Connections Between Clarissa and Septimus

Hello! I'm Sloane and I am here today to talk to you about the multifaceted depictions in which Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Smith become interconnected throughout Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. The most noteworthy, outstanding instance of this interconnection may be Clarissa's mental images of Septimus's suicide. However, we have more to unpack here. Clarissa and Septimus at face value seem almost nothing alike, until you count in their mental inner workings; whether this is through seeking an inner peace through marriage, or struggling to be understood on an introspective level.

At a first glance, I wasn't so convinced how the Septimus storyline weaved cohesively with Clarissa's overarching plot of her social life, mainly because the intersections between Septimus and Clarissa's day-to-day plots remain minimal: as they've crossed paths but once, yet not even noticing each other. However, the closer the novel drew to an end, the pieces tied up into a connected narrative. The first idea that strikes me about Septimus and Clarissa's similarities is their themes of seeking marriage as a means to an end. At some level, much of Clarissa's plot revolves around this life-changing decision she made to choose Richard over Peter or Sally. She implied that it had returned this inevitable change, that once she was married, her life would be completely set in stone: as a hostess, or whatever she would have become. It is also seen through the novel through Clarissa's inner monologue that she is still undecided, and at some points can't even seem to love Richard truly. This plot point directly mirrors Septimus, as he searched for marriage with Lucrezia to rekindle his feelings after the war. This solution did not turn out as a solution, as he still struggled to "love" Lucrezia. There is also a recurring theme of past relationships resurfacing and thinking of people who are not there; as we can see Septimus's implied relationship with Evans and how Evans returns in his mind in hallucinations after the war, and also how Clarissa could "hear" Peter's voice or Sally's voice in her head and was constantly stuck in the past.

Septimus and Clarissa also share an identity crisis and a feeling of not being understood by society or people close to them. This can be most adamantly seen in Septimus through his symptoms of PTSD. He is described as very intelligent and well-read, and an "artist"-centered character, yet he struggles to articulate his ideas to the world through his own lens. His own recollection of the war is a distant memory, which is even reflected through the narration through his third-person perspective, as he tells it in a form of "this happened at this time" rather than giving details to the scenes. He knows what happened, and is aware of his mental illness, questioning what is real and what is a part of his hallucinations; yet he cannot explain it to those who try to understand. Lucrezia tries her best, but fails as it gives her great grief to see him in this state. Holmes does not even try to understand, and simply patronizes Septimus, which further brings the point that PTSD was not understood at the time. Clarissa's own case is less straightforward: she is not understood in her pocket of society. Her role as a hostess is a great example of this. Peter constantly reminds her that she would always end up in this role, instead of reaching higher aspirations; yet we can see toward the end of the novel that Clarissa truly does see her hosting as a part of her identity. While she is at her parties, she feels in control of what's happening; control she did not feel she had in the outcome of her life. She is unable to control her past, which is what she spends a large amount of the novel pondering on, yet parties are a constant, and she gets to watch them all play out to her specific planning. She also sees her parties as a way to connect everyone in her life, which is also a key theme of Woolf's writing, and focusing on the interconnections between characters. However, she is misunderstood as her parties are not as important to those attending it than they are to her.

All of the characters in Mrs. Dalloway are connected in some way, and I think that's part of how the novel is structured itself. It's supposed to focus on how every character thinks about themselves but also how they think about the people they see day-to-day, or the people that stay stuck in their minds from the past. Clarissa and Septimus are great examples of this by how their plots mirror each other.

Thanks for reading my blog post!