Why We Read Fiction_ Theory of Mind and the Novel - Lisa Zunshine [20]
The makers of the pen think that it will never wear out (1st level).
Hugh says that the makers of the pen think it will never wear out (2nd level).
Lady Bruton wants the editor of the Times to respect and publish her ideas (2nd level).
Hugh wants Lady Bruton and Richard to believe that because
7: Cognitive Science and Mrs. Dalloway
the makers of the pen think that it will never wear out, the
editor of the Times will respect and publish the ideas recorded
by this pen (4th level).
Richard is aware that Hugh wants Lady Bruton and Richard Dalloway to believe that because the makers of the pen think that it will never wear out, the editor of the Times will respect and publish the ideas recorded by this pen (5th level).
Richard suspects that Lady Bruton indeed believes that because, as Hugh says, the makers of the pen think that it will never wear out, the editor of the Times will respect and publish the ideas recorded by this pen (5th level).
Woolf intends us to recognize [by inserting a parenthetical observation, "so Richard Dalloway felt"] that Richard is aware that Hugh wants Lady Bruton and Richard to think that because the makers of the pen believe that it will never wear out, the editor of the Times will respect and publish the ideas recorded by this pen (6th level).
It could be argued, of course, that in the process of reading, we automatically cut through Woolf's stylistic pyrotechniques to come up with a series of more comprehensible, first-, second-, and third-level attributions of states of mind, such as, "Richard does not particularly like Hugh"; "Lady Bruton thinks that Hugh is writing a marvelous letter"; "Richard feels that Lady Bruton thinks that Hugh is writing a marvelous letter, but he is skeptical about the whole enterprise"; etc. Such abbreviated attributions may seem destructive since the effect that they have on Woolf's prose is equivalent to the effect of paraphrasing on poetry, but they do, in fact, convey some general sense of what is going on in the paragraph. The main problem with them, however, is that to arrive at such simplified descriptions of Richard's and Lady Bruton's states of mind, we have to grasp the full meaning of this passage, and to do that, we first have to process several sequences that embed at least five levels of intentionality. Moreover, we have to do it on the spot, unaided by pen and paper and not forewarned that the number of levels of intentionality that we are about to encounter is considered by cognitive scientists to create "a very significant load on most people's cognitive abilities."7
Note that in this particular passage, Woolf not only "demands" that we process a string of fifth- and sixth-level intentionalities; she also introduces such embedded intentionalities through descriptions of body language that in some ways approach those of Hemingway in their emotional blandness. No more telling "trembling," as in the earlier scene featuring Peter and Clarissa. Instead, we get Richard watching Lady Bruton watching Hugh producing his pen, unscrewing the cap, and beginning to write. True, Woolf offers us two emotionally colored words, carefully and marvelously, but what they signal is that Hugh cares a great deal about his writing and that Lady Bruton admires the letter that he produces—two snapshots of the states of mind that only skim the surface of the complex affective undertow of this episode.
Because Woolf has depicted physical actions relatively lacking in immediate emotional content, here, in striking contrast to the scene in Clarissa's drawing room, she hastens to provide an authoritative interpretation of each character's mental state. We are told what Lady Bruton feels as she watches Hugh (she feels that the editor of the Times will respect a letter written so beautifully);