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The Theme of Heartbreak in Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway”

Mrs. Dalloway is not a conventionally narrated novel. From Virginia Woolf’s writing the reader can pick up both external and internal cues from the characters without any break in prose. The novel focuses on two seemingly unrelated characters at first: Clarissa and Septimus. On the theme of love, the book was written at a time when free love and sexuality were under patriarchal and societal influence. Marriages of convenience and financial benefits were placed above free love based on emotional disposition.

Pp.29-64

This section of the book focuses on Peter and Clarissa. From the onset of the book it is clear that Clarissa and Peters relationship is pivotal. Despite the book’s title and starting words taking her marriage as a preeminence, Clarissa is introduced as thinking of Peter and not Richard her husband. This section is a culmination of all the thoughts we’ve been privy to in the previous section. In spite of Clarissa’s frail nature in her thoughts concerning Peter, the section ends with Peter facing a heartbreak (49). Peter and Clarissa are in love with each other but fail to admit it to one another instead using both their pasts and futures as inhibitors to the present. Peter tells Clarissa, his young love, of his new love Daisy. Yet in his words we see him expressing concurrently his love for Clarissa. Yet, Clarissa, out of fear or ignorance (arguably) dismisses his feelings and instead invites him to her party. Peter storms out heartbroken. After sharing what he feels about her and his misgivings about his own life, all Clarissa cares to address is her impending party. Clarissa, who boasts of her empathy – her ability to learn about others instinctively, comes out as a snob in this section (40, 195). She too is in love with Peter but fails to acknowledge his expression of this love and shrugs it off. She does this because his love would come at a much higher cost than that between her and Richard.

Pp.64-94

The next section focuses on Septimus and Rezia at Regent’s Park. Septimus is a war veteran who after coming back from war suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: then referred to as shell-shock. Rezia, Septimus’ wife, is distraught at her husband’s seemingly out-of-touchiness with reality (Woolf, 66). She is heartbroken that she cannot seem to connect with her husband in the way they used to and that she doesn’t understand or see the world the way he does.  In a bid to “bring him back” Rezia has seen many consultants. She is also heartbroken because all her efforts to bring in doctors to save her husband have been futile if not despairing. On this particular day they meet with a psychiatrist, Dr. William Bradshaw whom she believes will cure her husband. In a turn of events, Dr. William Bradshaw, a monstrous man, has no interest in healing her husband. He only wants to use him experimentally (Woolf, 70).

Another heartbreak expressed in this section, though indirectly, is that which Septimus lives through (Woolf, 64-76). He unknowingly gave his life for a war whose cause he did not comprehend nor have any vested interest in. Septimus simply went to war because the poet in him saw the beauty that was England. This war “broke” him, as Rezia puts it and he can no longer see England as he used to before he tried to save it: romantically.

Pp.94-139

In this next section, two forms of heartbreak are portrayed. One in a romantic sense and the other in a filial sense. For the first time in the novel, we hear from Richard Dalloway. He seems distraught about the state of his life. He fears for the state of his union and intends to keep the peace between him and his wife, he wishes to respect her privacy (Woolf 94-99). However, he feels an inner need to share affection with his wife and aims to do it. In a stroke of literary genius by Woolf, he dares not reveal his true feelings for his wife through words just as his wife dared not love Peter. Richard is heartbroken when Woolf doesn’t seem moved by his gift of flowers to her. She accepts the flowers but disregards her husband, continuing with her preparations for the party. On the other hand, Clarissa is heartbroken because she feels that her child’s love, Elizabeth, is not with her but with her teacher. Clarissa expresses this heartbreak through spite for Doris Kilman throughout the section. 

Richard Dalloway’s heart and love is not in his marriage, he wishes to move out to the country and live a different life. I think he should, unlike most people in this book, dare to live outside his norm and live the life he desires.

Pp. 139-165

In the last section, arguably the most heartbreaking of them all, Septimus commits suicide (Woolf, 139-141). Hardly an easy theme to write on, Woolf drew from her own experiences in insanity to write about Septimus, making it all the more heartbreaking. Septimus fears that neither he nor his wife will be able to defend him and his most prime possession, his privacy. He despairs at the cruelty of the world but seems to have come to term with death. Septimus defends himself by committing suicide. He loses his physical body but frees his mind, his privacy and his soul. Although a heartbreaking scene, Rezia seems freed as well. She, for the first time in a long time, understands her husband (Woolf, 160). In the same stroke, it is heartbreaking for Septimus (even in death) that his dead body receives more respect and prompt attention from the medical community than his mind when he was alive. Had the same respect been ascribed to him in life, perhaps there would not have been any death ADDIN CSL_CITATION {“citationItems”:[{“id”:”ITEM-1″,”itemData”:{“DOI”:”10.1007/978-1-349-22364-0″,”ISBN”:”9781349223640″,”abstract”:”Mrs. Dalloway – To the Lighthouse – The Waves”,”author”:[{“dropping-particle”:””,”family”:”Woolf”,”given”:”Virginia”,”non-dropping-particle”:””,”parse-names”:false,”suffix”:””}],”container-title”:”Collected Novels of Virginia Woolf”,”id”:”ITEM-1″,”issued”:{“date-parts”:[[“1992″]]},”title”:”Collected Novels of Virginia Woolf”,”type”:”book”},”uris”:[“http://www.mendeley.com/documents/?uuid=90dc2211-172e-4293-83ef-c72816241b9f”]}],”mendeley”:{“formattedCitation”:”(Woolf, 1992)”,”plainTextFormattedCitation”:”(Woolf, 1992)”,”previouslyFormattedCitation”:”(Woolf, 1992)”},”properties”:{“noteIndex”:0},”schema”:”https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json”}(Woolf, 1992). Although extreme, society can sometimes push its inhabitants into a corner and leave them with no choice. People can commit even the most extreme acts in an effort of self-preservation. Although suicide is a harsh reality, from Woolf’s writing I can see why and how that was the only way Septimus could free himself from his heartbreaking life. 

Works Cited

ADDIN Mendeley Bibliography CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY Woolf, V. (1992). Collected Novels of Virginia Woolf. In Collected Novels of Virginia Woolf. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22364-0