"For Heaven only knows why one loves it so, how one sees it so, making
it up, building it round one, tumbling it, creating it every moment afresh;
but the verriest frumps, the most dejected of miseries sitting on
doorsteps (drink their downfall) do the same; can’t be dealt with, she felt
positive, by Acts of Parliament for that very reason: they love life"
All classes of
people can be
happy
Richard disagrees
Anotações:
When he sees an old woman singing on the doorstep, he thinks that she is a problem that must be solved by the government
Her excitement and
being alive
Anotações:
Galloping sentence, commas, semi-colons; happy to be alive on this June day.
"She had a perpetual sense, as she
watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out,
far out to sea and alone; she always had
the feeling that it was very, very
dangerous to live even one day."
Businness of life, privacy
inside mind
Repetition
Anotações:
"out, out, far out"
= incomprehensible distances, unreachable, cries for help
"very, very dangerous"
= extreme danger contradicts most peoples idea, as simply living
"This late age of the world’s experience had bred in
them all, all men and women, a well of tears. Tears
and sorrows; courage and endurance; a perfectly
upright and stoical bearing."
Many characters
cry during novel
Peter
Anotações:
Breaks down at Clarissa's
Clarissa
Anotações:
Tears come to her eyes when she thinks of her mother walking in the garden
Rezia
Septimus
Anotações:
Only character to cry openly in park, and therefore seen as mentally unstable
The English's "stiff upper lip"
Anotações:
Septimus considered unstable because of crying; not expected in English society.
Peter scolds himself for crying afterwards for a long time
"Clarissa had a theory in those days . . . that since
our apparitions, the part of us which appears, are so
momentary compared with the other, the unseen part
of us, which spreads wide, the unseen might
survive, be recovered somehow attached to this
person or that, or even haunting certain places after
death . . . perhaps—perhaps."
Supported by
structure of novel
Anotações:
Very little is based on what the characters do; all about their inner thoughts
Interconnectedness
of characters
Anotações:
Many motifs, ideas and simply the way we travel through the characters' minds show how we are all connected to the furthest of people (e.g. Peter seeing Septimus' ambulance)
"She felt somehow very like him—the young man who had
killed himself. She felt glad that he had done it; thrown it
away. The clock was striking. The leaden circles dissolved in
the air. He made her feel the beauty; made her feel the fun.
But she must go back. She must assemble"
CLIMAX; narratives
finally meet
Anotações:
Septimus has been reflecting Clarissa throughout novel. Clarissa started the day by plunging into the June day, and Septimus literally plunged to his death