Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Smith
Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus SmithClarissa Dalloway and Septimus Smith
In Virginia Woolf’s book, Mrs. Dalloway, Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Warren Smith grow up under the same social institutions. Although social classes are drawn upon wealth, it can be conceived that two people may have very similar opinions of the society that created them. Woolf presents individuals that are uncannily similar in Mrs. Dalloway.
Clarissa and Septimus share the quality of expression through actions, not words. Through their basic beliefs and idiosyncrasies, both characters mimic each other through their actions and thoughts, although they never meet. Clarissa feels sadness and death around her. There is much routine and habit around her but she still seems dissatisfied. In her early fifties, she sees herself as Mrs. Dalloway, not even Clarissa. She portrays her sense of happiness as something not monumental or grandiose, but rather quite simple. She can be happy throwing a party, so she can escape reality: “Every time she gave a party she had this feeling of being something not herself, and that everyone was unreal in one way; much more real in another…it was possible to say things you couldn’t say anyhow else, things that needed an effort; possible to go much deeper. But not for her; not yet anyhow” (171).
Ever since Septimus saw his best friend Evans die at war, it has been a major trauma in his life. His wife, Rezia, must constantly take him away from his reality and have him focus on things not involving war or him thinking of it. Septimus sees beauty in small, lifeless things that surround him. Beauty can be seen as a plane that writes in the sky, undeciphered, but which signifies beauty. Subconsciously, he reveals his need to be nurtured, but he pulls away from society when he falls ill and has trouble dealing with reality. Both Septimus and Clarissa are very similar in this manner.
Death is perceived as defiance by both characters. Clarissa expresses her belief in reincarnation. She believes if her true self is not revealed in this life, it will be revealed in the next. She has the belief that everything will work out, eventually. Thinking of Septimus’s death, Clarissa remembers thinking before a party, “If it were to now die, ’twere now to be most happy” (184). She felt if she was to die, it was a good point in her life to die. As for Septimus, he knows of war, death, and destruction; he knows that society will not change and that he cannot live in a world that can be so constricting. Septimus takes a leap of faith and ends all of his suffering in this unforgiving world; individuality, Septimus and Clarissa recede into the depths of normality. Clarissa accepts this recession, from having a dream to being merely Mrs. Dalloway. However, he does not, because this constriction and uniformity propels him out of his bedroom window to death.
Although Clarissa and Septimus differ in their response to this uniformity, the truth remains that they are both dissatisfied. Their dissatisfaction emanates from the influence from their surrounding society. Many people do not understand what Septimus is going through, so they tend to think badly of him. The doctors are far from helping and more intent on collecting payment for their service. Septimus is not even happy with himself, let alone his society. He had guilt because he could not feel anymore, not even for his wife. “His wife was crying, and he felt nothing; only each time she sobbed in this profound, this silent, this hopeless way, he descended another step into the pit” (90). With Clarissa, the only influence of society on her are the parties she has. Though the parties bring happiness to her, after they are over it is back to her normal life, which is stale. An important matter to Clarissa is to be social with important people. When her husband is invited to a brunch with Mrs. Bruton and she is not, she feels disappointed that she was not considered or not accepted by a wealthier person.
Though Clarissa and Septimus are not of the same wealth or background, both characters have a very similar prospective about things around them. Septimus believes death is an answer to his constant torture from the doctors and society. Clarissa relates to his suicide as a way for him to communicate to everyone finally, especially his two doctors. Neither Dr. Holmes nor Sir William could empower his life anymore with their false treatments. In everything that has happened in one day, the essential connection between Septimus and Clarissa was his death and the English society to which both people were subjected.
In Mrs. Dalloway, people are constantly projecting their fantasies onto other people. Clarissa interprets the minor detail of her exclusion from Lady Bruton’s invitation as a deep symbolic rejection, although Lady Bruton never meant it that way. Her reaction to Ms. Kilman also characterized largely by fantasy. Obviously, there is an element of unknowability in other people, as evidenced in the multiple, conflicting interpretations of various characters in the novel. Again, Mrs. Dalloway simultaneously supports two opposing ideas: there is meaning in the world and there is no meaning in the world. Woolf seems to suggest that meaning is not inherent, but constructed by human beings. However, Woolf does not claim that because meaning is constructed it is illegitimate. Rather, she rejects the attempt to offer a single interpretation as the only legitimate one. The identity, the life, of a person does not progress in a linear, single-minded fashion. The text of a person’s life is written organically. Past and present intermingle throughout the novel. Past events give meaning to the present, but the present also inflects one’s interpretation of the past. Clarissa’s decision not to marry Peter takes on greater significance as she grows older, for example.
