After finishing "Mrs. Dalloway", by Virginia Wolf, I thought about it a lot and decided I really liked the book. It took me a while to decide that I liked it. There were specific parts and running ideas and themes that really caught my attention and I think those are what made me like the book so much.
I love the way Virginia Wolf writes. I think she is brilliant in the way she gets into peoples' heads. It is impressive the detail she comes up with and the thoughts she writes out onto paper. I love how by the end of the book, when she switches which character's thoughts are being said, you know which character it is before you see the name.
Septimus began as my least favorite character but later, he an his wife turned into my favorite characters. His story is one I would most like to focus on in this blog post.
I think one reason Septimus has been weighing so heavily on my mind has to do with the recent tragedy we have been facing at our school. Watching the movie was particularly shocking, the 4th grade teacher, Septimus, Richard, Virginia Wolf, all suddenly pounded into my mind when Richard fell out of the window. That scene hit me really hard and was quite difficult to watch. I think recent events and the movie we watched bring out the running theme of death in the book a lot more.
I think I keep thinking about Septimus because the scene where he is in his flat alone with his wife, Rezia, and he is finally, for the first time since the war, acting normal. That was my favorite part of the book. To see Rezia's pure joy and Septimus coming to light was just incredible. It parallels with the religious idea of redemption which is a significant part of my religion and means a great deal to me. I did not expect Septimus to jump out of the window and when he did, it took a chunk out of me. Their lovely scene in their flat gave me so much hope and joy and such an ending is so terribly sad. It hits me really hard because I have also experienced a good family friend committing suicide. Sometimes I think suicide is a selfish thing to do. "He was selfish. So men are"(Wolf, 19). Septimus could live without Rezia but she could not live without him.
It makes me so sad that people become so low that they turn to killing themselves. Suicide is one thing I have a really hard time with thinking about and this book was good for me to ponder about.
I also like that Septimus is kind of our way into Virginia Wolf's mind. Wolf did an incredible job with the reader being able to see into the mind of someone who is not right in the head. I like when Septimus thinks, "and it is cowardly for a man to say he would kill himself, but Septimus had fought; he was brave; he was not Septimus now"(Wolf, 19). It put his despair into context. One can only hope that those who chose suicide are not right in the head, that it is not really them choosing such a fate.
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