The Blue Room

  The Death of Marat  by Jacques-Louis David In Clarissa’s storyline in The Hours , several characters from Mrs. Dalloway are combined into Richard Dalloway’s character. Richard seems to be an amalgamation of Richard, of course, Septimus, and Peter (or at least Peter’s role as the romanticized ex). Richard’s character in The Hours clearly draws inspiration from Septimus, as Richard is a poetic writer who eventually meets the same fate Septimus does in Mrs. Dalloway —suicide. The nature of Richard’s suicide in The Hours in some ways stays true to the novel, however in other ways, the original points that Virginia Woolf makes in Septimus’s story are lost. One similarity between the stories of both characters is the fact that they are essentially kept alive by the women in their lives for the durations of their stories before their suicides. In The Hours , Richard is taken care of by Clarissa, and even says that he stays alive for as long as he does “just to satisfy” Clariss...

  Two Soldiers on Horseback by Horace Vernet Despite Ernest Hemingway’s straightforward and simple style of writing, there is a lot of ambiguity in the relationships between characters in The Sun Also Rises . One of the relationships riddled with unanswered questions is that of Jake and Brett. Jake clearly is in love with Brett, but underneath the surface are complex and conflicted feelings about her. He seems frustrated, saddened, and conflicted about his situation with Brett, and these feelings are further complicated when other men express interest in Brett, namely Robert Cohn. Jake seems relatively okay with the fact that Brett is going to marry Mike, but he becomes intensely jealous upon discovering that Brett and Cohn had a thing. So, what is the difference between Mike and Cohn to Jake? One of the differences between Mike and Cohn are the circumstances of their relations with Brett. Mike is going to marry Brett, and Cohn takes a trip with her. Jake believes that Brett’s pa...