Septimus externalizes what goes on inside most people. He outwardly expresses the wild mood swings, the association of seemingly unrelated ideas, and conversations with people who are not physically present. Clarissa and other people regularly conduct mental arguments with people who are not present. Clarissa experiences wild mood swings, but she keeps them to herself. She associates seemingly unrelated ideas. For example, she associates her exclusion from Lady Bruton’s invitation with her sexual anxieties. Clarissa’s metaphorical suicide is considered perfectly normal, while Septimus’s threats of literal suicide are considered entirely abnormal.
Peter once told Clarissa that she would marry a Prime Minister and become the perfect hostess, predicting that she would conform and excel in the stale existence of the typical society wife. The fact that she mentally argues her case for spurning his proposal while preparing for a party reveals that she acknowledges the validity of his prediction, although this is largely cloaked in subconscious denial. Clarissa continually characterizes Peter as a failure. However, she is speaking not only from the perspective of someone who spurned his marriage proposal, but also from the perspective of a British upper class society wife. Therefore, her definition of failure is colored by her snobbery. Moreover, regarding Peter as a failure, functions as a way to “prove” the wisdom of refusing to marry him. Clarissa’s meeting with Hugh further reveals the basis for her characterization of Peter as a failure. Peter mockingly characterized Hugh as the unthinking representative and supporter of established social conventions. He characterized the life of the upper class as heartless and brainless. Clarissa chose this lifestyle, so her defense of Hugh is a defense of her own life.
Clarissa is conscious of not being Clarissa anymore, but of being Mrs. Richard Dalloway. Moreover, she does not do things for themselves, but because she wants to be liked. In becoming the perfect hostess, she has sacrificed her individuality. She exists for others, and her identity is derived through her husband. These two details reveal that Clarissa does not gain access to her self through her own concepts of her identity, but through other people.
The unknown person riding in the car that backfires, suddenly becomes a symbol of the British Empire. Everyone, including Clarissa subtly changes his or her bearing as the car drives by. Septimus regards the effect of car’s passage, what he calls the “gradual drawing of everything to one center before his eyes,” as something terrifying (15). It is “as if some horror had come almost to the surface and was about to burst into flames (15).” Septimus fought in the war to defend the very Empire the crowd reveres. He is suffering from shell shock consequently. Therefore, Septimus regards this symbol of the Empire as a horror. The car does not draw him into a comfortable web of symbolic meaning, but threatens the very existence of meaning for him. For him, the War is no longer about the defense of this powerful symbolic web of meaning. For Septimus, the war is about concrete suffering and concrete consequences. The war terror and death of the war shattered that symbolic web for him even as he fought to defend it.
Everyone tries to decipher the message the plane is spelling out, but they come up with different answers, most of them meaningless. The absence of meaning in the plane’s message in conjunction with Septimus’s horrified reaction to the effect of the unknown person in the motor car, casts further doubt on the validity of the symbolic force of the Empire, which in turn casts doubt on the justification for sacrificing so many lives and minds defending it. The indecipherable message of the plane is also a metaphor for the theme of interpretation in the novel. Much of Mrs. Dalloway involves the excavation of the events of entire lives. Woolf lets us encounter various interpretations of Clarissa’s life, and many of them do not exactly coincide. In some ways, Clarissa is a void herself. She is alternately callous and sensitive, cruel and kind. Her decision to marry Dalloway functions as a symbolic key to her life, but no one interpretation is sufficient in categorizing the significance of her choice. Moreover, interpretations of the personalities of other characters are often inaccurate or insufficient as well. It seems that Mrs. Dalloway simultaneously supports two opposing ideas: the world has meaning and the world has no meaning.