Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway
...out to begin while Septimus is undergoing a nervous breakdown and eventually commits suicide. Water is the recurring imagery used by Woolf to associate Clarissa and Septimus. Water is something that cannot be contained, it therefore suggests irregularity. Despite that Clarissa is being seen as a realist by the others, she identifies herself strongly with different images of water, and these indicate the irrationality in her characters. Standing on the street, Clarissa suddenly feels "herself being out, out, far out to the sea"(10). Sea appears as a dangerous element and the individuals are likely to be carried away by it. This irrational thoughts interplay with her physical illness, pulling her closer to the insane double of her. For Septimus, he pictures himself as "a drowned sailor on a rock"(89) when his sense of alienation and indifference becomes all but intolerable. Before committing suicide, he allows his madness to pour like water on him by imagining "the sound of water was in the room...Every power poured...on his head...when he was bathing, floating, on the top of the waves"(182). As such, Septimus is reaching the climax of his emotional disorder which makes his death inevitable. Apart from water, rose is also used as imagery to reveal the essential differences and similarities between Clarissa and Septmius. The novel begins when Clarissa goes to the florist to "buy the flowers herself"(3) for the party, indicating that she belongs to a class that can afford the beautiful and frivolous. Septimus's wife, on the other hand, can only buy the half death roses. Septimus is like his roses, "almost dead already"(121). He will be destroyed, either through losing his selfhood by accepting Sir William's advice or killing himself. As exemplified by the roses, the society demands that "the unusual conform or wither." Septimus, who finds himself utterly alienated by civilization's "sense of proportion,"(129) cannot survive in a utilitarian society where the upper class dominated. For Clarissa, there is also the possibility the she will be sacrificed to the dominant class As Peter worries, she might trust too much to her charm in making the world beautiful. Sally also fears that Clarissa "lacked something"(243) to survive if she let her nature of roses predominates. Throughout the novel, the lines from "Shakespeare's Cymbeline" which suggest that "death is a welcome release from the burden of life," recur forming literary echoes between Clarissa and Septimus. "Fear no more the heat o' the sun / Nor the furious winter rages"(11) which first enters Clarissa's mind as she reads in a book, "appears twice before it becomes a part of Septimus's thought, where it ironically reassures him just before his death." Clarissa and Septimus are both sensitive individuals who feel emotionally bankrupt. On one hand, Clarissa is a "perfect hostess" who pours most of her creativity and social warmth into her parties. She is so sensitive that the simple act of opening her door, or looking at a bowl of flowers, fills her with joy: "What a lark! What a plunge! For so it had always seemed to her when, a little squeak of the hinges, which she could hear...How fresh, how calm...looking at the flowers, at the trees with the smoke...rising, falling"(3). However, despite her love of life and her imagination, Clarissa is essentially a cold person. Earlier in the novel, in her reminiscent of Peter Walsh, we knew that "Cold, heartless, a prude, he called her"(9). Then on Peter's first visit to her in years, there is still some emptiness in her: "Shall I tell her...or not? But she is too cold"(55). He comments again later, of "this coldness, this woodeness, something very profound in her"(78). Peter recognizes this coldness is something "mortally dangerous" to Clarissa that he refers it to "the death of her soul"(77). Clarissa is well aware of her own coldness: "She could see what she lacked. It was not beauty; it was not mind"(40). This central coldness tends to cut her off from the love and the openness with people that should otherwise come naturally to someone with a social instinct as strong as hers. Septimus, on the other hand, has lost the ability to feel. Septimus' war experiences destroyed him emotionally that he cannot relate to other people and the external world. Septimus possesses the soul of a poet, but he is so sensitive that he cannot accept a life without feeling. Confronted with the horror of his emotional isolation, he has finally retreated to a private world of madness. While Clarissa's ability to accept and live with that central coldness in herself, keeps her sane. Clarissa is always able to interrupt her wandering thoughts, in order to pull herself back from unacceptable modes of thinking. Not only is Septimus unable to initiate escape from his lengthy periods of mad contemplation, he resents the interruptions others inflict on him. Rezia tries in vain to pull Septimus back. "Interrupted again! She was always interrupting."(31). Clarissa and Septimus are not successful in their marriage. Clarissa did not marry for standard romantic love, she has chosen a safe, comfortable marriage to politician Richard Dalloway over the more romantic and adventurous Peter Walsh. Her decision to marry Richard allows her the party-going social life she loves, without any risks. More importantly, her marriage to Richard allows her "a little independence there must be between people living together day in day out in the same house; which Richard gave her...But with Peter everything had to be shared...it was intolerable."(9) However, their marriage is doomed since complete communication is impossible for both of them. Though Richard is anxious to express his love to Clarissa, he fails because he has the shyness and awkwardness of a young man. Impossible for Clarissa because of her coldness and her pervasive realism. There is a gulf between them, which Clarissa, at least, is not interested in crossing. For Septimus, he decides to marry Rezia when he discovers "that he cannot feel"(113). And what attracts him most in Rezia is her assured activity of making hats. It is quite clear that he marries not out of affection but the need for "safety"(113). Septimus "had married his wife without loving her; had lied to her; seduced her"(119). Besides, communication between them is just as futile with Septimus' insanity. In Regent's Park, Septimus is distorting his thoughts with external objects, Rezia feels that "she could not sit beside him" as "he made everything terrible"(29). Later, Rezia is nearly collapsing "No! I can't stand it any longer...[he] wasn't Septimus any longer...to talk to himself, to talk to a dead man.(84)" Clarissa and Septimus rely heavily on the support from their spouses even though their marriages are not successful. Madness cuts off Septimus from nearly all real human contact and Rezia is his only hope for a cure. Any attempt to separate him from her is a threat to his existence. Septimus feels that "he was deserted"(121) when Dr Holmes invited Rezia to tea. In the same way, Clarissa feels "herself suddenly shrivelled, aged, breastless"(39) when Lady Bruton invited her husband to lunch witho...