To Kill A Mockingbird Essays: Clarissa's View Of Life

Clarissa holds a very strong view towards life. The following passage elucidates her

thoughts and beliefs regarding life:

For Heaven only knows why one loves it so, how one sees it so, making it up,

building it round one, tumbling it, creating it every moment afresh; but the veriest

frumps, the most dejected of miseries sitting on doorsteps (drink their downfall)

do the same; can’t be dealt with, she felt positive, by Acts of Parliament for that

very reason: they love life.

This quote is a part of Clarissa’s thoughts as she walks to the flower shop in the morning.

Through this quote, her strong attachment towards life and the whole concept of life as her own

creation is revealed as she says, how one sees it so, making it up, …show more content…
Up in the sky swallows swooping, swerving, flinging themselves in

and out, round and round, yet always with perfect control as if elastics held them;

and the flies rising and falling; and the sun spotting now this leaf, now that, in

mockery, dazzling it with soft gold in pure good temper; and now again some

chime (it might be a motor horn) tinkling divinely on the grass stalks—all of this,

calm and reasonable as it was, made out of ordinary things as it was, was the truth

now; beauty, that was the truth now. Beauty was everywhere.

Here, everything Septimus seems to look at contains beauty. The quote reads, wherever he

looked at the houses, at the railings, at the antelopes stretching over the palings, beauty sprang

instantly, in other words, wherever he looked he saw beauty. He goes on to describe swallows

with a long list of adjectives that all convey the beauty he sees in them – referring to their actions

as, swooping, swerving, flinging themselves in and out, round and round, yet always with perfect

control as if elastics held them. He then vividly describes the beauty he sees in the sunlight. He

refers to the sunlight shining on the leaf as, dazzling it with soft gold in pure good temper. …show more content…
The following passage helps bring to light

some of their differences:

…and the words came to her, Fear no more the heat of the sun. She must go back

to them. But what an extraordinary night! She felt somehow very like him – the

young man who had killed himself. She felt glad that he had done it; thrown it

away. The clock was striking. The leaden circles dissolved in the air. He made her

feel the beauty; made her feel the fun. But she must go back. She must assemble.

At this point in the novel it becomes apparent that there is constant comparison going on between

the sane and insane, or in other words between Clarissa and Septimus. Both of them seek the

same things: wholeness of reality and communication. Clarissa is able to almost empathize to a

degree as she felt somehow very like him. In perspective, only Septimus takes the path that will

absolutely lead to these things. Clarissa’s attempt to create unity in her party, the world of light,

mirrors Septimus’ dark embracement of death in his suicide note which reads: Fear no more