Mrs Dalloway Notes document A* English Literature
Written as 'starting notes' from which to directly construct essays, with rich textual detail (focus on AO2) and critical perspectives
Society and class
• Reputation
• Influence of WW1 on this
• Socioeconomic class
• Influenced by immigration/nationality
• Influenced by gender
• Influenced by wealth
Time
• Death
• Relation of time and war
• Generational inequality and roles
Isolation and alienation
• Trauma
• Warfare
• Impact of war on relationships
• Representations of war in nature
• British Empire
Mental illness
• Suicide
• Social constructs of sanity and sanity
Repression
• Patriarchal
• Masculinity
• Femininity
• Class suppression
• Sexual repression
• Repression and expression of sexual identity
Memory
Existential issues
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,Septimus
Septimus’ key ideas and themes: war, communication, repression and expression, the British
Empire, love, mental illness and suicide, masculinity, existentialism and the working classes.
Septimus and marriage
In moments of bitterness, Septimus accepts Shakespeare's decree that love between men and
women is repulsive and considers '[t]he business of copulation filth'. He pessimistically rejects his
wife's plea for children, stating ’one cannot bring children into a world like this. One cannot
perpetuate suffering, or increase the breed of these lustful animals. He sneers at heterosexual
couples, 'drawing pictures of them naked at their antics in his notebook’. Septimus agonises over
the deception his marriage to Rezia has wrought: 'he had married his wife without loving her; had
lied to her; seduced her; … and was so pocked and marked with vice that women shuddered
when they saw him in the street. The verdict of human nature on such a wretch was death’.
When he sees that Rezia has taken off her ring–a symbol of their marital bond–Septimus feels
reviled, as though a great weight has been taken off of him, depicting the almost forced nature of
their union yet also feels deeply alone and isolated.
At times of euphoria, Septimus delays the verdict of human nature. In his prophetic moment in
Regents Park, Septimus 'sees light on the desert's edge' with 'legions of men prostrate behind
him', he promises 'He would turn round, he would tell them in a few moments, only a few
moments more, of this relief, of this joy, of this astonishing revelation—‘. Bereft of 'the love of
comrades,' Septimus accepts the prevailing homophobia, envisioning his homosexuality not as an
'astonishing revelation' but as a crime against human nature: 'He had committed an appalling
crime and been condemned to death by human nature'. At the same time, the longing 'to speak
out' occasionally breaks through Septimus's shell-shocked madness. 'If he confessed? If he
communicated?,' he wonders, 'Would they let him off then, his torturers?' He yearns to disclose
his love for Evans, his supreme secret. 'The supreme secret must be told . . . there is no crime . . .
love, universal love, he muttered, gasping, trembling, painfully drawing out these profound truths
which needed, so deep were they, so difficult, an immense effort to speak out... '
Complacently married with four children, Holmes stresses 'duty to one's wife'; 'health,' he
pontificates, 'is largely a matter in our own control'. Septimus knows better: 'Once you stumble,
Septimus wrote on the back of a postcard, human nature is on you. Holmes is on you'. Denied a
sympathetic listener, confronted instead by Dr Holmes who embodies the heterosexuality human
nature requires, Septimus flings himself 'vigorously, violently' upon the railings. The verdict of
human nature is swift and definitive: 'The coward!' cried Dr Holmes'.
Septimus and masculinity
During the war his officer Evans, with whom Septimus seems to have established a special bond,
died, yet Septimus felt so little or better to say nothing upon his death. Not being aware that he
was actually losing his ability to feel, initially there was a feeling of pride prevailing Septimus. He is
deluded by the false idea of bravery that war instilled in him:
'The War had taught him. It was sublime. He had gone through the whole show, friendship,
European War, death, had won promotion, was still under thirty and was bound to survive.'
Septimus and paranoia
Septimus’ irrational thinking borders on paranoia as he to know ‘all their thoughts’, ’ could see
them making up lies as they passed in the street’, ponders, 'why could he see through bodies?’
and proclaims himself a messiah, characterising himself as the ‘young man who carries in him the
greatest message in the world, and is, moreover, the happiest man in the world’ yet also 'the most
miserable’.
