{"id":758,"date":"2021-04-05T14:22:40","date_gmt":"2021-04-05T18:22:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/london\/?p=758"},"modified":"2021-08-14T14:38:52","modified_gmt":"2021-08-14T18:38:52","slug":"seeing-double-navigating-trauma-in-mrs-dalloway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/london\/seeing-double-navigating-trauma-in-mrs-dalloway\/","title":{"rendered":"Seeing Double: Navigating Trauma in Mrs. Dalloway"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThere was nobody. The party\u2019s splendour fell to the floor, so strange it was to come in alone in her finery.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2014the Bradshaws, talked of death. He had killed himself\u2014but 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!<\/span><\/p>\n

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. (<\/span>Mrs. Dalloway<\/span><\/i>, 184).<\/span><\/p>\n

In her foreword for <\/span>Mrs. Dalloway<\/span><\/i>, Maureen Howard notes that Virginia Woolf described Septimus as Clarissa\u2019s \u201cdouble\u201d (xi). This passage juxtaposes the two characters, linking them. To achieve this, Woolf isolates Clarissa, setting her apart from the party. As the \u201cparty\u2019s splendour fell to the floor,\u201d 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 <\/span>upset<\/span> that such a weighty issue has come into her carefully-curated space. Amidst the usual long, flowing sentences of Woolf\u2019s prose these short sentences catch the reader off guard, much like the news of Septimus\u2019s 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: \u201cAnd they talked of it at her party\u2014the Bradshaws, talked of death. He had killed himself\u2014but how?\u201d (184). Thus, through her prose Woolf shows the reader how learning of Septimus\u2019s death punctures the bubble Clarissa has constructed via the party. Importantly, Septimus remains unnamed in Clarissa\u2019s mind. He is just a \u201cyoung man\u201d to her (184). For Clarissa, Septimus represents death itself, and what it means to her.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2019s shoes, not only wondering what he must have felt, but feeling it herself: \u201cher dress flamed, her body burnt\u201d (184). Rather than framing<\/span> the sentence<\/span> as, \u201cClarissa imagined that he had thrown himself from a window\u2026\u201d, Woolf simply writes, \u201cHe had thrown himself from a window\u201d (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 \u201csaw\u201d Septimus\u2019s suicide, Clarissa wonders \u201cwhy he had done it?\u201d (184). As Clarissa considers this, Woolf draws out the differences between the two characters. While Septimus \u201chad flung it away,\u201d \u201cthey\u201d\u2014Clarissa and her party guests\u2014\u201cwould grow old\u201d (184). As Clarissa mulls their divergent paths, Woolf uses anaphora to emphasize the <\/span>mundane<\/span> future Clarissa faces. The repetition of the word \u201cThey\u201d distinguishes Clarissa and her peers from Septimus. Yet, Woolf\u2019s 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 \u201cwent on living,\u201d yet she does not say \u201cwe\u201d (184). This partial belonging characterizes much of Clarissa\u2019s 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\u2019s rhetorical devices here convey to the reader how these obligations feel to Clarissa\u2014as things piling on, overlaying these inner feelings.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Woolf further explores this burying sensation as Clarissa explores the meaning of Septimus\u2019s suicide. Woolf again uses repetition to communicate her theme, repeating an undefined \u201cthing\u201d that Septimus \u201chad preserved\u201d through his death. Within the paragraph, the language mirrors the meaning. The \u201cthing\u201d becomes buried amidst the words and commas, like the thing itself feels \u201cwreathed about, defaced, and obscured in [Clarissa\u2019s] own life\u201d (184). Septimus\u2019s death shows Clarissa that what \u201cmattered\u201d in life is missing in hers, \u201clet drop\u201d amid the \u201ccorruption, lies, chatter\u201d of her society (184). While she allows it to slip away, Septimus refused to do so. Thus, Clarissa realizes, \u201cDeath was defiance\u201d (184). Rather than suicide being an act of resignation (as Dr. Bradshaw viewed it) Clarissa sees it as an intentional choice, \u201can attempt to communicate\u201d (184). Clarissa understands Septimus\u2019s message while others cannot. She sees that the sensation of being \u201calone\u201d can be a comfort. Instead of seeing it as isolation, she believes there \u201cwas an embrace in death\u201d (184). Thus, through Clarissa\u2019s internal reflection on Septimus\u2019s suicide, Woolf shows how the characters\u2019 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 \u201cthing\u2026 that mattered\u201d and how death can feel like an \u201cembrace\u201d when life feels like anything but.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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 <\/span>experiences<\/span>: Clarissa recovering from her bout with influenza and Septimus from the shell-shock of World War I. Yet the characters\u2019 arcs show how they deal with this trauma in very different ways. Clarissa suppresses that pain\u2014early in the novel she reflects that she \u201cdrew the parts [of her self] together\u2026. never showing a sign of all the other sides of her\u201d (37). Septimus, however, is unable to escape his trauma while he lives and becomes trapped inside it\u2014trapped 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\u2014who 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\u2014with 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\u2019s 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\u2019s failure to effectively address these wounds.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThere was nobody. The party\u2019s 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\u2014the Bradshaws, talked of death. He had killed himself\u2014but … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Seeing Double: Navigating Trauma in Mrs. Dalloway”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3297,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[141,138,43],"class_list":["post-758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-project-2-text-and-context","tag-postwar","tag-virginiawoolf","tag-london"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3297"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=758"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":760,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758\/revisions\/760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}