Throughout Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, we encounter many characters- all from different social classes and background. Clarissa Dalloway, an upper-class housewife and Septimus Warren Smith, a WWI veteran, both share a common conflict; her struggles to find her purpose in life and balance her internal and external life while he suffers from shell shock and struggles to regain his true self.
Septimus’ mind constantly fills itself with thoughts he has no control over and delusions that literally take control over him. In the beginning of the novel, he believes he is responsible for the traffic jam and his wife is embarrassed and frightened by his odd behaviors.
So, thought Septimus, looking up, they are signalling to me.
Not indeed in actual words; that is, he could not read the language yet;
but it was plain enough, this beauty, this exquisite beauty,
and tears filled his eyes as he looked at the smoke words
languishing and melting in the sky and bestowing upon him in their
inexhaustible charity and laughing goodness one shape
after another of unimaginable beauty and signalling their
intention to provide him, for nothing, for ever, for looking merely,
with beauty, more beauty! Tears ran down his cheeks. (18)
This is an example of how his thoughts are incomprehensible to his wife because the letters that the planes were making weren’t directed to Septimus. However, he strongly thought that someone was trying to communicate with him through a coded language. Although his wife and his doctors encourage him to notice things around him, he has removed himself from the physical world and instead lives in an internal world where he sees and hears things that aren’t real. His thoughts of the outside world make it impossible for him to be his self because he views the world as a threat and danger to him. We see the build-up of his frustration and anger with his doctors when he is diagnosed with having ‘a lack of proportions’ by Sir William Bradshaw and his inability to find the words to defend himself pushes him to the edge of committing suicide.
When we observe Clarissa, similarities between her and Septimus are not necessarily evident. In general, a woman married to a wealthy man and a prominent member of the high class, don’t usually have anything in common with a man who has seen his friends die in front of him. But Clarissa struggles with her life as she tries to find the deep meaning of the purpose of life. Although it may seem like she is living the elite life and enjoys every minute of her life planning parties for her high class society friends, she desires for privacy and happiness. Mr. Whittaker even says ‘But why should she (Ms. Kilman) have to suffer when other women, like Clarissa Dalloway, escaped? Knowledge comes through suffering, said Mr. Whittaker. (114). No one knows the pain Clarissa is going through because she hosts parties to cover up the fact that she is actually lonely and confused with life. She says that her parties are ‘an offering; to combine, to create; but to whom?’ (107) and this suggests that she doesn’t know whether she throws parties for her own benefit or for others. She often thinks of the past and wonders, what her life would have been like if she were married to Peter Walsh instead of Richard and at times, wishes she could live life over again.
Septimus and Clarissa are not similar just because they are both oppressed characters. Rather, their two distinct moments of certainty are what they both share in common. Septimus’ moment of certainty occurs when he decided to end his life by committing suicide. He believes that if he continues to live his life, Sir William Bradshaw will literally suck the soul out of him and send him away to a mental institution. His suicide is a way of taking charge of his own life and even though he ended up dying, it was a decision he made on his own, and not anyone else’s. Clarissa’s moment of certainty results when she learns the death of Septimus. She admires his courageousness because she realizes that he saved his soul by killing himself before his doctors and his wife pushed him to the edge. She decides to continue living her life with hidden regrets and this awakens Clarissa to the truth about the effect of oppression on people.
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