Give me liberty or give me death.... or being a librarian in Canada

As I voiced in class, it really bugged me how Laura, the 1951 woman, said she had to leave her family because that was her choosing life. I thought this was an awkward and somewhat faulty way to connect her to Mrs. Dalloway in the novel. I really don't think that you can call her choice life. By leaving the life she led with her children and husband, she was actually choosing death. The result if she had chosen to commit suicide would be pretty much the same to those around her. Either way she was considered dead to all those who she mattered too and mattered to her so is that really living? In Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf presents the idea that we live on after our bodies are dead in the thoughts people think about us and how we've touched other peoples lives. Laura's choice led people, like her son for example, to completely try to block her out of his thoughts. So is she actually more dead than if she had committed suicide and her family mourned her more with sadness than trying to just forget her? When developing my thoughts on this topic, I ran into the issue of Richard's book. He obviously does think about his mother as he does write her into the book but the key fact is he writes that she dies. Thus, he perceives her as dead which brings me back around to my original question, Did Laura choose life? or did she actually choose symbolic death?

Virginia in "Mrs. Dalloway"

From class discussion, I knew that Woolf had used some of her own experiences in Mrs. Dalloway but I had no clue just how much of her life she used. Watching that mini documentary of Woolf's life was really interesting and made me realize that the reason the thoughts Woolf wrote for each character were so realistic because many of them came from personal experience. Woolf bravely bares some of her innermost thoughts and fears with the millions of strangers that would come to read her book. It is both intriguing and sad to conceive that she went through much of the pain documented in the book.

First, Septimus' dealings with medical professionals and their treatments came directly from what she went through during one of her several severe mental breakdowns. Like Septimus, Woolf was drugged by doctors with many different "medicines" and powerful sedatives to calm her mind and help her to relax. The Rest treatment, a treatment in which the patient must lay in a dark room doing absolutely nothing and drinking milk and being fed on animal fat, was also prescribed to Clarissa, Septimus, and Woolf. Over her life, Woolf began to develop the opinion that medical professionals were inept and under educated. She feels the same dislike for them as Septimus does and shows it, using blatant sarcasm and disdain to describe her villainous doctors.

Woolf also brings in her experience as a heterosexually married bisexual woman to describe the bond between two women. Woolf uses Clarissa and Sally to present her feelings on homosexual relationships. Woolf has both Septimus and Clarissa talk extremely negatively about heterosexual relationships. Septimus is the stronger of the two in these views and he even goes so far as to say it is cruel to bring children into the a world of such atrocities. Virginia also had no children, perhaps for the same reasons.

World War One and the impending WWII also had an intense effect on Woolf as WWI had on Septimus. Both believe in universal love but Septimus, unlike Woolf, has no way to communicate it. The most striking similarity though, is that war was one of the causes of both of their suicides. Septimus commits suicide because he no longer can deal with the incompetent doctors treating his shell shock from the war. In the mix of Woolf's numerous rationalizations for suicide was the impending invasion of the Germans and the start of WWII. It's pretty creepy to think that Woolf created such a disturbed character as Septimus then, later, took her own life for some of the same reasons as her character.

Woolf obviously pours herself into every bit of the novel, even disclosing her most private problems and theories to all readers. There is a rationale for doing this though. She did it so that her opinions and ideas could be shared and she could live on after her body died. She would live through her words and through the threads that attached her to each reader.

Team Peter, WOOT WOOT

This is really an awful comparison to make, but it must be made, as it keeps floating around in my head wanting to escape. The love triangle of Peter, Richard, and Clarissa is pretty comparable to that of Edward, Jacob, and Bella, with a little imagination of course. Before I delve deeply into the comparison of the two sets of lovers, I just need to say that I haven't actually read the books of the Twilight Saga. I have, however, seen the movies and so all of my points are based off the movies. I am sorry if I insult any of you hard core Twilight fans with my ignorance. So now I can begin.

To start out, we must match each character to their respective twin from the other book. Obviously, Clarissa and Bella are each others counterparts. I think Jacob is like Richard and Edward is like Peter. Before you think that I am wrong because Clarissa and Bella choose different boys, let me explain myself and I'll get to that discrepancy later. Clarissa and Bella are partners because they are both the only girl in their love triangle and they have the choice between two men they love. Although they are very different people they face similar problems when it comes to love. Jacob and Richard are similar because they are both the "safe choices" (or at least the safer  choice as I feel a vampire that doesn't age and wants to kill you is not quite as safe as a werewolf). They both love the girl in their book and the girl loves them but not with the same passion as the girl loves the other suitor. Edward is like Peter and vice versa because they are the dangerous, passionate choices.

