Birds, birds, birds

Jessy did a great job of pulling out all of the important bird references. I just wanted to add an observation that relates to that.

At the start of the book, Clarissa is described as bird-like and beak-faced. She is also described, as Megan pointed out, as cutting people into pieces. The beak-face and the sharpness seem to go hand in hand, to me (I'm imagining a bird pecking things to bits). I think that perhaps this sharpness, and coldness, may be a form of defense for Clarissa. She thinks, in the novel, about how dangerous it is to live for even just one day (and Septimus is proof of this thought), which suggests to me that there is a good deal of fear inside Clarissa. Perhaps her sharpness and her quickness and her coldness are her methods for protecting herself from this danger.

At the end of the novel, when Septimus jumps from his window to escape the doctor, Lucrezia blocks the stairwell in order not to let the doctor pass. Septimus imagines her as hen-like, with arms out at her sides like wings to block the way. She protects him, defends him, as a bird. This seems like a parallel between Septimus and Clarissa (shock and surprise) who both appear to use birds and bird-like behavior as methods to defend themselves from the intrusive outside world.