Let's Talk About Marriage: Clarissa vs. Lucrezia
While in class the other day, I remember Solomia pointed out something I hadn't really thought of before in the novel: how Clarissa and Lucrezia tie together in their marriage problems. Woolf uses the airplane or the car as a vehicle to jump through different characters thoughts, but doesn't really tie together these characters herself, but instead leaves that up to the reader. The more I thought about it, the more I realized the contrast between Clarissa and Lucrezia, especially in their marriage and their struggles.
As a middle-aged woman, Clarissa loves living, loves London and everyone in it, and is very optimistic about her role. She's the kind of woman who just pauses to appreciate the moment, taking a deep breath and taking in everything around her passionately. She's content with Richard, as she likes it how he gives her space and she gives him his space too, but she isn't necessarily in love with Richard anymore. It seems more of a friendly but professional kind of a marriage, a role she accepted as being Mrs. Richard Dalloway. But they don't seem to have a very strong emotional bond or strong emotions for each other. Clarissa looks back fondly on her life, not necessarily regretting her decision of marrying Richard instead of Peter, but just wondering how her life could've gone differently. But it's clear that she is in love with the present day and how her life is going.
Lucrezia seems to be the exact opposite. She hates London since she doesn't know anyone around her, as she was born and raised in Italy and she misses her family and friends. She's only 24 years old, and had married Septimus and moved to England because of him. She seems very frustrated with the mental state of Septimus, and the reader really feels with her in that she had been trying to find a cure for him and stays with him. Although her marriage isn't going so well, it is clear that Lucrezia loves Septimus. She cares for him, moved away from everything she knew for him, and wants to stick with him until the very end, even if he finds her annoying.
Its like Clarissa and Lucrezia have inverted relationships, as Clarissa has a content marriage but without a strong feeling of love, and Lucrezia has a terrible marriage but loves Septimus (although I didn't get the vibe that he loves her as much as she loves him). It'll be interesting to see how Clarissa and Lucrezia's stories tie together in the novel.
I didn’t think about how the two are complete opposites. I saw the differences in their marriage, but now I see how as characters they are totally different. They sort of serve as contrasts for each other: it makes the lack of love in Clarissa’s relationship especially clear, and it makes Lucrezia’s dislike of London really apparent. I think it was very clever of Woolf to tie two characters together like that.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, Ayat! Another thing I found interesting concerning the differences and similarities between Clarissa and Lucrezia's marriages was that Lucrezia seems to spend the entire day with Septimus, while Clarissa doesn't seem to have seen Richard until mid-afternoon. It speaks to the need each member of the marriage has for the other. Clarissa and Richard are friends who have a stable married relationship but don't seem to hang out all that much. On the other hand, from Lucrezia's perspective, Septimus would be lost without her, and he seems to be unable to take care of himself. I think this goes along very well with your point about how neither marriage seems to be going well, yet for completely different reasons.
ReplyDeleteWoah I didn't even think to contrast these characters' relationships with their spouses! This is really interesting to think about, how they are so opposite from each other but still lay in the same realm with one another. Clarissa is caught up in the same, old life that she is used to with Richard, with the same people and habits as always, everything staying the same, wanting to wander about and having to stay to wonder about her life. At the same time, as you mentioned, Lucrezia started a different, new life in England alone with no one to lean on, having to take care of Septimus, always easily disoriented and worrisome about what other people think of her and her love... It's as if we are switching whole worlds, yet Woolf strategically keeps this somewhat subtle enough for the reader to think about it themselves.
ReplyDeleteIt is really interesting that both women have in their marriages what the other one wants. In terms of the role they play in their marriage it almost seems to me that Lucrezia is more comparable to Richard than Clarissa in that both Lucrezia and Richard in that both are caregivers for their spouses (Richard not to the same extent but he does help encourage Clarissa to take a nap because he's still worried about the flu). I'm not sure that Clarissa's role aligns with Septimus' but it will be interesting to see if over the rest of the book their connection develops.
ReplyDeleteI think your post draws an interesting parallel: Clarissa is distant from Richard but happy and builds relationships with other people around her. Lucrezia on the other hand has nobody but Septimus and while she loves him it is hard for her to connect to him. Other marriages in this book, like Peter's engagement to Daisy, are also not totally happy relationships. I think Woolf could be suggesting that marriage is not the ideal society believes it to be.
ReplyDeleteGreat blog post! I think that the reason why Clarissa and Lucrezia's marriages are so different ais that they both have extremely different circumstances. Septimus is obviously not in a very good mental state and therefore Rezia has to do most of the care-taking. On the other hand, Richard seems like a very independent man and Clarissa can do her own thing. In addition, Clarissa was very ill at one point and I assume Richard helped take care of her. I am sure that Rezia would like to go out more and Clarissa would be a good care taker if their husbands would swap so I would argue that their role in their relationships relies heavily on their partner.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really cool analysis! I definitely agree with your idea that they have inverted relationships within similar marriages. In my opinion, they have near-identical marriages, but with reversed roles within them. Like, reading about Richard really felt like we were seeing a preview of Lucrezia's life a few decades down the line. I think that Richard and Lucrezia are very similar in how they interact with their spouses- they love them, and it's this sort of painful love because they know that their spouse isn't going to fully return it, but there's not really a definable reason why, which makes it even harder to deal with. And yet they continue caring for their partner. So to me, Lucrezia is to Septimus as Richard is to Clarissa, which is yet another parallel between these two stories.
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