Tag: #postwar

Posted on Sophie Garcia

Revulsion Toward the Human in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway

“Here he opened Shakespeare once more. That boy’s business of the intoxication of language—Antony and Cleopatra—had shriveled utterly. How Shakespeare loathed humanity—the putting on of clothes, the getting of children, the sordidity of the mouth and the belly! This was now revealed to Septimus; the message hidden in the beauty of the words. The secret signal which one generation passes, under disguise, to the next is loathing, hatred, despair. Dante the same. Aeschylus (translated) the same. There Rezia sat at the table trimming hats. She trimmed hats for Mrs. Filmer’s friends; she trimmed hats by the hour. She looked pale, mysterious, like a lily, drowned, under water, he thought.

“‘The English are so serious,’ she would say, putting her arms round Septimus, her cheek against his.

“Love between man and woman was repulsive to Shakespeare. The business of copulation was filth to him before the end. But, Rezia said, she must have children. They had been married five years.”

Mrs. Dalloway, 88-89

Woolf begins this passage with Septimus’s post-war reflection on Shakespeare. The passage takes place after Septimus’s return from the war with Rezia. The painting of Septimus’s earlier “intoxication” with Shakespeare’s language as “boy’s business” illustrates more than just the ending of a fascination or interest. The alliteration in “boy’s business” brings attention to it, gives it a name that sounds almost silly, that can be dismissed or condescended when read aloud. The use of the word “intoxication,” meanwhile, evokes a certain kind of sensuality. At this point, years after the war, the sensuality has “shriveled utterly.” Woolf’s language subtly tells her reader that while Septimus assures himself that he has matured or been enlightened—he has moved on from his “boy’s business”—what has really occurred is an absolute loss of sensation. Septimus points it out himself earlier on when he says he cannot feel anything. But it has seeped into his reading of plays that once intoxicated him, so the reader cannot necessarily trust Septimus’s readings.

Thus, when he remarks how “Shakespeare loathed humanity,” really it is Septimus who loathes humanity. Woolf piles up imagery for the reader to understand the depths to which Septimus can no longer feel, employing repetition of “the” to generate almost her own kind of assault on the reader’s senses. Septimus loathes “the putting on of clothes” because he can no longer feel the joy of nice fabric or the decorative properties of clothing; he loathes “the getting of children” because he no longer feels sexual excitement; he bemoans “the sordidity of the mouth and belly!” He takes no pleasure in the taste of food, and feels a disgust in the human body. The word “sordidity” employs repetition of sounds in itself, so the reader might understand that Septimus’s loss of feeling, the “shriveling,” is not so much the result of an extended lack of feeling, but the constant assault that has been placed on his senses while in the war.

Woolf repeats the word “trimming” three times when describing Septimus’s observations of Rezia. The effect is almost chant-like, or like a nursery rhyme, and reveals the way Septimus finds her actions silly, especially when compared to these great truths he believes to have uncovered, from none other than classic writers. Then he compares her to a “lily, drowned, under water.” This might be an allusion to Shakespeare, where Woolf Rezia equates Rezia to Ophelia from Hamlet. Hamlet, concerned with great issues of his father’s death and proper succession, rejects Ophelia. Septimus is thus like Hamlet; burdened with these great truths, or his own beliefs that the world’s “great signal” is of loathing, hatred, despair, Septimus rejects Rezia and avoids giving her children.

Woolf’s prose turns matter-of-fact as Septimus recounts an act of physical love from Rezia: how she puts her arms around him, “her cheek against his.” There is no sensation here, no stirring of emotion either positive or negative. One can practically see the coldness with which he responds, how he stiffens, utterly not at ease, as Rezia reaches out to him. Then the prose turns even colder, the sentences even shorter and straight to the point. “Love between man and woman was repulsive to Shakespeare. The business of copulation was filth to him before the end.” Shakespeare wrote comedies whose endings were marked with marriage. This is not Shakespeare’s opinion; it is Septimus’s. After all, the reader already knows Septimus regards the human body with disgust. How could he ever endure sex?

