I see the characters of Clarissa Dalloway and Antoinette Cosway to be somewhat similar; the main focus of both of their lives is their marriages, they feel generally lonely in their lives (or maybe misunderstood), and both characters are female protagonists who may be negatively affected by their environments. In addition, the madness of the characters Septimus and Bertha can be used to further illustrate the connection between Dalloway and Cosway, since Septimus parallels Clarissa and Bertha is basically Antoinette.
I was inspired from reading stuff about the “madwoman in the attic” trope that was produced by Jane Eyre; Bertha is depicted as an insane, deranged woman who Rochester valiantly keeps locked up in his attic. Antoinette in Wide Sargasso Sea is more reasonable, and is basically misunderstood by the people around her (besides Christophine, maybe). While Clarissa is not a direct comparison, I think we can find some similarities between the two; Clarissa feels lonely in her own life, often reflecting on herself and wanting more freedom, while Antoinette is literally ostracized during her childhood and spends most of her life without a strong support group. In this sense, we can see both Clarissa and Antoinette as being “locked in the attic”, especially with Antoinette literally being locked in the attic in Jane Eyre, and Clarissa’s scene where she goes up to her attic and reflects on her loneliness. Both of them experience some sort of isolation, which contributes to their relatively depressed attitude.
It’s important to discuss the character of Septimus when talking about Dalloway, since they seem to be connected in several ways throughout the novel. Septimus is entirely crazy, and eventually commits suicide by leaping off through his window, and an important thing to note is that his madness is due to environmental stress; the war, combined with the traumatic incident with his friend, affected him in such a way as to make him go mad. His situation is kind of like what happened with Antoinette’s mother, and maybe even Bertha; the events after Emancipation and the burning of Coulibri all contribute to her loneliness and eventual descent into madness. Both Septimus and Antoinette/Bertha are products of their respective settings and environments.
While Antoinette and Clarissa aren’t yet crazy, they both show the possibility of becoming crazy; Antoinette has been ostracized throughout her childhood, even by her own mother, and she is confronted with the paranoid Rochester who fears that she’ll become mad like her mother, which seems kind of like a positive feedback loop (Rochester is more and more convinced she is mad, does increasingly drastic behavioral checks, Antoinette reacts accordingly, exacerbates his fears even more). Clarissa is less troubled, but is still connected to madness through Septimus; she sees herself in him, and is inspired to keep living when she hears of his suicide.
By experiencing Septimus’ tragedy, Clarissa is looking at herself in the future; if Antoinette was given this opportunity of seeing Bertha Mason and observing her madness, would she have gone mad?
An interesting aspect of both novels is the view on mental illness; both worlds have a rather primitive understanding of mental illness, either regarding it as something trivial (Dalloway’s setting) or something hereditary (Antoinette’s setting). The stigmas are incredibly influential aspects of the novels because they almost drive the characters to madness; Holmes makes Septimus jump out the window, while Rochester’s belief in hereditary madness and his resulting behavior basically forces Antoinette to play the role of madwoman.
While Antoinette and Clarissa aren’t yet crazy, they both show the possibility of becoming crazy; Antoinette has been ostracized throughout her childhood, even by her own mother, and she is confronted with the paranoid Rochester who fears that she’ll become mad like her mother, which seems kind of like a positive feedback loop (Rochester is more and more convinced she is mad, does increasingly drastic behavioral checks, Antoinette reacts accordingly, exacerbates his fears even more). Clarissa is less troubled, but is still connected to madness through Septimus; she sees herself in him, and is inspired to keep living when she hears of his suicide.
By experiencing Septimus’ tragedy, Clarissa is looking at herself in the future; if Antoinette was given this opportunity of seeing Bertha Mason and observing her madness, would she have gone mad?
Septimus is a parallel to Bertha Mason in Jane Eyre; he represents what Dalloway would have become in the future had she fully succumbed to her environmental pressures, and Bertha is literally Antoinette, after a few years locked in the attic. In a sense, Clarissa and Antoinette are both the background stories to the characters of Septimus and Bertha, respectively, which relates the two timelines of Mrs. Dalloway and Wide Sargasso Sea/Jane Eyre through themes of societal pressure and madness.
Does this connection make sense? Are there any differences between the two links that are important to note? Don’t forget to leave a like and subscribe, and let me know down in the comments what you thought of this blog post.
