Although her life was a set routine, Clarissa embraced her role of mother and housewife because she feared life and the thought of dying. Her fear for life is illustrated when she repeats the line of Shakespear’s Cymbeline while she walks to buy flowers. Clarissa’s fear of dying stems from her living through the death of her mother, father and sister. She has the notion that everyday is dangerous and she was going through it alone. “She had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day” (Woolf 8). Clarissa realizes that life is not worth living unless you are passionate and fulfilled when she hears of Septimus’ suicide. “But this young man who had killed himself – had he plunged holding his treasure? ‘If it were now to die, ‘twere now to be most happy,’ she had said to herself once, coming down in white” (Woolf 184). It’s Septimus’ suicide that makes Clarissa realize that life is too short to be scared and unhappy.
Before his illness and suicide, Septimus fully embraced life. “She knew he was English … but had beautiful fresh colour; and with his big nose, his bright eyes, his way of sitting a little hunched made her think … of a young hawk” (Woolf 146). However, he is now suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, due to his stint in World War I, which has caused him to lose all sense of time and reality. He hears voices and suffers from flashbacks. In the morning while in Regent’s Park, Septimus hears the voice of Evans, a friend of his who died during the war, “He sang. Evans answered from behind the tree. The dead were in Thessaly, Evans sang, among the orchids. There they waited till the War was over, and now the dead, now Evans himself –” (Woolf 70).
Septimus commits suicide as an escape from his mental condition and a way to preserve his love and memories with his wife Rezia. At the time of his death, Septimus was having a breakthrough in his illness. He and his wife were enjoying some time together in between moments of insanity. When he heard the doctors approaching, Septimus realized that his insanity would return. “It was their idea of tragedy, not his or Rezia’s (for she was with him)…But would he wait till the very last moment. He did not want to die. Life was good. The sun hot” (Woolf 149). By throwing himself out the window, he relieved himself and Rezia while preserving the good memories they had created together.
Laura Brown, a main character in The Hours had a similar role in society as Clarissa, but different views on how to live her life. She is a housewife in the late 1940’s, and like Clarissa, Laura doesn’t have a job outside of being a mother and a wife. Also similar to Clarissa, she married her husband for really no reason except that it was the socially acceptable thing to do. “What could she say but yes? How could she deny a handsome, good-hearted boy, practically a member of the family, who had come back from the dead?” (Cunningham 40). Laura spent her time taking care of her son Richie, while secretly wishing she could spend her time reading novels. Motherly intuitions never came naturally to her, which made her feel uncomfortable around her own family. She always felt as if she was putting on a show for them, to hide her true feelings. “She is again possessed (it seems to be getting worse) by a dreamlike feeling, as if she is standing in the wings, about to go onstage and perform in a play for which she is not appropriately dressed, and for which she has not adequately rehearsed” (Cunningham 43). It is as if Laura had to work at being happy. “She has caught up with herself. She has worked so long, so hard, in such good faith, and now she’s gotten the knack of living happily, as herself, the way a child learns at a particular moment to balance on a two-wheeled bicycle” (Cunningham 79).
Laura’s initial feeling toward death is neutral. She does not seem afraid of the fact of dying, but cannot understand why people would choose to commit suicide. “How, Laura wonders, could someone who was able to write a sentence like that – who was able to feel everything contained in a sentence like that – come to kill herself? What in the world is wrong with people?” (Cunningham 41). Laura’s turning point is when she realizes that she could die and be rid of her routine; she wonders “how wonderful it would be to no longer matter … how wonderful it might be to no longer worry, or struggle, or fail” (Cunningham 214). Her alternative to death is to just run away from it all. She abandons her family to become a librarian in Canada. Her action is a trade-off between what is acceptable to society and what makes her happy. When she learns of the suicide of her son, Richard, Laura feels guilt for abandoning her life. “Here she is, then; the woman of wrath and sorrow, of pathos, of dazzling charm; the woman in love with death; the victim and torturer who haunted Richard’s work. Here, right here in this room, is the beloved; the traitor” (Cunningham 226).
Richard Brown, son of Laura, viewed his mother’s abandonment as form of death, although he grew up to become a distinguished author who is about to receive an award for his work. Richard is slowly dying of AIDS, and his medications are causing him to lose all sense of time and reality. Before his illness, Richard “strode through New York in an old military coat, talking excitedly, with the dark tangle of his hair tied impatiently away from his face by a length of blue ribbon that he’d found” (Cunningham 68). He fully expressed his love for life.
Richard’s illness brought him to the conclusion of suicide. He knew that he was eventually going to die from his disease. “’But there are hours aren’t there? One and then another, and you get through that one and then, my god, there’s another. I’m so sick’” (Cunningham 198). Richard uses suicide as a means of preserving his life by not allowing people to see what his illness had turned him into. The award that he was going to receive was for the man he used to be “avid and tall, sinewy, bright and pale as milk” (Cunningham 68). By committing suicide before he was seen at the award ceremony, the last image that his peers had of him would be his best days in life. Richard describes it the best when talking about a vision he had of the ceremony. “’Being proud and brave in front of everyone. I recall it vividly. There I am, a sick, crazy wreck reaching out with trembling hands to receive his little trophy’” (Cunningham 62).
It is clear through these novels that life and death affect each other. Life and death have become almost identical. Living without passion, such in Clarissa and Laura’s case, can be viewed as its own form of death even though they are fully alive. How the women react to that realization is how they would react to death. Richard and Septimus are both lovers of life; therefore they use their suicides as a form of preservation to their life. So, even in death, their life is upheld. Their suicides then tie back into Clarissa and Laura who use them as an awakening to how they have been living their lives. Life and death are integrated so tightly throughout these novels that the reader understands the significance of both. Life dictates death and death affects how life is lived. A line from Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun / Nor the furious winter rages,” sums up the message conveyed by Virginia Woolf and Michael Cunningham. Since life and death are so closely related, death is not something to fear and life should be lived to the fullest.
Works Cited
Cunningham, Michael. The Hours. New York: Picador, 1998.
Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. Florida: Harcourt, 1925.
