Similarities And Differences Between Septimus And Clarissa

All in all, Mrs. Dalloway is a novel that expresses the emotions and feelings experienced by outsiders. Clarissa, Peter Walsh, and Septimus are all perfect examples of outsiders. They each show different ways of thinking that include empiric, gender conventional, and war criticism. While Sir William is not quite an outsider due to his controlling nature, he does have a massive empiric way of thinking due to his need for

In Mrs. Dalloway Clarissa and Septimus smith have various similarities. Clarissa eventually triumphs over her issues/depression in her life unlike Septimus that eventually loses and commits suicide. Mrs. Dalloway an upper class 50 year old British wife the central character of the novel, struggles constantly to balance her thoughts and world. Her world consists of a fabulous lifestyle such as fine fashion, parties, and aristocratic society, but as she the novel goes on she looks beneath the glamour of her life and searches for a deeper meaning. Looking for privacy, Clarissa has a tendency toward introspection that gives her a capacity for emotion. She is always concerned with appearances around other people and no matter the pressure she keeps herself composed. She uses a lot of useless talking and activity to keep her ideas and emotions safe and locked away, which can make her seem shallow even to those who know her well.

‘Mrs. Dalloway’, by Virginia Woolf is a derivative text of ‘The Hours’, written by Michael Cunningham. The novels both share an important theme of mental health. The circumstances of mental health are commonly sympathetic, and empathetic. The characters Septimus and Clarissa in ‘Mrs. Dalloway’ and Richard, Laura Brown, and Virginia Woolf in ‘The Hours’ show the strongest symbols for this theme. Most of the problems and treatments these characters face are in direct result of the age they live in. Both novels express a relationship between era, illnesses and treatments.

Throughout her life, novelist Virginia Woolf suffered with mental illness, and she ultimately ended her life at age 59. As art often imitates life, it is not surprising that characters in Woolf’s works also struggle with mental illness. One of her novels, Mrs. Dalloway, recounts a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a high society woman living in London, and those who run in her circle. As the novel progresses the reader sees one of the characters, Septimus, struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by serving in war. At the end of the story, he commits suicide. While there is no explicit articulation of any other character suffering from mental illness in the novel, Septimus is not alone. Through her thoughts and actions, we can deduce that Clarissa also endures mental and emotional suffering. Though Clarissa does not actually attempt to end her life in the novel, her mental and emotional suffering lead her to exhibit suicidal tendencies. To prove this, I will examine Clarissa’s thoughts and actions from a psychological perspective.

In the novel Mrs Dalloway, Woolf conveys her perspective, as she finely examines and critiques the traditional gender roles of women in a changing post-war society. Woolf characterisation of Clarissa Dalloway in a non linear structure, presents a critical portrayal of the existing class structure through modernist’s eyes. Titling her novel as Mrs Dalloway presents Clarissa’s marriage as a central focus of her life, drawing attention to how a women’s identity is defined by marriage. Despite the changing role of women throughout the 1920s, for married women life was the same post war. Clarissa experiences ‘the oddest sense of being herself invisible…that is being Mrs Dalloway…this being Richard Dalloway,”

Dalloway was never particularly close with Septimus, but when she heard of his death, she was able to connect with him emotionally. Similar to Septimus, Mrs. Dalloway did not believe in bringing children into the world, “She had the oddest sense of being herself invisible; unseen; unknown; there being no more marrying, no more having of children now, but only this astonishing and rather solemn progress with the rest of them, up Bond Street, this being Mrs. Dalloway; not even Clarissa any more; this being Mrs. Richard Dalloway” (10). Mrs. Dalloway feels invisible in the world, and her seclusion makes her to want to reject the expectations of society such as reproduction. Clarissa also feels as though she has lost her identity; instead of being known as Clarissa, an individual, she feels like she is just Mrs. Dalloway: an extension of her husband. Mrs. Dalloway’s joy comes from her husband, “It was due to Richard; she had never been so happy.

