It is neither unique nor rare for great authors to weave themselves into the fabric of their works; it is a technique that adds realism and believability to otherwise complex fictional characters. D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers and James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man are examples of this event in which the main character is a literarily conscious version of the author himself. Authors often imbue their characters with aspects of their own personality because such familiar characteristics offer depth and insight to a figure's development. However, it is decidedly less common for an author to create a complete portrait of himself divided among multiple characters, rather than taking on the role of a single central figure. In Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf achieves such a feat by separating her personality between the two characters Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Warren Smith. These counterparts serve to illustrate the devastating polar extremes caused by Woolf's manic depression, while staying true to the story's less than 24-hour duration. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The character of Mrs. Dalloway was not new at the time she wrote the novel. Both Clarissa and her husband Richard had been introduced in The Voyage Out, published after Woolf's third nervous breakdown, and around the same time as the declaration of the First World War (Cameron, About Mrs. Dalloway par. 2 & Bloom par. 9). Rather than the sympathetic, deeper and more developed characters portrayed in her later novel, the Dalloways were characterized as a pretentious, domineering husband and a submissive, superficial wife, originally modeled by Woolf's socialite friend Kitty Maxse. However, after the war ended, Woolf published a series of short stories that explored Clarissa's character, like Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street, transforming her into a more introspective woman with hints of hidden depressive tendencies (Cameron, About Mrs. Dalloway par. 2 -3). It therefore appears that Woolf's mental instability and the end of the war played a key role in the development of Mrs. Dalloway's character and in Woolf's decision to take her on as part of her own personality. the action of the day - Clarissa says she will buy some flowers and worries about her party. Both actions are apparently superficial, but with the first noise of the morning, the breaking of a door, she is dragged almost reclusively into the memory of the happy moments of her youth (Woolf 3). This behavior is repeated throughout the novel; over the course of 24 hours, she can only focus on her party, despite it being frequently and severely interrupted by her mind's memories and her reflections on them. Although it may seem that this behavior is simply "normal concentration" during the long period of the day, Clarissa's intense concentration is a behavior known as hypomania, one of the manic extremes of bipolar disorder, shared by Clarissa and Woolf (Purse, par. 5-6). Woolf herself was known to work on literature for incessant periods of a day (Ingram par. 16). These hypomanic episodes are often accompanied by feelings of extra creativity and innovation, confidence, and the ability to escape major and minor problems that would otherwise be paralyzing during depressive periods (Purse, par. 5-6). While Woolf used her hypomanic periods to write, Clarissa uses hers to plan the evening's events. We see her carefully and deliberately organizing the world around her for the celebration. After a moment in which she feels rejected for not being invited to theLady Bruton's lunch, isolates herself and decides to mend her dress, an indirect example of creativity employed to cope with a feeling that could otherwise lead to a devastating episode (Woolf 29 -30). However, depressive tendencies are never completely absent during these periods and sufferers may still experience feelings of helplessness, remorse and uninhibited behavior, all manifested by Clarissa (Purse, par. 5-6). We learn that she no longer takes pleasure in the things she once enjoyed. She also profoundly lacks confidence in her own education, but is much more capable than she believes: "How could he survive on the few twigs of knowledge that Fr?ulein Daniels gave him, he couldn't think. He knew nothing; no language, no story; barely read a book anymore except memoirs in bed (Woolf 8)." Similarly, Woolf was an extremely bright child who benefited from her illustrious father's library, but she herself was denied the education provided to her siblings (Cameron, About Virginia Woolf par. 1). We begin to see more depth in the feelings Clarissa has. after isolating herself from the world in her remote bedroom “tower” (Woolf 31). We learn that the relationship between her and her husband is not one of passion or physical romance, much like the reported relationship between Virginia Woolf and her husband. There is certainly love and cooperation, but not a passionate romance. Clarissa is sick and sleeps alone, but she has no cold feelings towards him. She sometimes feels distant from her conservative politics and social status, but there is still a kind of partnership. Furthermore, her need to temporarily rest that afternoon was partly due to a heart problem, which according to Woolf's diaries was shared by the author who suffered from palpitations and migraines, among other illnesses (Ingram par. 8). In her room, Clarissa instead