Approaches to Literacy- Core
- Submitted by: katieh800
- Views: 89
- Category: English: Creative Writing
- Date Submitted: 08/13/2015 03:21 AM
- Pages: 13
- Report this Essay
Cover Sheet
Name:
Caroline Hellens
Module:
Approaches to Literature: Core
Tutor:
Jordan Vibert
Referencing System:
Chicago
Word Count:
1494
Essay Title:
“She felt somehow very like him”: the pairing of Septimus and Clarissa as outsiders in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway.
“She felt somehow very like him”: the pairing of Septimus and Clarissa as outsiders in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway.
Virginia Woolf stated that Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Warren Smith should be “entirely dependent on each other” . The characters are almost two parts of the same person shown through the parallels of their lives. The conclusion of the novel emphasises how each tries to solve their problem of being an outsider in their own society, but does so in a different way. Elaine Showalter states “Woolf had intended the book to end with Clarissa’s death” . With Woolf’s change of plan, it is possible to see how Septimus almost fulfils what Clarissa, particularly because she is a woman, cannot.
Both Clarissa and Septimus are outsiders in society, not understood by those around them. From the beginning of the novel, Clarissa “had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to the sea and alone” . Clarissa’s status as an outsider is apparent from the fact that, at this moment, she is shopping in busy London yet feels alone. The taxi cabs seem to represent the rest of society, passing by Clarissa who is firmly separated from them. Clarissa believes she is at “sea and alone” . To Septimus the sea seems to represent the afterlife as he describes how Evans is “like a drowned sailor, on the shore of the world” . Evans is stuck between life and death, he has been at sea and died but has come back to haunt the world. Perhaps by Clarissa believing she is alone at sea, she sees herself as beyond the life to which she should belong. The only route back is to live the life that is expected of her but without any happiness. At the end of the novel, it...
Name:
Caroline Hellens
Module:
Approaches to Literature: Core
Tutor:
Jordan Vibert
Referencing System:
Chicago
Word Count:
1494
Essay Title:
“She felt somehow very like him”: the pairing of Septimus and Clarissa as outsiders in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway.
“She felt somehow very like him”: the pairing of Septimus and Clarissa as outsiders in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway.
Virginia Woolf stated that Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Warren Smith should be “entirely dependent on each other” . The characters are almost two parts of the same person shown through the parallels of their lives. The conclusion of the novel emphasises how each tries to solve their problem of being an outsider in their own society, but does so in a different way. Elaine Showalter states “Woolf had intended the book to end with Clarissa’s death” . With Woolf’s change of plan, it is possible to see how Septimus almost fulfils what Clarissa, particularly because she is a woman, cannot.
Both Clarissa and Septimus are outsiders in society, not understood by those around them. From the beginning of the novel, Clarissa “had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to the sea and alone” . Clarissa’s status as an outsider is apparent from the fact that, at this moment, she is shopping in busy London yet feels alone. The taxi cabs seem to represent the rest of society, passing by Clarissa who is firmly separated from them. Clarissa believes she is at “sea and alone” . To Septimus the sea seems to represent the afterlife as he describes how Evans is “like a drowned sailor, on the shore of the world” . Evans is stuck between life and death, he has been at sea and died but has come back to haunt the world. Perhaps by Clarissa believing she is alone at sea, she sees herself as beyond the life to which she should belong. The only route back is to live the life that is expected of her but without any happiness. At the end of the novel, it...