Who do we want in life, friends or enemies? Enemies inspire you to defeat them, friends support you when you need them. Enemies are the antithesis to your life, friends are people to model. Perhaps for those of us lucky enough to be able to motivate ourselves to action without an antagonist, an enemy isn't necessary. For Clarissa Dalloway, it is. "She hated her: she loved her" (170). That her is Miss Doris Kilman, and her reasoning is simple, "Hot, hypocritical, corrupt; with all that power; Elizabeth's seducer; the woman who had crept in to steal and defile" (170). Clearly the feeling is mutual, Miss Kilman certainly is no fan of Clarissa, which is unsurprising as they are both after the attention and affection of Elizabeth. Maybe even more so is to leave an impression on Elizabeth, as they both fixate on whom Elizabeth's behavior resembles (or doesn't resemble).
It seems strange that Clarissa would ever say she loves Doris, really it seems strange for Clarissa to say she loves anyone, even Elizabeth or Richard (of course Richard can't say it at all). But maybe that's just it, she makes Clarissa feel something—feel something in a way that her mind doesn't have to tell her how to feel, like when she straightens up as the car passes to feel more dignified, or when she feels her party isn't quite right because there isn't dancing. This is an intense feeling, and really the only one I notice ever being described by Clarissa. Put in this way this seems like a stark similarity to Septimus to follow from one of the panel presentations from my section today. Septimus can't feel and he tries anything to feel, marrying Lucrezia hoping she can make him feel again.
So now comes the question: if Clarissa could, would she get rid of Doris, even though she "loves" her because she makes her feel something? I would say the answer is no, because as Elizabeth is not independent, Clarissa really could stop Elizabeth from seeing her. I think she chooses to allow her to stay, so as they can continue to have this war over Elizabeth. To some extent I buy that the fear that if ever forced to choose, Elizabeth would pick Doris over Clarissa, does play a role in allowing Doris to stay. Still though, I believe that Clarissa will do anything to keep the one feeling she has, even if it is hatred.
I would compare Clarissa to Rezia rather than Septimus in this case. At first, Rezia takes Septimus to Holmes and Bradshaw in hopes they can help him, but once Bradshaw tries to take Septimus away, Rezia becomes defensive and does not want to allow Septimus to be taken away for treatment. It's the same with Clarissa, Elizabeth, and Miss Kilman: Clarissa's main objection to Kilman (other than the mackintosh) is that she is taking Elizabeth away and subjecting her to a "treatment" Clarissa doesn't believe in: religion.
ReplyDeleteAfter Septimus starts to recover, Rezia goes so far as to try and bar Holmes from entering Septimus' room. Clarissa and Rezia both have limited success in their attempts to keep their loved ones away from bad influences: Elizabeth is clearly not what her mother wishes she was (no appreciation for fine gloves), but she finally rejects Miss Kilman, in a way. Septimus jumps out a window and kills himself, which leaves Rezia in a state of grief but saves him from "Human Nature" Holmes.
When we last see her, Rezia is thinking happy memories and smiling, and passages like "Rezia ran to the window, she saw; she understood." (146) and "She saw the large outline of his body standing dark against the window. So that was Dr. Holmes." (147) indicate that she finally understands Septimus' actions to an extent and sees Holmes as an evil that drove her husband to suicide.
Granted, Rezia does not enjoy having enemies. At first, she's convinced the psychiatrists are on her side, and later she isn't happy about having to resist them. But like Clarissa, fighting to protect one she loves gives her a sense of meaning and feeling.
I wouldn't say Clarissa has no feeling but this hatred for Miss Kilman. She doesn't necessarily talk about her feelings for Peter, or for Richard, or for Elizabeth very much, but they exist. And she has moments of emotion; of pride in England and communion with the royalty when the car passes; of distress and sadness when she hears about Septimus. Really, though, the reason we get so much of her hatred with Miss Kilman is that it's so much more exciting. It's a whole lot easier to think about all the ways you want to get someone or what they did that made you so mad than it is to think about how great someone is or what nice things they did for you. Clarissa herself says, "It was enemies one wanted, not friends" (170). She isn't some jaded individual who can no longer feel anything like some drug addict, she just loves to hate. It's as simple as that.
ReplyDeleteLike so many characters' perceptions of others in this novel, Clarissa's "hatred" of Kilman ends up being more about her and her own anxieties than about Kilman and her god-awful mackintosh. Her "hate" doesn't have any palpable consequence in the world--she's polite and civil in Kilman's presence; she isn't trolling her, or trying to sabotage her, or starting fistfights. It's a private, self-defining idea, this "hate." She defines herself by what she's not, and Kilman is a convenient source of contrast.
ReplyDeleteYes, she feels threatened by her, but her sense of the threat seems so overblown and hyperbolic, it's hard to take it seriously (as Richard suggests, it's probably just a phase; and as we see ourselves, it's not like Elizabeth is all that smitten with Kilman, either, and Kilman is just as frustrated as Clarissa when Elizabeth's indifference is made evident).