In lieu of an action-packed or scandalous plot, Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway adopts a more subtle and psychological way to entrap her reader, one obviously intended to depart from the rigorous novels Victorians and Edwardians who preceded him. This modernist form of storytelling, which pays much more attention to the inner workings of characters than to the construction of a typical plot, takes into account the inherent subjectivity of the audience. For further information, Woolf, in her essay “Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown,” counters Arnold Bennett's belief, “that the novel has any chance of surviving only if the characters are real,” asking the reader to consider, “what is reality?” (Woolf, 749 ). According to her, there is no true reality, but infinite realities defined by the subjective interpretations of the individual: “A character can be real for Mr. Bennett and completely unreal for me. For example, in this article he says that Dr. Watson in Sherlock Homes is real to him: to me, Dr. Watson is a sack full of straw, a dummy, a figure of fun (749).” This emphasis on subjectivity – and its resulting inattention to objective reality – undoubtedly comes to fruition in Mrs. Dalloway, in which Woolf assigns each character her own psychological nuances and personal histories that necessarily influence and influence her perceptions of the external . stimuli, ultimately offering the reader no real reality and in doing so glorifying the anti-realism that underlines the novel in question. Get a custom essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned". original To this end, Woolf punctuates Mrs Dalloway with constant and sudden shifts in narrative perspective where passing moments are stretched across pages where a seemingly inconsequential aspect an external stimulus triggers a thought or memory in a character which then triggers a another thought and so on and so on, until he has given his reader a complete exposition of that character's mind. Several years before publishing the novel, Woolf wrote in her diary: “Mrs. Dalloway branched out into a book; and to adumbrate here a study on madness and suicide; the world seen side by side by sane and crazy people..." (Woolf, Diary of a Writer). Given this binary, it would be easy to view Clarissa Dalloway as the “sane” one and Septimus Warren Smith as the “insane” one; and indeed, such a perception is easily supported by context: Clarissa is a member of London high society who, although plagued by regrets, has led a relatively easy life, while Septimus is a World War I veteran suffering from shell-shock and the hallucinations that accompany it. and suicidal ideation. However clear it may be, this contrast in the background is in no way an invitation from Woolf to the reader to value one character over the other; that is, it is not contrasting the everyday problems of London high society with the larger psychological and physical impacts of the First World War in an attempt to mock the former, but rather it is contrasting them in a delicate effort to communicate the equality of human experience. Indeed, it could be argued that Woolf positioned these two characters so far apart on the social spectrum that they hyperbolically communicated the inconsequentiality of this same spectrum; in fact, madness and, ultimately, death, do not discriminate based on status. For Woolf, it doesn't matter whether one's problems arise from choosing flowers or attending parties, or from shock; all that matters is that one is troubled, that one is human, and through this the comparison between Clarissa and Septimus produces its mostsalient. At the beginning of the novel, the disparities between Clarissa and Septimus - between the sane and the mad, as they were... are exceptional, made especially clear by their interactions with the outside world and their internal reflections on the nature of death. Indeed, Woolf introduces Clarissa to the reader as she infamously declares to "buy the flowers herself" (Woolf, 3), a decision that takes her out of the house and into the busy streets of London, during which journey she seems outwardly placid and "'Good morning to you, Clarissa!' said Hugh, rather extravagantly, for they had known each other as children. 'Where are you going?' 'I love walking about London,' said Mrs Dalloway. 