Clarissa and Septimus are joined in time and space as Clarissa is shopping on Bond Street. Among the London traffic, Cl

Ruotolo, Lucio P. (Stanford University Press,

arissa is pondering how to make sense of her life in relation to other people: "in the streets of London, on the ebb and flow of things, here, there, she survived, Peter survived, lived in each other, she being part, she was positive… of the people she had never met" (12). Clarissa's feeling that we are part of everything and live in each other is supported as the reader is given a cross-section view of London as various people in the city respond to the same event. The motor car, for example, is used as a spatial device to unify the individual characters as they respond to it with curiosity, terror or patriotism. "Mrs. Dalloway... looked out with her little pink face... Everyone looked at the motor car. Septimus looked...as if some horror had come almost to the surface and was about to burst into flames, terrified him" (21). Septimus experiences this as Clarissa is standing at the florist’s window. Similarly, in the scene where the airplane is skywriting, we are again introduced to both of their psyches through their respective streams of consciousness.

Clarissa and Septimus are also trying to escape from their pasts. Septimus is the victim of war, seeing the death of Evans fills him with quilt. The absurdity and hypocrisy of war even makes him believe that "it might be possible that the world itself is without meaning"(115) Septimus is unable to overcome his hallucinations of Evans or to accept the reality that Evans is dead. Evans, who, ghostlike, keeps hunting Septimus. It seems that Septimus is changed forever by the battle. Though Clarissa has also experienced the horror of seeing her sister's death, the effect of this absurd experience is far less disastrous. Clarissa "thank Heaven" that "the War was over,"(5) but it is not over for Septimus who relives in his memory. On the other hand, Peter and Sally, who had been lost to her for many years, return as if they were ghosts. Even before they surprise Clarissa by their actual appearances, Clarissa has been thinking of them. However, the return of Peter and Sally into Clarissa's life is not entirely analogous to Septimus's vision of Evans; they travel from India and Manchester, not from the afterlife, although Evans's appearance in the park is a case of mistaken identity.

Clarissa and Septimus rely heavily on the support from their spouses even though their marriages are not successful. Madness cuts off Septimus from nearly all real human contact and Rezia is his only hope for a cure. Any attempt to separate him from her is a threat to his existence. Septimus feels that "he was deserted"(121) when Dr Holmes invited Rezia to tea. In the same way, Clarissa feels "herself suddenly shrivelled, aged, breastless"(39) when Lady Bruton invited her husband to lunch without her.

Apart from water, rose is also used as imagery to reveal the essential differences and similarities between Clarissa and Septmius. The novel begins when Clarissa goes to the florist to "buy the flowers herself"(3) for the party, indicating that she belongs to a class that can afford the beautiful and frivolous. Septimus's wife, on the other hand, can only buy the half death roses. Septimus is like his roses, "almost dead already"(121). He will be destroyed, either through losing

Some topics in this essay:
Clarissa Septimus, Walsh Cold, Street London, Despite Clarissa, Clarissa Sally, Septimus Clarissa, Sir William's, Peter Walsh, Hearing Septimus', Impossible Clarissa, clarissa septimus, motor car, septimus clarissa, septimus unable, central coldness, clarissa dalloway, clarissa's feeling, clarissa's party, richard allows, clarissa double,