Clarissa Dalloway's 'Double'
Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway" is a day-in-the-life story that folds back and forth in time, examining one woman's life decisions and one man's postwar nightmare. The woman is Clarissa Dalloway, a "perfect hostess" in her early fifties, confronts the decisions she made thirty years ago. The man, intended by the author to be Clarissa's "double", is the "shell-shocked" war veteran Septimus Warren Smith who suffers delayed flashbacks over the wartime death of a comrade. The novel follows parallel stories of Clarissa and her "double," whom she has never met. Their lives are connected through interaction of external events in time and space, such as Clarissa's evening party, a motor car passing both, an airplane overhead. The two are further connected through the writer's use of various poetic techniques such as imagery and "literary echoes." Septimus and Clarissa also parallels and contrasts in many aspects of characterization, as in their emotional problems, their marriage, their pasts, their suicidal impulses and their homosexual relationships. However, Clarissa will ultimately differ from Septimus, who, fails to confront the requirement of the society, commits suicide the night of Clarissa's party.
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Clarissa Septimus, Walsh Cold, Despite Clarissa, Clarissa Sally, Sir William's, Septimus Clarissa, Peter Walsh, Hearing Septimus', Warren Smith, Impossible Clarissa, clarissa septimus, motor car, septimus clarissa, suicidal impulses, poetic techniques, evening party, parallels contrasts, central coldness, clarissa double, perfect hostess,
Approximate Word count = 2374
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)
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