Mrs Dalloway Septimus Character Analysis

Clarissa and Septimus as doppelgangers In her introduction to 1928 edition of Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf called Septimus as Clarissa’s “double”. Clarissa and Septimus are doppelgangers or doubles of each other. They never met in the novel but their feelings mirror each other’s that is their need to have their own “individuality”. Septimus and Clarissa are also doppelgangers as Septimus represents the external objectification of Clarissa’s internal conflicts. Doppelgangers are the spiritually or physically doubles of another person but in this case, Septimus is the spiritual counterpart to Clarissa. The spiritually double counterpart of a person is also in Egyptian mythology as the “spirit double” where the feelings

This makes Clarissa feels that through his death, Septimus has retained his individuality and she could also feel his “defiance” against the narrow-minded society. She empathizes with him even though she has never met him. This shows us their spiritual connection. She is deeply affected by his death and his death makes her think about her desire of death. “If I were now to die, ’twere now to be most happy…” (Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf) Her thinking about her desire made her found “herself”. So the death of her inner conflict made her at peace, Peter: “It is Clarissa, he said. For there she was”. (Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf) Septimus can be seen as her spiritual double who died for her so that she could survive. Through his death, Clarissa could go on living her life. According to the article to the article “Towards a better understanding of the meaning of Virginia’ Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway” by Anna S Benjamin, it is told that the Clarissa and Septimus are like parallel characters. The reason for this is that Clarissa’s spiritual death which is when she rejected Peter coincides with Septimus’s actual birth. This is then reverted when Septimus’s commits suicide and Clarissa is spiritually reborn. This also implies Septimus and Clarissa being “spiritual