'It really is better than walking in the countryside'” (5-6). Such an exchange, in which Clarissa demonstrates the ability to assimilate and, at least for a moment, to envelop her internal instability in friendliness, is a far cry from her subsequent ones. reflections: “He had a perpetual sense, as he looked at the taxis, of being outside, outside, far away and alone; he always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even for a single day” (8). mention of Picadilly's “taxis cabs” and omnibuses that galvanized these thoughts a few sentences earlier, represents the public sphere in which Clarissa successfully exists, while her feelings of loneliness represent the private sphere, in which her existence is plagued by continuous doubts and regrets. Despite this constant battle between public and private, Clarissa absolutely possesses the ability to control her internal demons, repressing them when society demands it, but, despite the external regularity, these demons still reign within. In contrast, Septimus does not have Clarissa's ability. to master his external world and exist perfectly within it, as each visual or auditory experience launches him further into the recesses of his deluded mind. Following the advice of her husband's psychiatrist, Dr. Holmes, that Septimus "is interested in things outside himself" and "notes real things" (21-25), Lucretia attempts to focus her attention elsewhere - in this case, on Regent's experience. Park, so as to distract him from the inner darkness with outer beauty. For Septimus, however, the concentration on the outside achieves the opposite effect to that desired by Doctor Holmes, constantly pushing him further and further into himself until: “He closed his eyes; he would never see again” (22). As pleasant as the image of trees fluttering in the wind may be, Mrs. Dalloway knows no such objective reality, and so presents them through Septimus's subjective perception of them, an overwhelming perception that causes him to close his eyes. and then to walk away. from the outside world, ultimately leaving him even more vulnerable to the hallucinatory powers of his shell-shocked mind. With this, Septimus demonstrates his greater inability to exist outside of himself, as his madness poisons his perception and casts darkness on everything he sees. While the two characters differ greatly in their interactions with the world around them, Woolf further separates them through their contrasting views on the nature of death. To the extent that it is contextualized in the novel, death was never more important in England, whose national death toll was enormous during the First World War, and so it makes sense that Woolf would address it here. For Clarissa, who lacks Septimus's visceral and direct experience, death is a necessary reality that accompanies life: did it matter then, she wondered, walking towards Bond Street, did it matter that it must inevitably cease completely; all this has to go on without her; did she resent it? or notdid it become comforting to believe that death would definitively end? but that somehow, in the streets of London, in the ebb and flow of things, here, there, she survived... being part, she was sure, of the trees of home; of the house there… (9) Here Clarissa appreciates death not only because it is inevitable in the process of life, but also because it perpetuates into a greater and unlimited existence. Death, then, becomes an omnipresent, looming specter that links all human beings together, weaving in its wake an infinite and ever-growing web of human experience that offers refuge for both the living and the dead. However, it should be clear that Clarissa's reflection here reflects nothing more than an acceptance of death and definitely not an embrace of it. As slight as this distinction may be, it is crucial, especially when placed in the context of Septimus's various declarations of suicide. If Clarissa's passive cooperation in death is understood as sanity, then Septimus' active participation in it must necessarily be understood as madness and, in turn, the two characters themselves must be understood as critical poles, the comparison of which provides a broader vision of human existence. For example, while Clarissa's view on death sees her as part of a greater whole, Septimus' shock and the feelings of social detachment it instills in him make his perspective much more self-centered: look at the invisible told him, the voice that now communicated with him who was the greatest of mankind, Septimius, recently brought from life to death…. suffering forever, the scapegoat, the eternal sufferer, but he didn't want that... (25) While Clarissa sees her death as a means to join her world, Septimus sees his as a strangely sacrificial means to purify society gives the burden that is himself, that is, his inability to assimilate or feel. Furthermore, the narrator's portrayal of him as an unwilling "scapegoat" expresses a disconnection between Septimus and the image of himself he wishes to destroy; to clarify, his regular, conscious mind - the man Septimus - appears to have merged inseparably and accidentally with his social projection - the soldier Septimus - a fusion that leaves him no choice but to kill himself. Because Septimus's broader feelings of isolation have led him to perceive himself as an enemy of his race, his suicide becomes a ritualized and necessary sacrifice for the greater good of humanity. And indeed, Woolf describes