We’ve discussed at length in class the novel’s historical context as taking place after World War I, leading to discussions of shellshock and mental health in regard to Septimus. I think Woolf illustrates a really interesting understanding of trauma here, however, perhaps even ahead of her time. Today we understand that a characteristic of trauma and PTSD is the constant assault on a person’s nervous system, often triggered through sound or other sensory experiences that remind the victim of the traumatic event. Woolf’s prose, in its constant repetitions and almost bombarding Septimus with sensory experiences, might be trying to replicate the same feeling. In this way, the passage illustrates the ways in which literature can bring to life a phenomenon that might not yet be clinically understood.

Another intriguing historical context is of the novel as a post-pandemic work. Septimus’s aversion to touch, though primarily a symptom of his PTSD, feels incredibly fitting as a response to influenza. It is comparable to the social distancing we undertake in the COVID-19 era, and the near constant anxiety people feel when confronted with contact with another person’s body. The complete revulsion he feels toward the human body seems to have more to do with his general hatred of human existence; however, it would not be farfetched to think of it too as a disgust toward a physical being that carries disease.

Rezia’s character raises the question of women’s history here. I wonder whether she had different rights in England as an Italian immigrant, but either way, women’s suffrage was established in England following World War I. Septimus married her because she was the youngest of the sisters, because she was the “gayest,” perhaps because he thought her silly and unable to challenge him. I wonder whether we are meant to think of her assertion at the passage’s end—that “she must have children”—as a result of this era of women’s expanded liberty. Or is it more of a supplication?

Then, there is the literary context. We now know Woolf as an important voice in the British literary canon, but her inclusion of authors such as Shakespeare, Dante, and Aeschylus illustrates for her reader both what is regarded as a literary canon at the time, and how deeply she deviates from it. Aeschylus comes from Ancient Greece, Dante from the medieval era, and Shakespeare from Elizabethan England. They all wrote in verse and are regarded as important figures, whether in classics or medieval literature. Woolf’s writing, in its plunging into characters’ consciousness and unconventionally structured prose, is revolutionary against this literary backdrop.

Posted on Julia Chaffers

Seeing Double: Navigating Trauma in Mrs. Dalloway

“There was nobody. The party’s splendour fell to the floor, so strange it was to come in alone in her finery.

What business had the Bradshaws to talk of death at her party? A young man had killed himself. And they talked of it at her party—the Bradshaws, talked of death. He had killed himself—but how? Always her body went through it first, when she was told, suddenly, of an accident; her dress flamed, her body burnt. He had thrown himself from a window. Up had flashed the ground; through him, blundering, bruising, went the rusty spikes. There he lay with a thud, thud, thud in his brain, and then a suffocation of blackness. So she saw it. But why had he done it? And the Bradshaws talked of it at her party!

She had once thrown a shilling into the Serpentine, never anything more. But he had flung it away. They went on living (she would have to go back; the rooms were still crowded; people kept on coming). They (all day she had been thinking of Bourton, of Peter, of Sally), they would grow old. A thing there was that mattered; a thing, wreathed about with chatter, defaced, obscured in her own life, let drop every day in corruption, lies, chatter. This he had preserved. Death was defiance. Death was an attempt to communicate; people feeling the impossibility of reaching the centre which, mystically, evaded them; closeness drew apart; rapture faded, one was alone. There was an embrace in death. (Mrs. Dalloway, 184).

In her foreword for Mrs. Dalloway, Maureen Howard notes that Virginia Woolf described Septimus as Clarissa’s “double” (xi). This passage juxtaposes the two characters, linking them. To achieve this, Woolf isolates Clarissa, setting her apart from the party. As the “party’s splendour fell to the floor,” Clarissa is able to reflect on her own identity (184). Woolf emphasizes two themes in this moment of reflection for Clarissa: being forced to confront death, and what that confrontation means for her. Four times, Woolf repeats an iteration of the Bradshaws talking of death at her party. Clarissa is upset that such a weighty issue has come into her carefully-curated space. Amidst the usual long, flowing sentences of Woolf’s prose these short sentences catch the reader off guard, much like the news of Septimus’s suicide knocks Clarissa out of her usual rhythm. Woolf further highlights this through the use of em dashes within these short phrases, further punctuating them: “And they talked of it at her party—the Bradshaws, talked of death. He had killed himself—but how?” (184). Thus, through her prose Woolf shows the reader how learning of Septimus’s death punctures the bubble Clarissa has constructed via the party. Importantly, Septimus remains unnamed in Clarissa’s mind. He is just a “young man” to her (184). For Clarissa, Septimus represents death itself, and what it means to her. 

