Clarissa & Septimus
At the end of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Clarissa Dalloway escapes to a dark and quiet room after hearing of a young man’s death, who we know to be Septimus Smith. In Woolf’s original notes for the novel, Clarissa was going to take her own life at the end of the novel. Through the process of writing Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf decided to add in Septimus, “the artist”, who would commit suicide instead of Clarissa. Though this piece of Clarissa has been separated, her and Septimus still seem to share an unusual bond, with Clarissa perfectly visualizing how Smith had died hours earlier, even though she knew nothing about his death. After this visualization Clarissa has, the reader never enters her mind again for the last pages of the novel. I think it is fully possible that in this moment, Clarissa also commits suicide.
Although the last sentence of the book ends with Peter Walsh thinking “For there she was,” this could be read as a concluding statement to Peter’s musing on what Clarissa means to him. Throughout the novel, Woolf’s characters frequently think short statements as a transition in and out of thought pathways (consider Clarissa’s frequent recitation of “Peter Walsh” as a full sentence when thinking about him). I think this could possibly be read as the culmination of Peter’s musings on why he stayed attached to Clarissa throughout the years, instead of him seeing Clarissa appear at the doorway. As Clarissa escapes to the dark room, it feels like she entered Septimus’ mind during the moments before his death. Could this possibly be read as her experiencing a similar death?
Is this “death” of Clarissa in the dark room simply an echo of her former self that we see from her memories of her time at Bourton? The older Clarissa featured in the novel certainly seems vastly different from everyone's memories of her as a young woman. While the reader spends time in her head, it is clear that Clarissa is also not doing well mentally, with her moment in front of the mirror, gathering the pieces of herself together, as a prime example of this. As Woolf originally intended to end Clarissa’s life, this makes sense. After the jump out of Clarissa’s mind in the moment after her visualization of Smith’s death, it is clear that at least some part of Clarissa has died, if not her physical body.
I really liked the dive into Septimus in this blog post. The closing. line of this post really left me thinking. Great post!
ReplyDeleteHi Karenna!! I think it is super interesting how you support the idea that Clarrisa has died in some capacity by the end of a novel. If she did not died, it can also seem like she lost one of the post pivotal pieces of herself. I wonder if Clarrisa ultimately dies similarly to Septimus, even if it were outside the scope of the novel and many years in the future?
ReplyDeleteHey Karenna! I think it's really interesting that you bring up that Septimus was added later in the development of the novel and that he took the place of Clarrisa's intended suicide. I think it's evident that parts of them are connected just through that behind-the-scenes connections. I love your idea that part of her "died with him." Great post!
ReplyDeleteThis is really interesting to think about. We know Woolf has definitely set up an intertwined narrative between Clarissa and Septimus, but are they aware of each other's internal struggles? I never thought about how Clarissa's visualization of Septimus's death coincides with her point of view switching.
ReplyDeleteKarenna — there are so many interesting parallels between Septimus and Clarissa, and its almost as if he was included in the novel (in his relatively unusual secondary storyline) to address suicide, and she decided to do this over Clarissa. But why not Clarissa (at least explicitly?) Maybe she felt Clarissa's death would be unsatisfying. I prefer it without her suicide for that reason. I think that moment where she contemplates it serves as a realization to her (and the readers) about why she wouldn't -- because she values life, people, and parties, despite those who criticize her for it.
ReplyDeleteIf "some part of Clarissa" dies in that isolated moment at the party, it enables her to reemerge into "life"--a kind of rebirth, maybe. It is very interesting, then, to have her immediately walk over to Peter and Sally, who have been wondering where she is and waiting to get to talk with her, because Peter and Sally represent the past/regrets/uncertainty, etc. On one level it's maddening that Woolf never gives us the actual conversation between them, and yet that final line does seem to contain a LOT in its simple declaration. I like the comparison to Clarissa thinking merely "Peter Walsh" to herself, perhaps shaking her head or rolling her eyes slightly--as if the name encapsulates the whole messy package. Similarly, at the end, after Peter and Sally have been talking about each other and Clarissa and how they were as young people and how they are now, "there she was" seems to encapsulate the whole messy package for them. What does "she" represent in this sentence? A lot more than the two-dimensional "perfect hostess" caricature, for starters. That last line contains multitudes, and maybe I'm glad that Woolf leaves it to readers to ponder how this conversation might transpire.
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