The one problem that the analogy faces is that Clarissa and Bella make different choices in the end. To put it bluntly, the choices made are different because Twilight is a highly fictitious, angsty set of teen love/drama novels while Mrs. Dalloway is a refined critique of many aspects of British society. That is to say that choosing the dangerous choice as Bella does in the highly fictitious, angsty set of teen love/drama novels is way more exciting than choosing the safe man of Parliament as Clarissa does in Woolf's novel. Along the same lines, Clarissa and Bella are just completely different characters who share very little personality wise. Also, Woolf is making her world somewhat realistic while the world of Twilight is blatant fantasy. Thus, Clarissa chooses the safe choice because it is more realistic in the scheme of her life and Bella chooses the dangerous boy because it is exciting and she doesn't need to be logical because she is a teenager who is choosing between a vampire and a werewolf.

Thus ends my comparison of Mrs. Dalloway and the Twilight Saga. I hope their is some appreciation for it somewhere. Just note that the substantial content of the two works, other than the love triangle, is not at all similar. Just in case that was unclear.

The painfully disappointing ending of "Mrs. Dalloway"

I was absolutely horrified when I got to the end of the book and instead of a touching nostalgic exchange between the mysterious trinity of Clarissa, Peter, and Sally, I GOT NOTHING. I was NOT disappointed, mind you, that Clarissa's party was not described in more detail or that her story got cut off. I was disappointed that we never got to hear about the past and get more of Peter and Sally. In my mind, as the moment of truth approached, I subconsciously created a million different ways that the conversation could go. I was entirely excited for the friends to reconnect but instead it all just ended, without so much as one anecdote from their past shared aloud. So why did Virginia Woolf decide to drop the conversation?

After I had gotten over the initial depression that the lack of closure had caused, I realized the main reason why Woolf excluded this part; it isn't important. To have a significant plot point such as the reunion would be would do two things, 1) undermine the significance of the other huge plot point, Septimus's suicide, and Clarissa's thoughts about it and 2) go against Woolf's idea of a character driven novel and could turn Mrs. Dalloway into cute little love story rather than an insight into many facets of society and human minds. If I hadn't been so attached to the characters' personalities and personal stories, I would have been able to predict that the conversation would never happen. I guess it's just proof of Woolf's amazing character development.
Thus, the main scene at the end is the scene in which Clarissa goes into the quiet room and thinks about death and life privately. This is so essential to the book. The scene of her introspection is so wonderfully full of symbols and theories that Woolf is presenting about life and death, I read it twice. Each time I return to the passage I find a new meaning or interpretation of the passage. My plot loving brain still pined for the conversation of the three friends, but my psychoanalyzing and philosophizing brain utterly devoured the extraordinarily dense few pages. So I leave my imagination to satisfy the plot loving part of my brain and indulge my more intelligent part with Woolf's words.
Well, I guess the ending really wasn't as disappointing as I had originally thought. The ending as written ties the two main stories together with that fine mist Woolf and Clarissa both believe so completely in. It also sends home one of the main points in the novel. Though the reader never gets to meet Sally completely or hear Peter and Clarissa finally talk, the end of the novel is superbly crafted, classic Woolf.

Clarissa... past and present

From the descriptions we get, it seems that young Clarissa always thought herself destined to a life of leisure just like she ends up leading. She was a good hostess, proper and upright, and she was always content being socially adept. But Sally and Peter brought her away from that. Here's what I think:

I think Clarissa liked the conventions of social interactions because she was good at them and the formulas that were used to put together a good conversation were a kind of barrier to letting too much emotion creep into public. Clarissa would see the role models she was presented with and want to end up the same way, in a big house with servants to help and a active social life. The path to this picturesque life, as she saw it, consisted of learning how to be a proper young lady and marrying well. The well-mannered Clarissa saw no problem with this idea and a part of her really wanted that life. The other side of Clarissa came to bloom with the cultivation of Peter and Sally. Peter showed Clarissa passion and brought out her pugnacious side as they bickered constantly. Maybe I just see this because I like Peter more than Richard, but I think that Clarissa and Richard never loved the way Clarissa and Peter did. Clarissa and Peter had ups and downs but it seems their relationship was much more charged that her relationship with Richard. Sally showed Clarissa true and pure love and just gave Clarissa a whole new outlook on what was needed to be happy. Sally was daring and dangerous and that scared Clarissa but it also kind of inspired her. Clarissa admired Sally's courage but her initial outlook on life prevented her from adopting or at least adhering more closely to Sally's way of life. 