To explore this meaning, Woolf illustrates the connection Clarissa feels towards this young man, despite not knowing who he is. Clarissa puts herself in Septimus’s shoes, not only wondering what he must have felt, but feeling it herself: “her dress flamed, her body burnt” (184). Rather than framing the sentence as, “Clarissa imagined that he had thrown himself from a window…”, Woolf simply writes, “He had thrown himself from a window” (184). Thus, Woolf shrinks the distance between Clarissa and Septimus. Something links them that enables Clarissa to put herself into his frame of mind. Yet as clearly as she “saw” Septimus’s suicide, Clarissa wonders “why he had done it?” (184). As Clarissa considers this, Woolf draws out the differences between the two characters. While Septimus “had flung it away,” “they”—Clarissa and her party guests—“would grow old” (184). As Clarissa mulls their divergent paths, Woolf uses anaphora to emphasize the mundane future Clarissa faces. The repetition of the word “They” distinguishes Clarissa and her peers from Septimus. Yet, Woolf’s use of the third person, even as Clarissa describes herself, also links Clarissa and Septimus even as their life paths contrast. Clarissa knows she is part of the group that “went on living,” yet she does not say “we” (184). This partial belonging characterizes much of Clarissa’s character throughout the novel, as the reader gets hints that her status as the social nexus of her society is a carefully constructed identity which requires her to mask parts of her true self. Between these moments of anaphora as Clarissa contemplates how life will go on for her, Woolf returns to using long sentences stretched out with parentheticals and semicolons. In these asides Clarissa lists the social burdens that await her when she returns to the party. Woolf’s rhetorical devices here convey to the reader how these obligations feel to Clarissa—as things piling on, overlaying these inner feelings. 

Woolf further explores this burying sensation as Clarissa explores the meaning of Septimus’s suicide. Woolf again uses repetition to communicate her theme, repeating an undefined “thing” that Septimus “had preserved” through his death. Within the paragraph, the language mirrors the meaning. The “thing” becomes buried amidst the words and commas, like the thing itself feels “wreathed about, defaced, and obscured in [Clarissa’s] own life” (184). Septimus’s death shows Clarissa that what “mattered” in life is missing in hers, “let drop” amid the “corruption, lies, chatter” of her society (184). While she allows it to slip away, Septimus refused to do so. Thus, Clarissa realizes, “Death was defiance” (184). Rather than suicide being an act of resignation (as Dr. Bradshaw viewed it) Clarissa sees it as an intentional choice, “an attempt to communicate” (184). Clarissa understands Septimus’s message while others cannot. She sees that the sensation of being “alone” can be a comfort. Instead of seeing it as isolation, she believes there “was an embrace in death” (184). Thus, through Clarissa’s internal reflection on Septimus’s suicide, Woolf shows how the characters’ perspectives are similar. Despite not knowing Septimus or the circumstances of his death, Clarissa intuits what he feels. Even though she will live on, she understands what compelled Septimus to take his life. She sympathizes with the need to hold onto the “thing… that mattered” and how death can feel like an “embrace” when life feels like anything but. 

Thinking about the historical context of the novel helps the reader understand what it is that connects Clarissa and Septimus. Both characters are struggling with the aftermath of traumatic experiences: Clarissa recovering from her bout with influenza and Septimus from the shell-shock of World War I. Yet the characters’ arcs show how they deal with this trauma in very different ways. Clarissa suppresses that pain—early in the novel she reflects that she “drew the parts [of her self] together…. never showing a sign of all the other sides of her” (37). Septimus, however, is unable to escape his trauma while he lives and becomes trapped inside it—trapped by his own mind but also by the failure of those in a position to help like Dr. Bradshaw, who cast his interiority aside. Through these two characters recovering from trauma, Woolf explores the broad psychological effects of the turbulent time in which she writes. By aligning Clarissa—who appears on the surface to be a typical well-to-do upper class British woman who is contented with and in control of her life—with the nearly-incapacitated Septimus, Woolf suggests that the trauma of this era affects all parts of society. Neither the shell-shocked veterans nor the pandemic-surviving housewives can find the care and resolution to their trauma that they need; both are neglected and overlooked by society. The customs of society force both Septimus and Clarissa to suppress their pain; Septimus’s refusal to conform affects Clarissa so much because feels some of the same pressure. Thus, through the doubles of Septimus and Clarissa, Woolf depicts both the trauma that hangs over postwar Britain and the society’s failure to effectively address these wounds. 

