The Death of The Soul; The Death of The Body

 Krysantha Flores

The Death of The Soul; The Death of The Body

Throughout Mrs. Dalloway we followed the storylines of two characters, Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Smith. This is one of the most interesting parts of the story to me. The comparison of seemingly dissimilar characters who have internally similar systems is very intriguing to me. Their stories seem quite different at first, one is about PTSD and how war trauma affects Septimus and the other is about a woman preparing for her husband's party that night. But as the story progresses, the reader can see the parallels between their characters. Woolfe even intended for Clarissa to have the fate Septimus has in book, in the original draft. Why do two characters who seem to have very different stories and lives reflect each other so much?

For one, both of them are affected by the gender roles of their society. In the book, Clarissa is faced with the question of who she is. Is her only purpose to be a wife? If she wasn’t Richard Dalloway's wife, who would she be? She grapples with the fact that outside of performing her ‘womanly role’ as a wife, her identity is quite…blank. During Septimus’ side of the story we see a similar type of emptiness, rather not in his identity (at a superficial glance), but in his emotions. He originally didn’t fit the gender roles and was told to be more manly. In a way, he also lost his identity, he lost who he was, replaced by the shell of a man he’d previously been. Both lost who they were trying to shove themself into the mold of gender expectations, having to cut off what didn't fit in that mold. 

Peter Walsh notes whenever Clarissa fits into traditional roles of what a woman should be like or like as ‘The death of her soul’. He repeats this many times, “‘The death of the soul.’ He had said that instinctively, ticketing the moment as he used to do—the death of her soul” (Woolfe, 59). In a way, both of their souls died with conformity to society. However, Septimus’ inability to conform any longer (due to his mental health struggles) caused the death of his body. His soul was already dead and his body followed soon after. Spetimus didn’t want to be changed and that’s why he chose to kill himself. Clarissa conformed, forever creating an impenetrable wall that hides her inner self which will never be revealed to the outside world. Septimus wasn’t able to properly show who he was inside while Clarissa chose to keep her internal self buried, only pulling it out for quiet moments of reflection. Overall, both of them face similar issues. The only thing that changed the difference in their fates is their choices. Septimus’ last true essence of his identity was the killing of his body to save his soul which was rotting himself from the inside.

Life Through The Looking Glass

 Life Through The Looking Glass

In Nicholson Baker's novel The Mezzanine the main character, Howie, is continuously seen overanalyzing every little aspect of life. At first I thought that some of his thoughts were boring and quite frankly, unrealistic. However as I thought about it more, these unexplained, intricate thoughts of his became more reasonable to me. Everyone has their interests that they could drone about on for hours. Everyone has something that they find so enjoyable they would be happy with being surrounded by constantly. Howie's ‘thing’ is…well…life itself, which is very convenient because it's very easy to surround yourself with life while you are living. Anyone could say a lot about life, but only people who are truly interested can unconsciously think all you can say.

If you ask a person who has spent their whole life doing music, they’d probably have a lot of thoughts about it, even if you just view it as a simple song. To Howie, life is this great thing that causes him a mass amount of interest in even the smallest technologies or memories. To Howie, his purpose is probably to live. Which may seem like a ‘well duh’ moment to a lot but to him living is probably quite different than your definition of living. It’s not merely staying alive, growing up, and building a career. To Howie it’s enjoying and observing the little things that give him purpose and joy in his daily life. This is why he has so much to say about everything, because, like the musician, he has spent his life enjoying the observation of life. 

When he reads the text Marcus Aurelius had written on page 120, he immediately reacts negatively with a surprising, “Wrong, wrong, wrong! I thought. Destructive and unhelpful and misguided and completely untrue!” (Baker, 120) Similarly, if you simplified music, dumbing it down into a few measly words, the musician would certainly react negatively. To us, his ramblings are unimportant and odd but to him his ramblings are the markings on his progress gained in his observations of life, in life itself even. While he calls it ‘agreeably sobering’ that is most likely reminding him that other people don't see life as he does and not that he sees life as simple. I say this because after this he continues to think away, without care about the text, never to read it again.

In summary, everyone has things that they’re passionate about, that they spend a long time focusing on. Like how Emily A. Dossey loves swimming. While I don’t share the sentiment (mostly because I can’t swim), I understand where her love of the sport comes from. And I understand where Howie’s love of noticing the little bits in life and reflecting comes from. People will like what they like. While this book was quite an annoying, boring, and odd read, I can still admire his passion toward life, even if I don’t share the passion like he does.

Baker, Nicholson. The Mezzanine. Grove Press, 2010.