The Misunderstood Artists: How Septimus and Clarissa Overlap in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway
In Mrs. Dalloway , Septimus and Lucrezia appear in a secondary storyline woven throughout the greater narra tive centered by Clarissa. For much of the novel, the two arcs are concurrent, unrelated plotlines; however, they overlap in its finale when, at her party, Clarissa overhears Sir William Bradshaw mention a local suicide to Richard. As a result, Clarissa removes herself from the crowd, contemplating Septimus’ death privately, feeling an unusual connection to him. “Somehow it was her disaster—her disgrace. It was her punishment to see sink and disappear here a man, there a woman, in this profound darkness, and she forced to stand here in her evening dress.” She imagines his death with near perfect accuracy, adding that “she felt somehow very like him” and “she felt glad that he had done it; thrown it away." She feels “glad” because she sympathizes with how he rejected control (from Bradshaw and Holmes, most notably) and secondly, because his death made her feel an appreciatio...