but it gives away the whole
purpose of the Congress, for if it is better to be a working woman
by all means let them remain so and not claim their right to undergo
the contamination of wealth and comfort.”  (E5 182)

If he says it “humorously”, then is he perhaps parodying upper-class speech?

Stuart


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