Jake as Septimus

I didn't believe that a book could be more sorrowful than Mrs. Dalloway until I read The Sun Also Rises. God, the latter was just like a punch to the gut. Jake Barnes, an incredibly normal and respectable guy, is so very much like Septimus Smith. There is something fundamentally lacking about Jake and this wound, physical and physiological, prevents him from seeking the love that he so obviously desires. And yet everywhere, he is bombarded with other people in love. Walking in the street, he notices "a man and a girl... walking with their arms around each other (83)." He silently criticizes the careless matrimonial behavior of Robert Cohn, and derides the crowd of chaps that follow Brett around who are so thoughtless with their gift to procreate life. 

Septimus too suffered from his inability to feel particularly because everyone around him showered him with feelings. To realize that you lack something so essentially ingrained in everyone else is a frightening realization. It is an unbelievably lonely feeling. To escape it, Septimus commits suicide and Jake exhibits bitter behavior. What Jake will do though remains to be seen.

Clarissa + Septimus = Survival 101?

Wrapping up Mrs. Dalloway, I close this delightful book with only one regret. It's a small nagging burst of thought that I can't suppress - what if Clarissa and Septimus had met? Would they have been friends? Could they have fallen in love? Would she have been able to save him, or am I naive for wishing so? They are so impossibly similar and yet their fates are infinitely different. Whereas he chose to leap to his death in defiance, she paused, wondered, and lived.

Comparing the two, it's possible to see parallels: for instance, they were both victims of excruciating loneliness despite the comfort of their respective situations - he a favored worker and she a successful housewife - and the love they receive from their spouses. They each experienced a sort of past trauma - he the death of a close friend and she the death of a talented sister. And they both approach life with a unique perspective - he from the eyes of a poet and she with the theory that all life was interwoven. The one significant aspect on which they diverge is the ability to feel; whereas Clarissa is overflowing with empathy, Septimus despairs his stoic personality. This, combined with the joyous celebration of life that swirls around him in central London, overwhelms him to madness.

Yet, think for a moment, pretend Clarissa was a central figure in Septimus's life (just as she had been in Richard's life in The Hours), would she have been to help him move on from the struggles of life? The movie doesn't believe so, but that is only one interpretation. I personally believe (maybe because I'm passionately optimistic) that such a happy ending would have been possible. For while Virginia Woolf was a poetically wonderful writer, she was also a victim of suicide trapped in an unhappy marriage, and there are times when I think she underestimates the human resilience. That Septimus may have lived had he a Clarissa-like figure is the dream I hold on to.

Panel Discussion: Septimus Smith (continued)

As a continuation of the panel presentation today, I would like to argue that Septimus Smith is a tragic Christ figure. His death, defiant as it was in the eyes of others, achieved nothing; the great message bursting from his heart failed to reach an audience. He and so many others in his generation sailed off to war, to glory perhaps, for the sake of England, and returned dead, mad or both. World War I, history books have argued, was fought over nothing. Whether it be German aggression or the assassination of an Austrian Archduke, what ultimately was the purpose of this war? Who were the true winners? And who were the real victims?

If we examine the biblical parallel a bit closer, we may observe that Jesus was God's sacrificial lamb to seal his covenant with his people. Likewise, Septimus and many others were sacrificed in the war to yield a victory. But where Jesus's death washed the people of their sins, what did Septimus's help to achieve? Where Jesus willingly laid down his life (for he was born to do this), Septimus didn't even want to die for the people, for his homeland. In fact, he died to escape from Dr. Holmes, who may or may not symbolize British society. Peter Walsh, who notices an ambulance that may have carried Septimus's broken body, pauses to observe the convenience of modern society. Clarissa, the most empathetic character we have in the book, gains a renewal of joie de vivre, but what about the rest of her party? If it can be argued that Septimus died for the lives of these "important" men of Parliament, then was his death worth it? Was anything that we note in England in the 1920s - the skywriting, the flower shop, the Prime Minister - worth the lives of millions?

Remembering Rezia

Last friday in class, a thought was brought up that struck me like an arrow - Would you pity Rezia? Lucrezia, the young Italian woman who married Septimus; a foreigner, a lonely wife, a talented hat maker, and an innocent whose life was unfortunately entangled by WWI. We learn that she likes "ices, chocolates, sweet things;" we are told that she's "gay... frivolous, with those little artist's fingers" and "apt to lose things." She was amused by Septimus's silence, enchanted by his seriousness. Overall, she comes off as a young girl unsuited, above all, to marry Septimus.

He becomes engaged with her in a fit of panic. He marries her thoughtlessly, lovelessly, and somewhat pointlessly. She wants children, a gentle, serious, clever "son like Septimus." He withdraws from her, shunning her outpour of eager love and attentions. For her part, she too is incapable of understanding the bleeding chasm war has torn in him. She is incapable of filling that empty hole; she is too young, too inexperienced, too innocent to suit Septimus. Yet there is no doubt that she tries. And watching her efforts fail over and over, his presence descend further and further into madness, and their paths slide farther and farther away from each other is heartbreaking. Was there ever a hope of reconciliation? Or a marriage of minds? If not, then who's to blame? Rezia with her feathery hats or Septimus with his gravity?