Septimus Warren Smith′s Mental Health Issues and Post-war Shell Shock in Mrs. Dalloway (Coursework Sample)

Loretta Justice
ENGL 4250
Date
Septimus Warren Smith′s mental health issues and posts war shell shock in Mrs. Dalloway
Mrs. Dalloway is a novel in which Virginia Woolf uses characters to represent the divergent ideologies of post-World War I British society. Clarissa Dalloway, the protagonist of the story, epitomizes the upper class's views: "a resistance to change, and affection of beauty and kinship attachment, but also an ambivalence to others born of glory in affluence, kinship, or status, and a misplaced conception of protection" (Rasmussen). Clarissa exemplifies subjugation and denigration; she creates a beautiful realm to conceal the vileness of grief and agony. On the other end of the continuum, the character of Septimus Smith embodies the disintegration of England's autocratic pride and power following the war, expressing the misery and anguish he is unable to conceal. Woolf planned for Clarissa to communicate the sober reality of the situation and Septimus to communicate the insane reality, and Septimus's alienation enables him to pass harsher judgment on other people than Clarissa is responsible for. The society outside Septimus is perilous, and Septimus's perspective on it offers little hope.
The novel chronicles these characters' lives over the mid of the year after the first World War had already concluded. Even though their determination to uphold an air of cohesiveness and certainty, the manifestations of the warfare's mental distress recur. Woolf demonstrates how British society had already misplaced its pre-war image, notably its nous of royalist egotism and inherent preeminence, as a direct consequence of haunting and disconcerting manifestations of traumatic experiences that jeopardize the public’s solidity and resolution. Britain's inclination for stability, combined with unease around its veracity, is introduced at the beginning of the novel, as the automobile gets passed down Piccadilly. People by the motorway witness the car passing slowly with amusement, wondering who might be onboard (Church 52). Everyone views the car with equal veneration, a reaction reticent for uncivilly to be respected and feared simultaneously, even if the passenger is unknown. Clarissa, and other bystanders, believe it must be the Sovereign, the Queen, or some other form of royalty. Septimus seems to b the only one who looks at the car with fear and trepidation, as if something shocking had surfaced and about to explode (Marder 51). The crowd gathered across the mysterious car believes it is the queen of England and is in admiration of the British Monarchy and the concept of its erstwhile reality (Marder 51). Only Septimus expresses great fear upon staring at the car, an intense eerie of reality's destructiveness. Before the war, the British Empire was a longstanding symbol of status and greatness; however, after the battle, the nation's preeminence is concealed behind tinted windows. This enigmatic display of fictitious royalty reflects the decline of England's nobility and the subsequent loss of royal identity following the First World War.
As the car vanishes to the horizons there is consternation among those who witnessed the incident. The sight of royalty cruising through the city rouses the populace and grounds them to reflect on "the departed; the flag; and the Dominion" (Church 54). The mystery heartrending the motorcar elicits an uprising in the crowd, both among those who rebelled against monarchy and those who upheld pre-war society's tenets. In a barroom, the Residence of Windsor is insulted, and a brawl supervenes. Arguably the car and what it signifies creates an undulation of agitation among the multitude of common people, touching on "very profound" emotions (Sautter-Léger 21). For a brief moment, everyone on the street, excluding Septimus, communicates their shared involvement collectively. The multitude reacts with reverence. That vilification is the societies' involuntary response to nationalism, what the community conforms to as a proper response to royalty and the sign of imposing power. However, it appears as though the populace makes no connection between the aristocratic class and personal responsibility for "feeding 3 million men into the war machine" (Sautter-Léger 21). Septimus seemed like the only eyewitness who views the encroachment of royalty into public boulevards as a sign of impending obliteration and repulsion. For Septimus, the car represents the authority that was responsible for the bereavements of combatants fighting for Great Britain.