Posted on Claudia Frykberg

Futility, Sex & Revenge in Eliot’s The Fire Sermon

III. THE FIRE SERMON

A rat crept softly through the vegetation
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
While I was fishing in the dull canal
On a winter evening round behind the gashouse
Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck
And on the king my father’s death before him.
White bodies naked on the low damp ground
And bones cast in a little low dry garret,
Rattled by the rat’s foot only, year to year.
But at my back from time to time I hear
The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring
Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.
O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
And on her daughter
They wash their feet in soda water
Et O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans la coupole!

Twit twit twit
Jug jug jug jug jug jug
So rudely forc’d.
Tereu

~~~

My chosen passage begins with the image of a rat, immediately establishing one of the poem’s recurring symbols. The rat is vile, degenerative and infamous for its ability to transmit disease and lurk in dirty places. This image is consolidated in the onomatopoeic “slimy belly”, which the rat “drags” along the bank — the word “slimy” evoking disgust, just as the rat’s slinking draws attention to its physical and figurative lowness.

The passage then shifts to describe the speaker as fishing in the “dull canal” — the assonance suggesting a lifelessness contradictory to the normal association of water as life-giving. The word “fish” introduces the allusion to “The Fisher King”, an Arthurian legend that refers to a “King” who, after being injured becomes impotent and turns the world barren. In order to restore the land to fertility, the knight Parsifal must endure various trials, reach the Perilous Chapel, and answer questions relating to the Holy Grail. While Parsifal’s quest speaks of hope, Eliot’s wasteland appears fixed in The Fisher King’s state of endless futility.

This idea of a cold, sterile world is continued in the following line beginning ‘on a winter evening’. Winter is the darkest season where growth is inhibited. Further, it is “evening”, a liminal time belonging to neither day nor night. Light lingers but the onset of darkness is imminent, thus invoking a portrait of a speaker, and perhaps a civilisation, on the brink of its demise.

The following line, beginning with “musing”, draws the reader into the internal thoughts of the speaker. Here the speaker is pondering ‘the king my brother’s wreck / And on the king my father’s death before him,’ — an allusion to Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” in which Prospero schemes revenge on his brother who cast him off to an island and usurped his role as Duke of Milan. This allusion is striking for two reasons. Firstly, the repetition in “king my brother” and “king my father” blurs familial distinctions thus confusing the nature of traditional, reliable institutional structures. Secondly, Eliot alludes to a story that hinges upon revenge – a theme reinforced through other allusions I will discuss later in my analysis.

Sex is another point of interest for Eliot in this excerpt. The line, ‘but at my back from time to time I hear’, is a reference to Marvell’s, To His Coy Mistress — its alliteration and repetition suggesting time creeps up from behind, ticking away to its ultimate conclusion. In Marvell’s poem his speaker acknowledges that if he had an infinite amount of time, he would woo the woman to whom he speaks. However, he argues that given the imminent ageing of their bodies, the woman should forego her coyness and sleep with him. Thus Eliot twists the meaning of the allusion in a manner that demeans traditional values of a woman’s chastity and a man’s chivalry.

The concept of sex equalling connectivity is similarly challenged in the following lines where Eliot introduces “Mrs Porter”, a character in an Australian drinking song sung by soldiers stationed in Egypt prior to being sent to the front. “Mrs Porter”, and her similarly mentioned daughter are prostitutes. The rhyming of “Porter”, “daughter” and “water” encourages a rhythmic meter of a soldier’s merry song — but in reality alludes to young men doomed to die, and mother and daughter prostitutes trying to scrub themselves clean. This allusion is used in conjunction with another — John Day’s, Parliament of Bees which recounts the Greek myth of Diana and Actaeon and, like The Tempest, is centred around revenge. In the poem, Actaeon comes upon Diana, the goddess of war, bathing unclothed. Noticing him, Diana turns him into a stag so that he may never speak of what he saw. Thus, in his allusion, Eliot reduces Diana to a common sex object — the belittling of such a revered figure furthered through the mocking tone evoked by the rhyming couplets.