From the beginning of Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf establishes that Clarissa’s bright and hopeful spirit has become dulled and burdened when subjected to the oppressive nature of marriage. During a glimpse into her younger years, the reader is able to see Clarissa. With each flashback into Clarissa’s youth, the reader is provided another image of Clarissa before marriage, one that highlights her passion and curiosity for life. While Clarissa felt a passion and connection with Peter, she could not bear to live in a marriage where her freedom was something she had to sacrifice. The decision she makes is logical in some ways, but her choice also brings into question the fault of her marriage in the first place. In Clarissa’s world, the option for passion and the security of her freedom was not available nor would it ever be; therefore, she was forced to choose between the two. Men, however, were not forced to make such decisions and were given the liberty to wait well into their later years to find a spouse suitable to their liking. By choosing to marry Richard over Peter, Clarissa forsook the option of passion in

  Clarissa Dalloway, the central character in Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, is a complex figure whose relations with other women reveal as much about her personality as do her own musings. By focusing at length on several characters, all of whom are in some way connected to Clarissa, Woolf expertly portrays the ways females interact: sometimes drawing upon one another for things which they cannot get from men; other times, turning on each other out of jealousy and insecurity.

During the time of a young modern society, there were ideals and social standards that led people to feel isolated from their own expressions and thoughts. In Mrs. Dalloway, identity is a significant theme depicted in the novel and is prevalent between the characters portrayed throughout. One character in particular that represents the image and reflection of identity in the British society during the first world war is Clarissa Dalloway. All the attributes such as her love for flowers, her lavish entertaining parties, and the bonds she has between her friends and lovers reveal something about her identity that she discovers about herself at the end of the book. Clarissa’s personality is complex and moving as her emotions and life events are unraveled in the moment as things happen.

Clarissa Dalloway is a prime example of turning the cheek on someone, who is not fitting into society. When Septimus kills himself, Mrs. Dalloway had no pity for him, but she saw his death as he escaped his demons and able to move on while she decides to live and still suffer through pain.

Once Woolf chose to combine the two separate stories, with the loss of unity this would imply, she must dramatize the split in structure and make a virtue out of it. The contrast between the minds of Clarissa and Septimus is but one way; another is the split within the characters themselves. Septimus is a schizophrenic, in the common (although not the medical) view, a split personality; and he alternates between normal and abnormal behavior. Clarissa is divided in another way; she is born under Gemini, the sign of the twins, indicated by Woolf s mention that she had "just broken into her fifty-second year" With this Gemini or twin motif, Woolf was able to accomplish several things: achieve a balance between the two characters and story lines which fall into place as twin stories and use the motif as a basis for a complicated network of

Mrs. Dalloway in a sense is about this inadequacy of language; the book is characterized by silences, ‘of what people don’t say’. In a double plot Woolf builds up two central characters of the text, by how they view the world and how restricted they are in communicating their thoughts; particularly Septimus which links up to the larger idea of madness in Woolf’s life and her novels. Nonetheless, to say Clarissa and Septimus double each other would not be absolutely correct, since most characters become the face of the other, mirrors the other and in the process reveal something about the other, in fact interestingly enough many critics have read Septimus being the objective correlative of Woolf

Woolf subtly expresses women's inner consciousness in various aspects of life. Among her works, Mrs. Dalloway most fully describes the existence of women in the 20th society. Clarissa, who is the main character of Mrs. Dalloway tries to establish her own identity in the incomplete and contradictory life. And, she has opposite egos in her inner mind, the first one is as a wife or housewife, and the second one is as an independent woman. Furthermore, there is internal conflict between two opposite egos in her mind. However, according to Woolf, the ego is fluid and inconstant, because the ego is shaped by personal and familiar emotion and modified by the influence

In the book Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf, it is evident that the main character, Clarissa Dalloway, double persona is Septimus Smith. While Clarissa proves to be more rational, Septimus is irrational. Clarissa shows optimism with her life and finding her true identity while Septimus is someone who experiencing insanity and madness. Although she never meets him and their lives are vastly different, the two characters actually mirror each other. Clarissa and Septimus share many characteristics and think in similar manners. Septimus serves as a contrast between the veteran working class and upper class. Throughout the book, Septimus’ thoughts parallel Clarissa’s and can be seen as an echo in some ways. This illustrates how the line between sanity and insanity can become blurred. Both characters have similar experiences, but how they go about interpreting them and finding deeper meaning about it differ because of their different personalities and experiences.

Septimus’s is viewed in society as a man who suffers from trauma from the war versus Clarissa, who is described and an elegant woman that loves lavish parties and hanging around her friends. Having both of the characters, Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Smith, Virginia Wolfe presents how two different sides of society, the upper class and the middle class, can have and face very similar pressures. Each scene describing their outlooks from within Virginia’s eyes show a very similar effect on the people who dwell within themselves.