Both Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Smith are viewed superficially as two completely different people with no relation. However, after analyzing the behaviors and mannerisms of both, the reader discovers that both characters are more similar than they appear to be. Because both characters grow up under the same social rules, they both have very similar opinions about the society that set the guidelines for their lives. The thoughts and actions of both Septimus and Clarissa parallel each other throughout the novel, despite the fact that the two never meet. .
Clarissa sees death through time. She is not scared of death itself but of time alone. She feels sadness all around her. She always keeps herself busy with routine and habit but yet she still remains dissatisfied. Her sense of happiness is obtained by simplicity. She can find happiness in things like throwing a party. Throwing parties is her way of escaping the sorrows of 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 ." Her parties were to unite people who would otherwise never speak to her. They were her way of finding some sort of light at the end of the long tunnel of time. .
Septimus has gone through significant trauma throughout his life. He has seen the evils of war and has even had his best friend Evans die at war. His wife, Rezia, is the one who takes him away from that reality of war and has him focus on other things. Because of this, Septimus finds beauty in small, inert things. He sees beauty in a plane that writes in the sky. He needs to be nurtured and taken care of, but he doesn't allow that to happen because he pulls away from society when he becomes ill and has trouble dealing with the reality. Septimus feels frightened from the reality around him, " real things were too exciting. He must be cautious. He would not go mad.
The names used when referring to Clarissa Dalloway in this novel signifies different things. Mrs. Dalloway is used in the novel to signify a lady of class. Somebody that is distinguished, who has responsibilities and power. It is also used so the reader sees her as Mrs.Dalloway the other half of...
The Failures of Life in a Modern Society A common theme in many novels is for the protagonist to come to some sort of realization about life, therefore enriching and fulfilling some goal or desire in his own life. Most of the time he will learn a lesson, realize some truth, or derive some meaning ...
In Virginia Woolf's novel, Mrs. Dalloway, she portrays numerous complicating and intriguing passages in which she presents the readers with many questions and confusing scenarios. One particular section that I feel is very problematic and controversial, but also very interesting, is the passage in w...
Upon viewing "Mrs. Dalloway" I was not impressed. The movie seemed to jump from the present to the past. The character Septimus didn't appear to have any purpose in the storyline. Clarrisa also seemed to be tightly bound by the Victorian lifestyle of the day to make her interesting to me. The plot j...
Woolf's "Mrs Dalloway-. ... And "Mrs Dalloway- is a typical work dealing with women's difference from men. (If we already might go into detailed examples, one such but not the only is Mrs Dalloway's relationship with Sally. When she recalling it, Mrs Clarissa Dalloway admits to herself: "It was not like one's feeling for a man. ... The problem in "Mrs Dalloway- is that actually it is rather hard to state to whom and what belongs the voice of the narrator. ...
1 Everyone passes strangers throughout life. Each stranger has a life completely different than the people we pass each day. But every now and again we are similar in thought. Although we know not what each thinks, our thoughts converge in similar fashions. Whether it be something in the sky...
Virginia Woolf attaches great importance to this phenomenon in her novel Mrs. Dalloway, and throws the reader into a storyline consisting of accounts and thoughts of characters. ... Being published in 1925, Virginia Woolf´s novel Mrs. ... Such a connecting device is presented when Clarissa Dalloway is at the flower shop, when suddenly a car backfires in front of the flower shop. ... So the car serves as a connection point insofar as the narrator shifts between the minds of Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus, allowing the reader an insight of how both of them experience this situation. ...
Septimus Warren Smith and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway Works Cited Dowling, David. Mrs. Dalloway: Mapping Streams of Consciousness. Boston, MA: Twayne Publishing, 1991. Gilbert, Martin. The First World War: A Complete History. New York, NY: Henry Ho...
Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway" is an account of one day in the life of an upper class British woman, her husband, her daughter and her circle of friends. Woolf's narration of Clarissa Dalloway's day begins with her protagonist's preparations for a party she is holding at her house that evening, an...
