Posts

Septimus's Story in Mrs. Dalloway

When I first started reading Mrs. Dalloway I thought the Septimus parts were kind of random. His point of views were different from any other character, and I wanted to analyze more about why his story was told in this book and how it connects to Mrs. Dalloway herself.  The interesting part is that Clarissa and Septimus don't directly meet. The closest they get is Clarissa hearing about him at her party from William Bradshaw. However, the more I read, and hearing in class about how Woolf was going to have a different ending for Clarissa and that it was going to be one ending, the more I saw the similarities between the two.I saw how they are kind of the same person living two different lives. My explanation for how they connect is that Septimus is what Clarissa could have turned into/ the reality she could have faced, and his death is what makes her choose to keep living. There are many similar lines that they narrate that I highlighted, seeing a too specific to be coincidental con...
8 comments
Read more

The footnotes are actually important

I have always thought of a footnote as small, optional information that gives context to something in the text. Normally you are allowed to skip it, and I do most of the time. Nicholson Baker changed how I think about them. His footnotes in The Mezzanine sometimes go on for whole pages. I remember reading one line of actual story on top and finding the rest of the page taken up by a note about shoelace rates. Through The Mezzanine, Baker illustrates how the footnotes aren't just a unique way of formatting, even the structure of the book is making the same argument Howie is. One of the most memorable footnotes for me was the one about doorknobs. It starts as a comment about doorknobs and ends somewhere completely different, going into a memory about his father and his ties. What struck me is that I never noticed the transitions happening. Baker transitions you into each new story so smoothly that you only realize where you are once you come back into the regular text. Meanwhile the...
5 comments
Read more