Clarissa Dalloway is Psychic

As someone who had not read Virginia Woolf before this class, I found the first reading incredibly difficult to follow. I dismissed a lot of the metaphors that she used but one statement struck me as odd: “…standing there at the open window, that something awful was about to happen…” Why would fields of beautiful flowers make Clarissa feel so anxious? It was such a peculiar conclusion to draw from the scene. I can understand a form of melancholy, but feeling like something bad is going to happen is a little more intense. 

While I read further through the book, I forgot about Clarissa's statement. I didn’t think to draw the conclusion between Septimus and Clarissa’s window scenes. When my group was reading articles for our panel presentation, one of them emphasized the similarities between the first page of the book and Septimus’ suicide. (This was the article we presented btw)

How could Clarissa, at age 18, not yet in London, empathize with an action that has not yet transpired, but will effect her to an enormous degree once she hears that it has happened? It’s been stated in class that mysticism is a possible explanation for Clarissa’s profound reaction to hearing Lady Bradshaw’s mention of suicide. Is it possible that Clarissa is psychic?

I found other evidence throughout Mrs. Dalloway that could support this claim, but while gathering quotes and page numbers, my argument went from psychic ability (though I still see it as a possibility and maybe after reading this so will you) to investigating her talent of knowing people by instinct. A much more likely, though still a somewhat mystical, unexplained ability.

Why mention knowing people by instinct in the novel if it wasn’t going to hold some kind of significance? Could this instinct be how she was able to draw out Septimus’ death from just hearing of his passing? Her ability to see other’s personalities without spending a lot of time with them could be another symptom of her possible psychic talent. 

Her knowledge of others may explain the quirky indirect exchange between Clarissa and Peter in which on page 35 Clarissa asks herself, “What would he think, she wondered, when he came back? That she had grown older? Would he say that, or would she see him thinking when he came back, that she had grown older?” Then, in almost an echo of her own thoughts, the first thing Peter thinks to himself when he sees her 4 pages later after years of being apart is, “She’s grown older, he thought, sitting down. I shan’t tell her anything about it, he thought, for she’s grown older. She’s looking at me, he thought, a sudden embarrassment coming over him…” The thought of age, the decision to not mention it, and then Clarissa’s ability to notice he’s thinking of her age and make him feel embarrassed is either a symbol of their closeness if youth or her ability to know people by instinct. 

This of course could be a stylistic choice of Woolf, as a form of her humor, but it could also be a potential explanation to why Clarissa was able to be so shocked after hearing of Septimus’ suicide. 

Her instinct still does not explain why she felt so dreadful in front of her window in Bourton so many years before Septimus fell to his death. Maybe calling it an instinct is the only way she knows how to describe her peeks into the future?

Conspiracy Theory: Virginia Woolf's Mind is Septimus and Mrs. Dalloway

Through looking up articles about Virginia Woolf and her relationship with PTSD (because she portrays it so realistically she must have known someone with it), I found that she had a mental illness that resembled bipolar disorder. 

Immediately I thought of the two main characters of Mrs. Dalloway: Clarissa and Septimus. The way they see the world had so much contrast there must be some kind of reason why she has decided to write a novel centered around characters so different both in body and mind (other than Septimus is intriguing compared to Mrs. Dalloway). Could their contrast, especially in their mental state, be commentary on her disorder?

I read further into Woolf's biography and discovered an interesting series of facts: Her sister died when she was 15, around the same time in Mrs. Dalloway’s life when her sister was crushed by a tree. She also had a poor relationship with her father, also like Mrs. Dalloway. She was admitted into a home for women with nervous disorder after having a nervous breakdown over the death of her father, though she had episodes before. This is similar to the plot of Septimus’ story of mental illness. And even though we know he has PTSD, his symptoms (hallucinations and depression) are similar to Woolf's.

Biographical evidence is not all that’s this theory together. In Mrs. Dalloway itself, we see her opinions on the institutionalization of the mentally ill and of the doctors treating these people through the voice of the narrator as well as Septimus. He also pursues the thought of suicide incessantly as she may have done until she drowned herself in 1941. Since we see her thoughts reflected through Septimus, is it unlikely that her worldview be featured in Mrs. Dalloway as well? Virginia Woolf’s feminist views seem to more or less be brought out by Mrs. Dalloway (though more in Sally) with her atheism and her decision to go buy the flowers herself.

Though this is a stretch, there are some interesting coincidences popping up between Woolf’s life and the lives of Septimus and Mrs. Dalloway’s. There is still a lot to read, and so a lot more character to see from Clarissa and her costar, but so far from what has presented itself in the text, it may be possible that Mrs. Dalloway and Septimus are stylized representations of different aspects of Virginia Woolf’s psyche.

Here's a link to the main article I referenced for her biography.