In the final stanza, Eliot creates a sense of uneasiness by abandoning a more traditional verse for repetitive stressed syllables —“Twit” and “Jug” and iambs — ‘So rudely forc’d / Tereu’. Here he references Philomena, who, in Greek mythology, was raped by her brother-in-law Tereus, who later silenced her by slicing her tongue. Unable to speak, the Gods took pity on Philomena making her nightingale — but while Eliot’s reference could be seen as redemptive, in nature, it is the male, not the female nightingale that sings.

In The Waste Land, Eliot interweaves a variety of collective moods and personal experiences in order to cultivate a tone that is rooted in sterility and meaninglessness. Historically, Eliot uses a plethora of imagery – the scurrying rat which evokes images of soldiers in the trenches, the mention of bones and bodies – to capture a nihilistic post-WWI zeitgeist.

The poem is representative of a time where the war was over but ‘revenge’ brought only disenchantment. Thematically Eliot explores these concepts through his allusions to Shakespeare and John Day. In a world that has been irreversibly changed through suffering, the notion of “revenge” appears empty and any true solace unachievable.

A new era of industrialisation forced an end to romanticism and a confusion as to how society might reconfigure itself in this state of “in-between”. Urbanisation brought a lack of traditional guidance — in family, Elizabethan conventions and religion that failed to ease the deep post-war grief. Eliot’s experimentation with poetic construction can then perhaps be seen as a reflection of this uncertainty, as he shifts from traditional verse to jarring stressed syllables and iambs.

In light of this suffering, Eliot reveals how civilians sought meaning through connection, ultimately turning to sex (“Mrs Porter”, “His Coy Mistress”). However, through these allusions Eliot degrades the value of sex examining how individuals’ attempts to cultivate connectedness were only met with disappointment.

Finally, we can consider Eliot’s own disenchantment as a soon-to-be middle-aged poet grappling with a desire to write with authenticity. Hospitalised for depression in 1921, he perhaps looked to the authenticity of others, littering the poem with allusions. Through these constructs he explored the lingering repercussions of war, the torment of an inability to find meaning in intimacy, and a loss of hope for the future of society as a whole.

 

Posted on Nicole Kresich

Surviving Isolation: A Commentary on Clarissa’s Parties in Mrs. Dalloway

“Since she was lying on the sofa, cloistered, exempt, the presence of this thing which she felt to be so obvious became physically existent; with robes of sound from the street, sunny, with hot breath, whispering, blowing out the blinds. But suppose Peter said to her, “Yes, yes, but your parties – what’s the sense of your parties?” all she could say was (and nobody could be expected to understand): They’re an offering; which sounded horribly vague… But to go deeper, beneath what people said (and these judgments, how superficial, how fragmentary they are!) in her own mind now, what did it mean to her, this thing she called life? Oh, it was very clear. Here was So-and-so in South Kensington; some one up in Bayswater; and somebody else, say, in Mayfair. And she felt quite continuously a sense of their existence; and she felt what a waste; and she felt what a pity; and she felt if only they could be brought together; so she did it. And it was an offering; to combine, to create; but to whom? An offering for the sake of an offering, perhaps. Anyhow, it was her gift. Nothing else had she of the slightest importance; cannot think, write, even play the piano.” (Woolf, 121-122)

The presence of the omniscient narrator in Virginia Woolf’s, Mrs. Dalloway unveils Clarissa Dalloway’s struggle to balance her innermost thoughts with the external yet intimate world of the socially elite. Coupled with the overwhelmingly sensorial imagery, Clarissa’s tendency towards introspection in the opening lines suggests a deeper purpose in organizing her party. Lying on the sofa, the isolating diction the narrator ascribes to Clarissa’s “cloistered” and “exempt” state illustrates her in private seclusion, sheltered from the outside world and the social happenings of upper-crust society (Woolf, 121). However, the “presence of this thing,” the gravity of her impending party, “became physically existent,” (Woolf, 121). In possessing knowledge about interior thoughts and emotions, Woolf’s omniscient narrator relays the tangible impact that Clarissa’s departure from isolation provoked in her sudden feeling of excitement and vivacity surrounding her nearing party. Woolf’s employment of the semicolon in this opening sentence connotes a sudden shift in tone from an overwhelming sense of solitude to a visceral stream of sensory experience. The personification of the outside world that Clarissa suddenly becomes aware of– the heat of the sun, the noise from the street, and the “blowing of the blinds”– corroborates an immediate introduction of life into the bleak space surrounding Clarissa’s position on the sofa (Woolf, 121). 