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, Septimus as the working class war veteran cast aside by the same country he served
Septimus mutters 'Communication is health; communication is happiness,’ this desire to be heard
is unknowingly extinguished by Rezia, who, despite asking ‘what are you saying, Septimus?’
concludes that ‘he was talking to himself.' DeMeester argues: 'Society . . . silences and
marginalises the war veteran and thereby prevents Septimus from beginning to recover, which
results in his suicide, a desperate but futile last attempt to communicate. Septimus’s
psychological pain does not cause his suicide. It is caused by society’s refusal to let him give
meaning to that pain'. Since society could not provide him with the 'health' and the 'happiness'
that communication would have offered him, Septimus’s attempt to communicate could
eventually only be resolved in Death.
Clarissa
Clarissa’s key ideas and themes: war, communication, repression and expression, the British
Empire, love, mental illness and suicide, lesbianism, the value of women patriarchy and how this
is influenced by age, femininity, existentialism and the upper classes.
Clarissa stepped out of the street of London into the Dalloway’s house life, which she likens to 'as
cool as a vault’. This statement suggests a death-life atmosphere in the Dalloway house, where
marriage is a ‘catastrophe for women’ who are 'chained to a sinking ship’ by the bonds of
patriarchal oppression.
Clarissa’s sexuality
Woolf and homosexuality:
The relationship between Sally Seton and Clarissa Dalloway exemplifies the kinds of romantic
friendships between women that were starting to emerge at the turn-of-the-century. Through her
portrayal of Septimus Warren Smith, Woolf exposes the consequence of the most repressive legal
and medical attitude that all forms of homosexuality are ‘crimes against nature’. Doris Kilman and
other minor female characters, on the other hand, embody many of the negative characteristics
ascribed to lesbian feminists by contemporary society. Eileen Barrett writes ‘Woolf's portrayal of
the ambivalent Clarissa reflects the conflict among these divergent depictions of lesbian passion.
Clarissa rejects the idea that same-sex love is a crime against nature, yet she projects onto Doris
all the negative, distorted stereotypes of lesbians. Clarissa's erotic fantasies reflect the ideal of
romantic friendship.’
Despite this disdain, Clarissa cultivates the proportion and control Sir William recommends and
the major decisions of her life are based on such a philosophy. She rejects Peter Walsh's marriage
proposal, fearing the heterosexual passion a life with him would require, choosing Richard who
grants her 'a little license, a little independence'. She accepts responsibility for the lack of a
sexual component in their marriage, acknowledging what Peter refers to as her 'coldness,' her
'woodenness,' her 'impenetrability'. She remembers 'when, through some contradiction of this
cold spirit, she had failed [Richard]’. She admits that 'she resented [sex], had a scruple picked up
Heaven knows where, or, as she felt, sent by Nature (who is invariably wise)'. Whereas Septimus
sees his homosexuality as a crime against nature, Clarissa accepts her lesbianism a ‘precious gift’
a ‘treasure’ to ‘diamond’ bestowed by ‘nature’ in her ‘wisdom'.
Clarissa describes how'[S]he could not resist sometimes yielding to the charm of a woman, not a
girl, of a woman confessing, as to her they often did, some scrape, some folly[…] she did
undoubtedly then feel what men felt. Only for a moment; but it was enough’.
Clarissa’s response to trauma:
Peter Walsh suggests that Clarissa’s cynicism was due to the premature death of her loving sister
Sylvia, 'a girl too on the verge of life, the most gifted of them'. She had seen her own sister killed
by a falling tree. It was enough for making her life intolerable. That is why she says, 'there was the
terror; the overwhelming incapacity,...to be lived to the end'. After the death of her sister, Clarissa
‘wasn't so positive, perhaps; she thought there were no Gods’. Thus we may attribute the
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