The author directs the car through the metropolis out of scene again to demonstrate how detached the ruling class is from the real life of ordinary people. Citizens are kept at arm's length from the governing body, and while civilization reveres its royalty, it also fears it. Woolf is illustrating the chasm that exists between the aristocracy's imperialistic opinions that contribute to society's destruction and the shared familiarity of its citizens living in that confounded society. Clarissa Dalloway is the novel's protagonist and the epitome of stoic, British resources. Clarissa is adamant about denying or evading anything that would cause her distress, by the unstated societal decree of the English. By shrouding brutality and desolation in beauty, she prefers to repress the trauma. Her efforts to organize post-traumatic disorder are reminiscent of Great Britain's violence and oppression of World War I devastation (Church 55). Her rebuttal to trauma is to establish beauty in the world around her through signs like a flower collection for her elaborate party. While she demonstrates that beauty can still be found in everyday life, she acknowledges that it is too transient to effect lasting transformation, much like the subjective memorials and homages that riposte alternatives for the challenges of war and death.
Clarissa is introduced by Woolf as she walks the highways of London looking for flowers for her upcoming party. As Clarissa waits on the curb, she is amused by all things she adores: "life; London; this June moment" (Church 57). While she mentions the war, her expedition minimizes the desolation and forfeiture. She recounts the death of Mrs. Foxcroft's son being killed during the warfare, she does so immediately before proclaiming, that the war was over. She puts it as if the soldiers' deaths signaled the end of the anguish (Church 57). Boxborough the woman who established a general store the night she experienced her son's death, earns Clarissa's admiration for her capability to overcome her grief. Clarissa's perception of insusceptibility to Great War desolation is based on her nonexistence of ties to anybody who perished in combat. Clarissa's ignorance may be as a result of a lack of knowledge and uses of hearsay information from others were directly impacted, and aside from a passing mentality. Clarissa seems to have little appreciation for the effect of death on soldiers who survived the warfare. This concept of subjugation and denial in response to war trauma was promoted and demonstrated by the nobility. This reasoning was imparted in schools "as an approach of rule, which the WWI propaganda used to marshal loyal British people, and it was sustained as a postwar culture of repudiation" (Church 57).
Woolf uses Clarissa as a vehicle for expressing what society regards as a reasonable protective measure. Although Clarissa appears emotionally shallow to those around her, when she is alone, she reveals her emotional torment and suffering. Clarissa is convalescing from a heart condition that may be an expression of her "repressed psychosomatic pain (Church 57). She is forced to conceal her true feelings and present her composed self to others, but when left alone with her opinions, she experiences a profound "estrangement instigated by a distressing devastating of her personality" (Church 55). Thus, she embodies prewar England's disintegrated image of power and influence. Although she is a victim of the war's devastation, she chooses to deal with it through the conventional English mode of repression. Clarissa decides not to challenge or cope with her sensations, justifying her decision by indicating that everyone was unreal in some way, have profound reasoning on her position, and identify with English culture's mutual anticipation (Church 57). Clarissa embodies the conceit of British people and society's preeminence before the warfare, as well as society's endeavor to conceal the war's desolation and obliteration. Peter Walsh describes her as the ideal compere who would espouse a leader, equating her with the aristocracy (Fowler 11). While she is aware of this aspect of herself, she feels heavily scrutinized when Peter labels her as authoritative.
Clarissa observes her class's social class and preeminence, and while she is occasionally uncomfortable with her role, she upholds her autocratic mindset as a means of expressing her artistic value to the nation. Clarissa and her companion Richard exemplify the British aristocracy's denial of the public-spirited, British Empire, taxation, ruling spirit (Fowler 12). Richard recognizes the war but maintains the same emotional distance from it as his wife. Already when he ends up going to see her, he says to himself, that it is devastating that the war had left thousands of homeless people with their entire lives ahead of them, shoved around each other and already half-forgotten (Fowler 12). While he is cognizant of the violence and suffering, it seems to be a passing thought. Richard quickly returns to thinking of his lovely wife.
Richard and Clarissa participate in pleasantries about the day when Richard comes back from his banquet with flowers for Clarissa. Clarissa's thoughts drift to her roses rather than to her husband's committee acti...