Reading those last few pages, I had a flashback to the scene in the movie, Les Miserables, during the repose. In the movie, all of the characters, good and bad, alive and dead, return in a dream-like scene. They sing the last lines of the song, a reprise of "Do You Hear the People Sing", and their voices ring out from behind imaginary barricades. By bringing these characters together, the movie finally brings together symbols of unity and revolution.
During the party scene of Mrs. Dalloway, I had a similar feeling. Finally, characters like Dr. Holmes, Clarissa, Peter, Hugh, and Lady Bruton come together. Even characters like Sally, until now fixated into memories in the past, "reprise" their roles in the present. And just as a passed Jean Valjean looks on proudly from the crowd, Clarissa watches over the party, pondering over the notion that "If it were now to die, 'twere now to be most happy"(Woolf 184). But there isn't all pride and happiness in this quote, and in Mrs. Dalloway's reunion. Clarissa thinks about this "young man [who] had killed himself"(Woolf 184), Septimus, and wonders if his death was the best option. She thinks that through death, Septimus's societal pressures are relieved, unlike the most superficial of English society. I compare this event to the death of the French revolutionaries in Les Miserables. Like Septimus, they gave up their lives struggling against authority.
Perhaps the aim of Virginia Woolf, like Director Tom Hooper (of les mis), shared some key components. They both seeked to bring together their characters to create a sense of union in their work's final moments. They both juxtaposed characters good and evil, hinting that in the end, these conflicting forces in society remained inseparable, and were bound to struggle eternally. But perhaps most importantly, both artists suggest that in the end, there is hope for humanity, despite the pain of the world.
~Chris
Reading your post, I was also reminded of the final scenes of theater plays, when all the characters and actors would come on stage to perform one last finale. These two books seem to have a similar style of ending, giving closure to the performance.
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