Clarissa’s preoccupation with what she presupposes as Peter’s demanding inquisition into the purpose of her parties in the dialogue of her innermost thoughts (“what’s the sense of your parties”) reiterates the internal struggle Clarissa faces with defining meaning and purpose in hosting these extravagant social events (Woolf, 121). The structural significance of the parentheses Woolf effects in Clarissa’s response to this question, “(and nobody could be expected to understand),” reveals an aside into Clarissa’s innermost thoughts, where the significance of “nobody” connotes Clarissa’s self-ostracism from exterior society (Woolf, 121). Clarissa’s tendency towards introspection in this parenthetical break recognizes that her hesitation in returning to the public eye stems from a deeper, more personal reasoning that she alone can understand. 

In positing her parties as “offerings,” the diction Clarissa manipulates suggests that her social events operate as gifts in contribution to society. The effect of proposing the party as one would describe a gift or a blessing beholds a deeper purpose in her intention. However, before we arrive at this intention, Woolf structurally interrupts with another parenthetical, “(and these judgments, how superficial, how fragmentary they are!)”, marking a return to Clarissa’s internal debate between the frivolity of her parties despite her previously excited tone (Woolf, 122). Yet, in succeeding this parenthetical with a question preoccupying her purpose in life, Clarissa refocuses on what brings her existence joy. This newfound responsibility to celebrate life conflicts with the moment of bleak isolation in the passage’s opening where the deeper purpose of Clarissa’s party is unveiled to share this joy through the community engagement that her parties offer. 

Clarissa responds to her own question with clarity: living in isolation is a “waste” and should be “pitied,” therefore her purpose in life is to bring people together (Woolf, 121). Stemming from her own experience in isolation, Clarissa questions the purpose in existing without the intimate connections formed that celebrate humanity as it should operate: together. Therefore, her “offering for the sake of an offering” occupied the highest importance, not solely for Clarissa herself, but as her social motivation and responsibility to instill the joy of human interaction and engagement with her guests (Woolf, 122). In describing her parties as “offerings” and “gifts,” Clarissa relies upon her social gatherings to provide meaning to a world that would otherwise be considered wasted. Despite the superficiality she criticizes about social events, Clarissa posits her party as a gift to both herself and those amongst her social sphere to extract the essential function in hosting: Clarissa throws parties in an attempt to draw people together and offer the community engagement essential to achieving a sense of fulfillment and belonging. 

Clarissa’s desire to achieve purpose in her rediscovery of the social world reflects the notion of rebirth experienced during this post-World War I and post-pandemic locale. Recovering from the isolating effects of quarantine herself, Clarissa’s nervousness about her reintegration into society stems from her recently having been ill with the Spanish Influenza. Woolf explores the isolating effects of the war and the pandemic on human behavior and the idea of permanence in Mrs. Dalloway. However, it is in this passage that we see Clarissa struggling with post-pandemic social anxiety, as well as a nostalgia for a world before this sense of discontinuity. Clarissa raises the question amidst her inner struggle with returning to society, “(and nobody could be expected to understand),” because none of her peers had undergone similar seclusion, uncertainty, and fear that plagued Clarissa while she was ill. As someone who had evaded death herself, Clarissa’s motivation and hesitation to refocus on life becomes clear; she suffers from the social anxiety of her isolating experience, yet has returned to the forefront intending to share her appreciation for social interaction (Woolf, 121). The tension implicated in Clarissa’s internal struggle to exist in a world following the uncertainties about the aftermath of war and influenza affirms Clarissa’s socially charming yet private and protected demeanor. The language Woolf invokes to describe Clarrisa’s party as an “offering” connotes something open to the public, yet intimately privatized with a guest list. Contextualized in a way that revives the socio-political history of the early 20th-century, this tension embodies the lived experiences and attitudes of this impacted, post-war society yet inspires a new appreciation and perspective towards human belonging.