Septimus' suicide as a suicide without action, having been influenced not from within, but from without. While Dr. Holmes's visits persist and his diagnoses remain the same - "there was nothing wrong" (90) - Septimus's condition continues to worsen beyond the threshold of bearability and he clings more and more to the belief of being an enemy of human nature, whom he identifies with Doctor Holmes as "the loathsome brute, with the blood-red nostrils" (92). Now totally convinced of his desertion, Septimus hears the whole world cry, "Kill yourself, kill yourself, for our sake," to which he asks, "But why should he kill himself for their sake?" (92). And so he grants victory to human nature, which triumphed over its sacrificial victim: «He didn't want to die. Life was good. The hot sun. Only humans: what did they want?... Holmes was at the door. "I'll give it to you!" he shouted and threw himself vigorously, violently onto the railing in Mrs. Filmer's area (149).” As Dr. Holmes collects Septimus to send him to a house in the countryside for further treatment, Septimus literally "surrenders" his physical body, preserving himself through his fatal defenestration in a final declaration of autonomy that actualizes theWoolf's concern for the soul over the body (Woolf, 740). Both a surrender and a victory, as he wants neither to be committed to a home nor to die, his suicide is told here as an unfortunate necessity of his circumstances, the only means by which he can maintain free will over his soul. If there are character differences mentioned above, Woolf subtly punctuates them with similarities, which foreshadows the definitive connection she will establish between them in the final scenes of the novel. These similarities, it should be noted, can be observed from the very beginning of the novel, at which point they are largely superficial, limited to the two's similar avian appearances and passion for Shakespeare (10-14). Soon after, however, the similarities spill over into character, as each of them expresses their respective feelings of isolation and loneliness despite the company. When he sees that Rezia's wedding ring has fallen off, Septimus thinks: “Their marriage was over, he thought, with agony, with relief. The rope has been cut; he mounted; he was free, for it had been decreed that he, Septimius, the lord of men, should be free; just…” (67). For Septimus, marriage represented the need to act normally, so with its perceived dissolution he is freed from that oppressive burden, finally able to “hear the truth, learn its meaning…” (67), without worrying about Rezia. Likewise, Richard's general absence in Clarissa's marriage to him allows her the freedom of "independence" and "self-respect" (120) that may not have been enjoyed if she had married someone more involved, as Peter Walsh would have been ( 10). Beyond these, perhaps the most crucial similarity is that of sexual repression, for which both characters have a clear propensity. With Clarissa, repressed sexuality comes in the form of nostalgia for a past lesbian relationship with Sally Seton, with whom she fell in love as a girl. Before divulging the details of their relationship, Clarissa first admits that she cannot resist "sometimes giving in to the charm of a woman...", which makes her feel "a nuance like a blush that she was trying to control and then, as it spread, one succumbed to its expansion…which split his thin skin and gushed forth and poured with extraordinary relief onto the cracks and sores” (32). Here, the vaginal imagery is overt, if never explicit, intended to express Clarissa's lesbian tendencies, which are soon brought to a head in Clarissa's description of her kiss with Sally as "the most exquisite moment of her entire life." (35). But, given social constraints, Clarissa could never truly realize her feelings for Sally or vice versa, and so she remains a distant memory, a ghost of youth that has long been locked away. Although less obvious than Clarissa and Sally's relationship, Septimus may have had his own homosexual experiences during World War I with Evans, the officer and friend who now haunts his hallucinations. With his impressive time in the trenches, Septimus "attracted the attention, nay, affection of [Evans]," and together they formed a relationship akin to "two dogs playing on a rug before the hearth" (86) . However, this was not the case and Evans dies shortly before the Armistice, with which Septimus's real repression begins: “Septimus, far from showing any emotion or recognizing that this was the end of a friendship, congratulated himself on having felt very little and very reasonably. The war had taught him that. It was sublime” (86). In this demonstration of masculine and military composure, Septimus feigns the apathy that would soon destroy him. Indeed, the War and its expectations of masculinity force Septimus to repress not only those homosexual feelings in.