recalls a moment from her past when her childhood friend Sally Seton kissed her, and it was Clarissa's first (and perhaps only) moment of passionate physical contact. She thinks back: "The strange thing, looking back, was the purity, the integrity, of his feelings for Sally. It wasn't like how you felt for a man (Woolf 34)" and "Sally stopped; she picked a flower; kissed her on the lips. The whole world could be turned upside down! (Woolf 35)" This is clearly a parallel between the protagonist and Woolf, who may have had a romantic relationship with Madge Vaughan (on whom Sally is based) and later his publisher Vita Sackville-West (Cameron, About Mrs. Dalloway par. 3 & Bloom par. 17). Clarissa is attracted to the brash, free-spirited Sally, and given that Clarissa and Virginia both grew up in Victorian England, such a relationship was taboo and therefore can be (within that social context) classified as impulsive and manic behavior -depressive (Borsa par. 7). But Clarissa offers only a partial insight into the author's psyche. She is counterbalanced by Septimus Warren Smith, who also underwent dramatic post-war changes. Septimus, like Woolf, highly appreciated literary works. Before the war he was a scholar of Shakespeare and other classics (as we discover through his and Rezia's memories), and represents the author's intellectual side before being destroyed by mental illness (Woolf 85). When he goes to war, however, he is faced with the death of his dear friend Evans, and believes he simply does not feel the pain of the loss. In reality, he has lost the ability to feel anything and begins his descent into madness. Similarly, Julia Stephen's death marked Woolf's first nervous breakdown, followed by another nervous breakdown and a suicide attempt (by jumping out of a window) after her father's death (Bloom par. 2 and 5). WhileSeptimus makes only a few appearances in the book, his role is crucial in filling the darkest, most depressive and mad spaces of Woolf's personality that are not covered by the hypomanic and functional side represented by Clarissa Dalloway. His wife Rezia's first thoughts are that of a deeply saddened and extraordinarily frustrated and embarrassed woman whose husband has been taken away by madness. She distances herself from her delusional husband who babbles to the dead Evans and becomes embittered. "Lucretia Warren Smith said to herself, He is wicked; why should I suffer? she asked herself, as she walked along the wide path. No; I can bear it no more, she said, having left Septimus, who was Septimus no more, to say things hard, cruel, evil, talking to himself, talking to a dead man, on the seat over there (Woolf 65).” The feelings projected onto Rezia are most likely the same ones Woolf believed her husband might have felt when she had a nervous breakdown (also characterized by depression, delusions and hearing voices) shortly after their wedding (Bloom par. 9) . Much of Warren Smith's marriage in fact parallels that between Woolf and her husband, starting with Septimus and Woolf who marry out of a need for stability during the war. Clearly the war played a central role in both marriages: Septimus married an Italian woman (not his love) to bring normality back to his life, while Woolf and her husband married shortly before the war, but were deeply affected by it and in They later swore a pre-World War II suicide pact according to which they would both kill themselves if the Nazis invaded England (Cameron, About Virginia Woolf par. 6). Like Septimus, Woolf also suffered from disturbing mental neuroses, none of which were adequately diagnosed by any doctor (Ingram par.8). In the novel, doctors tell Rezia that there is no diagnosis for his behavior and that he simply needs to be kept busy. Faithfully, Rezia does just that, taking him for walks and trying to keep his mind and body busy despite his desperate desire to get out of the marriage. Like Rezia, Woolf's husband tried to deal with his wife's madness in the same way doctors recommended, and in 1917 they purchased a second-hand printing press and founded the Hogarth Press (Bloom par. 10). Like its literary counterparts, however, the press offered relief only temporarily and generally favored manic episodes of mental occupation followed by intense depressive swings, much like Septimus's final episode before his death. It is this final episode that begins to bring Clarissa and Septimus closer together. In an instant of clarity, Septimus becomes functional. As Clarissa's most characteristic behavior, she displays joyful and creative abilities: "For the first time in days she spoke as she did before! ... She took it from his hands. She said it was an organ grinder's monkey hat. How it cheered her up! They hadn't laughed like this together for weeks, teasing each other in private as married people (Woolf 143). Such an episode is described as Septimus's old normal self, although shortly afterward he jumps out of a window and dies Even though he didn't want to dying, his "normal" or functional period was obviously followed by a state of reduced inhibition. Therefore, this episode could be another manifestation of the manic state, denoted by temporary lucidity and euphoria, shared by the author (Purse, par. 7).What is particularly important for both the Septimus and Clarissa characters is that Woolf had originally planned to have Clarissa commit suicide at the end, but instead decides to create another character, Septimus Warren Smith, to take over. guilt (Cameron, About Mrs.>