The sea as symbolic of life: The ebb and flow of life. When the image is portrayed as being harmonized, the sea represents a great confidence and comfort. Yet, when the image is presented as disjointed or uncomfortable, it symbolizes disassociation, loneliness, and fear. Doubling: Many critics describe Septimus as Clarissa's doppelganger, the alternate persona, the darker, more internal personality compared to Clarissa's very social and singular outlook. Woolf's use of the doppelganger, Septimus, portrays …showed first 75 words of 461 total…

…showed last 75 words of 461 total…veteran [Septimus] asks Oefor what purpose' he is present. Virginia Woolf's novel honors and extends his question. He perceives a beauty in existence that his age has almost totally disregarded; his vision of new life... is a source of joy as well as madness. Unfortunately, the glimpse of beauty that makes Septimus less forlorn is anathema to an age that worships like Septimus' inhuman doctor, Sir William Bradshaw, the twin goddesses OeProportion' and OeConversion.'"