The Dalloways vs the Smiths

While reading and discussing Mrs. Dalloway, I kept thinking of two very similar questions. The first of these was “do Clarissa and Richard love each other” and the second being “do Septimus and Rezia love each other”. There are no clear answers to either of these questions provided in the book. After finishing the whole novel, I feel like most people would answer both of these questions with the same response: “it’s complicated”. The reasons behind these similar responses are pretty clear. The dynamics of both of these relationships have many parallels. The most striking of these are the problems caused by characters lack of feeling.
Clarissa and Septimus both express through the book that they recognize that they can no longer feel strong emotions. After the war, Septimus notes the fact that he no longer feels and a large part of why he decides to marry Rezia in the first place is in the hopes that he will develop feelings. Clarissa consistently brings up how she feels that on some level she has failed Richard by not having any passion towards him. Later in the novel she bemoans the fact that the only real strong emotion she feels for anyone is her intense hate of Ms. Kilman. Both of these characters believe that they don’t feel strong connections to their significant other. That isn’t to say however that there is nothing between these characters. Both couples share moments of fairly intimate closeness in the book. When Richard brings Clarissa flowers, they have a moment where they easily slip into conversation and it is clear that they do share some level of intimacy. When Septimus is away from all the crowds of London and feels more himself with Rezia, what she saw in him in the first place becomes clear. He is funny, creative, and generally pleasant to be around. However, based around the frequency of these moments of connection, it seems like they aren’t the norm for either of these couples. Clarissa spends most of her day fairly emotionally detached from Richard. She thinks about him with less frequency than several other characters and when she does her general feelings seem to be essentially “he’s pretty fine, I guess”. Septimus spends most of his day completely overstimulated and barely pays Reiza any mind. While this barely scratches the surface of the workings of these two relationships, it’s clear that a major cause of tension in them is Clarissa and Septimus’ emotional numbness.


Comments

  1. Nicole SoutheySeptember 14, 2018 at 6:21 PM

    Yeah, I totally see what you are saying it is interesting that there is such a similarity between their relationships. It is also interesting how for Septimus the numbness is from the war and the loss of a friend, but there is not an obvious link between Clarissa and numbness. We know her sister died but I feel like Woolf would have explored that factor had it been such a big part of her life that it caused an emotional numbness in her. I suppose another possibility could have been Clarissa's other potential relationships with Peter and Sally. Perhaps Clarissa's constant question of what if I had been with someone else created some type of emotional numbness.

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  2. Robert NagelSeptember 15, 2018 at 4:06 PM

    This is a striking parallel I had not thought of earlier!

    The parallel continues when we think of the younger Septimus and Clarissa, and the stronger emotions, even love that occurred then. For Clarissa, she had the halcyon days spent at Bourton with Peter and Sally and Richard and the rest of the gang, and Septimus had his one-sided love of Miss Isabel Pole.

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  3. AlexSeptember 15, 2018 at 5:54 PM

    As I read this post, I was struck by the fact that I has not really compared Clarissa and Richard's relationship to Septimus and Rezia's. I had, of course, compared Clarissa and Septimus and seen the connections between them, but, for whatever reason had failed to recognize the parallels between the two marriages. You bring up a good point in comparing them and some of the seeming lack of compassion and one-sidedness expressed in each relationship.

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  4. AdamSeptember 15, 2018 at 7:08 PM

    The emotional numbness in Clarissa and Septimus that you suggest and the parallels that this presents in each of their marriages is something that brushed my thought during class, but it is certainly an interesting parallel. Looking at Clarissa specifically, there are moments towards the end of the novel where we can see that Clarissa is content with her marriage, though at the same time, there are moments where she is not (as you point out in your post). These shift of Clarissa's emotions all take place in a single day and I wonder if this is typical for Clarissa on a day to day basis

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  5. GrantSeptember 15, 2018 at 7:26 PM

    We spent a lot of class talking about the similarities of depression and mental illness between Septimus and Clarissa but its repercussions on the health of the relationships wasn't something we talked about. Its interesting to think about the similarities and differences between Richard and Lucreiza and that impact on the relationship.

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  6. Sophia SchmitzSeptember 25, 2018 at 8:37 AM

    I think the comparison between the Smith's relationship and the Dalloway's relationship is really interesting. Both couples seem to be fairly reserved towards each other but we do get to see their intimacy and how close they might actually be. I think they might seem so detached because they their significant other is a constant in their life so they don't really see it as something to think about often. We talked a lot about hoe Clarissa and Septimus are similar but not much how their relationships are similar, I really liked that you brought this point up.

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