How similar are Clarissa and Septimus?


I have been interested in the connection between Clarissa and Septimus and how those similarities
differentiate enough for Septimus to end his life even though we never really got an idea that Clarissa
was thinking the same. The first thing they have in common is that they both had a traumatic experience
and they responded with a peculiar reaction. Septimus fought in World War one for a long time and lost
one of the few people he seems to have ever had a close connection with. When this happened he
seemingly had no feeling and that was a good thing in his opinion. In comparison, Clarissa’s sister
died it was unclear how much this affected her because we only ever hear about it from Peter Walsh
which may be considered peculiar seeing how much of her personal life we see. Another similarity the
comes up a lot is, are they happy? With both of them, especially Clarissa, we never have a full picture
of if they are happy. Septimus has terrible hallucinations and is described as empty and bleak from an
outsider's perspective. Although we see a nice moment between Lucrezia and Septimus right before he
dies and since we only get a picture of him on one given day it is unclear if this was perhaps an especially
bad day for him. There is also an aspect of society forcing them to do certain things, Septimus was forced
to go to war to help his masculinity. As well as it was somewhat expected of him to get married. Clarissa
was expected to marry someone of high social status, host parties and be the “perfect” wife. Another
similarity is both of their incomprehensible feelings for a member of the same sex. Although it is unclear
whether or not Septimus’s relationship with Evans was romantic or not, that level of “bromance” wasn’t
accepted at that time in England. Also with Sally and Clarissa, it was unclear how they felt about each
other because Sally also represented these new ideas Clarissa was interested in. In both cases, Clarissa
and Septimus were forced to repress any possible connection. The question of whether or not Clarissa
was in the same position as Septimus came up a lot when reading and discussing Mrs. Dalloway. In class,
we discussed all the similarities noted above, in addition to Clarissa’s reaction to Septimus’s suicide. She
reacted in a much more powerful and sincere way which could be interpreted as her having a closer
understanding of why Septimus committed suicide and perhaps relating to him to a certain extent. There
are some factors that could signal as to why Septimus ended his life and why Clarissa didn’t. First of all,
Septimus was in the war for a long time and watched a good friend die during that time. Because of those
things Septimus also suffered from PTSD/Shellshock that was neglected by doctors that either diminished
his feelings or prescribed a method that would make his condition worse. Septimus was also lower class
than Clarissa which probably gave him a lot fewer resources.  

Comments

  1. AdamSeptember 15, 2018 at 6:21 PM

    I find it amazing as to how there are so many similarities between Clarissa and Septimus. At the surface level, Clarissa and Septimus seem like total opposite characters. Clarissa is a middle-aged upper-class woman while Septimus is a lower-class World War I veteran. Yet it is when we get under the surface and get a glimpse of their past experiences and emotions we see the vast number of similarities that you point out in your blog post.

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