Now as we all should know at this point Virginia Wolfe changed the ending of Mrs. Dalloway from Dalloway herself committing suicide to the entire Septimus storyline and the party going on relatively well. Although I believe that the story would've been better if it ended with Mrs. Dalloway committing suicide compared to Septimus. To begin with Septimus doesn't really affect the story of Mrs. Dalloway, his suicide slightly ruins her party but not really, and he barely interacts with any of the characters that the story focuses on, at the most existing close to them. His story is interesting, don't get me wrong, but it feels slightly out of place because it doesn't give us any perspective on Mrs. Dalloway, unlike basically everything else in the story. I think it would have been better if she had removed the Septimus storyline and instead added another character that interacted with Mrs. Dalloway, or maybe a character who is about to meet Mrs. Dalloway for the first time, all of the characters in Mrs. Dalloway, at least the ones the narrator focuses on, have known Mrs. Dalloway for a long time, usually since their childhoods, and it would be extremely interesting to see what she is like to someone who has never met her before. Or even see what they think she is like compared to any preconceived notions of her they might have gotten from people who did know her. It would definitely be more interesting then Septimus who doesn't give us any info on Mrs. Dalloway, even though that's the entire reason the book exists. I also think it would've been a very interesting scene seeing how everyone reacts to Mrs. Dalloway committing suicide, Peter Walsh, Robert Dalloway, and Sally Seton would have very extreme reactions most likely and I would've loved to see how that would play out. Ending with the party Mrs. Dalloway throws, while being the natural end, is not very interesting and it would've been great for something more stunning to happen. Something to make the characters react in new and different ways, and I think Mrs. Dalloway committing suicide would definitely do that.
I think that if Mrs. Dalloway committed suicide at the end of the novel instead of Septimus it would have changed the entire tone of the novel and would have gone towards something that Woolf wasn't aiming for. Even if it would have been slightly more interesting, it wasn't the goal of the book to have such a big tragedy.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, since it was Septimus who killed himself, Woolf was able to bring up the point that PTSD is a serious thing, something that was not as widely believed at the time this novel was written.
I do think that there is some merit to the a Clarissa-suicide ending, which is why Woolf initially decided on it. However, I think that Septimus's death provides a lot of perspective for Clarissa in relation to her own life- perspective that I don't think the reader would have gotten the chance to see had Clarissa killed herself.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it would have made an interesting ending but personally, I'm glad she wrote it in precisely the way she did. I like that the knowledge of Septimus' death allows her to reflect on her own life and ultimately decide she did not want to go down the same path. I also think that the contrast Septimus provided was also good, and rounded the book off nicely.
ReplyDeleteIt would definitely make the ending more devastating if Mrs. Dalloway herself had committed suicide, but I think in general Virginia Woolf wanted to avoid that kind of dramaticism. She uses the difference in class between Septimus and Mrs. Dalloway possibly as a device to actually just show how little it actually affects Clarissa in the end. She got what she wanted in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteI think that Mrs. Dalloway committed suicide you would lose a few key points at the end of the book. Clarissa was able to reflect on her own life because of Septimus' death, but also it showed that in Clarissa's world Septimus' death served as a way to promote change. I'm not sure it would be received the same way or if we would have seen that response if Clarissa died instead.
ReplyDeleteIf Mrs. Dalloway committed suicide at the end, it would have been more devastating. By ending it with Septimus committing suicide, this allowed for Clarissa to reflect on her life. THis gave the ending of the novel a more hopeful tone, rather than just depressing.
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