Clarissa Dalloway Finds Death
Image: Clarke, Harry. “The dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet.” The Masque of the Red Death, 1919. Wikipedia.org.
The dark climax of the book comes on the heels of one of its happiest reversals. Septimus, the ex-soldier struggling with “shell shock,” wakes up from a world of delusions for a golden minute of normalcy with his wife Rezia. Then like a messenger of cosmic irony, Holmes arrives, the smiling doctor who Septimus curiously calls “human nature” (Woolf 2207). Why human nature?
Because Holmes is a doctor, wearing a false mask of friendship. He’s supposed to make things right, but he can’t understand what’s wrong to begin with. The war was supposed to make things right too. But it only proved that humans are very good at destroying each other.
The ripples reach Clarissa at her party that night. She’s lost in her own dreamlike world, full of exotic birds and distinguished guests with bright plumage. All of them wear masks too: even Clarissa “had this feeling of being something not herself, and that every one was unreal in one way” (Woolf 2250). That social setting shows another side of human nature—we lie about who we are. Even to ourselves sometimes, we’re not willing to admit our weaknesses, our secret crushes, our taboo thoughts and hopes. Probably the only real people at the party are Sally, the uninvited but most welcome, and Ellie Henderson, the barely invited and most detested. Seeing Ellie provokes Clarissa to tempt fate. “Anything, any explosion, any horror was better than people wandering aimlessly…like Ellie” (Woolf 2249). Like Septimus, Clarissa loathes the reminder of her own vulnerability. Ellie is the embodiment of Clarissa’s profound insecurity.
And so death comes, like Poe’s Masque of the Red Death (a striking analogy), and Big Ben booms the last leaden circles into the air. But what does it mean? At this moment, death is a beginning for Clarissa. It shatters the illusion that she can hide from her own death. It gives her a chance to sympathize with the dead man she never knew. It exposes her to the raw exhilaration of real life.
And that is the most freeing feeling of all.
Sources:
Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 9th ed., W.W. Norton & Company, 2012, pp. 2156-2264.
5 Replies to “Clarissa Dalloway Finds Death”
I think your points here are interesting. Death seemed to be quite a theme through the whole book, something Clarissa was afraid of but held at a distance. Now with the news of Septimus’s death, I agree that she has found it. All the other occasions she thought about death seemed like very somber ones, but this time, when she’s found it, the world around her should be the most vivacious it’s been the entire book. It’s quite a striking juxtaposition. I like that you reminded us of The Masque of the Red Death. I think it’s fitting. What IS it about parties and death and masks?
I love your comparison to the Masque of the Red Death, as that short story follows the events of one party and in a way mirrors the party Mrs. Dalloway throws. The passing of time and eventual death are inevitable. The party could in some way represent one’s desire to ignore their eventual demise and enjoy time while they have it, but even in that bastion of bliss in Poe’s story they aren’t safe from death. Mrs. Dalloway is not safe either at least from the news of death, which in a way pushes her to think of that instead of enjoy her party. Awesome work!
-Stephen Rackleff
I really like what you said about the different masks people wear in the book. It is something that really happens in reality and I love how Virginia Woolf incorporated it into her novel and her characters. It makes Clarissa and the others easier to relate to.
I was looking up sources of Mrs. Dalloway on the library’s website and I read a commentary on the ending. It’s on proquest, but what this person claims is that Virginia Woolf originally planned on Clarissa dying at the end of the novel. I’m actually really happy she didn’t and I see this acceptance she has with death as a representation of that ending Woolf had in mind. I also liked that she kept the ending she did because Clarissa’s death would separate her from us, the readers. From this ending we are able to come to nice (not complete) end of Clarissa’s day. I enjoyed your post and even though it left off on the note of death, I’m feeling optimistic from all this. Loved that you brought in Red Death too!
I thought that Clarissa’s thoughts on death at her party were interesting, as well. I had to read this part carefully to understand (and I think you’ve phrased it very well), that it’s not that death is no longer something that will occur, but that she has accepted it and decided not to worry as much.