So, enter Richard and the picture begins to change. Clarissa is left with a choice: to choose the safe road she saw herself traveling with Richard, or to choose the danger, risk, and passion associated with choosing Peter. Clarissa chose Richard and she left Peter and Sally for her new, cushy life as a model wife and socialite. I think she chose Richard and what he brought to the table because she thought she wanted the picturesque life of a woman with a man in Parliament more than she wanted the emotion that she had in her relationships with Peter and Sally. Clarissa's thoughts throughout the book make the reader wonder if she believes she made the right choice. She is constantly thinking over days from her youth. As I started the book, I didn't read the  memories as regret or anything special but as I got deeper into Clarissa's head, especially as she talked about Sally and when we finally hear Sally talk about Clarissa, it seemed that Clarissa did regret, with maybe only a hidden part of her, leaving Sally and Peter behind. 

Leaving Sally and Peter behind almost symbolizes Clarissa leaving her youth behind; they were her best friends and her best memories of the past. I think it's really sad... I think Peter and Sally really cared about her and she chose Richard, not Peter, and a social position, not freedom like Sally. Then, when they come to her party, she doesn't talk to them. They seem pretty ok with it but I was like, "What?! You spend this entire novel thinking about them, then you won't even talk to them?". Again, she ditches them to play hostess. 

In Clarissa's defense, because she has these two competing sides, she has all this inner conflict and feelings that are semi-regretful. Clarissa has a lot of emotion, but not towards her current life, towards her past. For example, when she sees Sally and Peter and thinks about their experiences together, she has passionate and emotive but when she talks about her life in the present, she is content, simply content. She feels she chose Richard for the continuous contentment rather than the ups and downs. It's rational so it's hard to say she made the wrong choice.

Overall, I think Clarissa is the same person in the beginning of what we hear about her, to the end with a short detour in the middle lead by her two best friends. No matter how much she thinks about the past or readers wonder why she made the decision the way she did, nothing with change because its just a book.  Virginia Woolf wanted it to happen that way but why?

Sally and Clarissa, Septimus and Evans

What are these relationship...? Apparently, Woolf wants our opinions and therefore she gives us no definite proof of homosexuality or to the contrary. Which gives our minds the sometimes dangerous freedom to examine the evidence and anecdotes and ultimately make judgements for ourselves.
I think the point is that it really doesn't matter. Clarissa even comments on how there is something more pure about a relationship without a title. Which is an interesting idea. I mean so many relationships in high school are only titles. Two people say they're dating... But they aren't actually. On the other hand, you don't put a "title" on it but often friendships are much more meaningful than relationships.
Even if any of the four wanted to dub their relationship, if in fact the relationship was homosexual and no just homosocial, none of the above would have had the vocabulary to give it a name. To them, there would have really been no concept of homosexual relationships. But maybe that's whats so pure and strong about the bond between both pairs. Its new and unfamiliar and thus, exciting.
Personally, I think that both pairs bring up interesting ideas of what friendship is, specifically comparing homosocial interactions between men and women and their respective norms. Its interesting though how little hope Clarissa and Septimus have for heterosexual marriages and relationships, even though both are in heterosexual marriages. Its just another piece of Woolf's annoyingly ambiguous picture of both pairs...

Septimus speak

The way Woolf writes Septimus' thoughts is absolutely fascinating I think. We had a discussion about the passage where he is in the street watching the plane write in the sky but we kind of got cut off by the bell and so I want to go a little further about the way Septimus thinks here.
Septimus' thoughts materialize into words as a sort of poetry, which is a reflection of the old poetic Septimus. There is a difference in the poetry of his mind after the words because, rather that being passionate and emotional, it is almost creepily without emotion. Don't get me wrong though, His poetry is really vibrant and alive but it honestly just feels like beautiful, emotionally empty metaphors. It is almost like Septimus himself, who is in the prime of life, yet cannot feel. I was talking about Mrs. Dalloway on the phone one night with Joey and we got talking about Septimus. A theory I posed was that Septimus turns everything into a metaphor to try to attempt to synthetically create emotion using words. Judging from his fear at not being able to feel, Septimus knows what emotions he should be feeling but just lacks the emotion and thus the metaphors and vibrance of his minds is a product of him trying too hard to feel something.
Another theory we talked about was that Septimus uses poetry to revert to his mind before the war and escape from his current reality into the delusion he could create through poetry
before the war.
One more theory, just to share, is that because he has difficulty communicating, Septimus' thoughts appear to us as poetic because he is using the formula and conventions of poetry to facilitate his communication.
Just some thoughts.