The Un—literal Expression of 'Life and death'

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At the very beginning of the novel,Virginia Woolf tried to express how splendid and advanced London was, how meaningful and beautiful the life was; how forcefully Clarissa loved the life and how ecstatic and grateful she felt for the life. It was obvious that, however, Clarissa was not that kind of adoring the life from the following description of her internal monologues. So all her former expression of love to the life was pretending to be that Clarissa was enjoying what the life gave to her, and she was really trying so hard to accept the life which was so far from her ideal one. This contradiction can be explained as the core reason why Clarissa was disappointed to life— she was trying so hard to accept it but it did not work.

    As this article demonstrated, Woolf' s view of life and death is 'If you live a life like that: it's tiring, annoying and threatening which make your dream harder and tougher, make your mood bluer and  more and more depressed, go die because that is the reason you live.' And in this thesis chapter 2.2 has showed that every character in the novel felt bad and disappointed with the life; however, why did not they choose the death but surviving? It was because of the yearning for hope. The last sentences of the novel presents: ' ' I will come,' said Peter, but he sat on for a monment. What is this terror? What is this ecstasy? He thought to himself. What is it that fills me with extraordinary excitement?' (Woolf,141) Peter was a typical loser of life, but what gave him the strength? 'It is Clarissa, he said. For there she was. (Woolf,141)' Of course it was Clarissa the girl he would dream of even after many decades, the girl he was dying to marry. For this dream, he decided to survive. 

 

   'If you live a life like that: it's tiring, annoying and threatening which make your dream harder and tougher, make your mood bluer and  more and more depressed, go die because that is the reason you live.' The main figures survived through their disappointing life: Clarissa Dalloway hated the real life she lived then, but for her dream — being a powerful woman like a man who can talk about politics — she pretended that everything was fine. Septimus Smith was hunted by the mental disease left by the war with no more patience to endure the life,died. Peter on the one hand set about the nomothetic issues about the marriage with a women who he met in India and still had a marriage, and on the other hand he could forget and give up his obsession with Clarissa, meanwhile he had no job after he returned back in London. Sally Seton who used to be the wildest and the most radical one among their friends were admired by them when they were young; then as the mother of 5 boys she became the most normal one. Richard Dalloway and Sir William who were still the persons they hoped to be were deadly correct with the traditional feudal thought of Right wing and did the thing they thought right no matter how it harmed the vulnerable groups. Hugh Whitbread and Dr Holmes continued to be the guys who were vain and dramatic and almost useless and immoral but superficially pretty and decent. Rezia Smith and Miss Kilman still complained about how cruel the life treated them. Only one chose the natural call— to be dead. That was Virginia Woolf the author trying to persuade her figures to die. After many times of nervous breakdown Virginia Woolf could not take this any more and tried dozens of times to commit suicide. For her, she was like Septimus who felt enough to be suffered, but meanwhile she was like Clarissa too who had the great goal to achieve. She chose to be Clarissa for the dream of her own— to realize the society of feminism. However, the fact was totally different from her expectation, and she was like Peter, like Hugh— the other figures in Mrs Dalloway — in the eyes of people who was like Sir William and Richard. Even more unfortunately, she felt she was like Rezia and Mis Kilman. So she created Septimus, one of the most freaking positive characters in European literary history, to show her view of life and death: 'If you live a life like that: it's tiring, annoying and threatening which make your dream harder and tougher, make your mood bluer and  more and more depressed, go die because that is the reason you live.'

Woolf' s view of life and death was advanced and worthy of be studied and researched in sociology and philosophy at that time, but in general it is negative for modern people. It is the personal right to choose being alive or dead if you are not a Christian (Virginia Woolf as a Left believed science), but if one chose the death, what about his lover, parents, and all the people who love him? Even though this ideology is logical but the condition of choosing to die and the consideration of the result of it are not so plenary and thoughtful, and basically it is very selfish and sort of inhuman. It is highly recommended to watch the two homebred movies shown last year Lost in Hong Kong（《港囧》）and Goodbye Mr. Loser（《夏洛特烦恼》） which both showed how important the contentment is and how dangerous the selfishness is.