Oppressing the Oppressor

Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway is full of themes, one of the most prevalent being the threat of oppression. Woolf uses both Septimus and Clarissa to reflect this fear of losing freedom, though in a type of parallel; Septimus is aware of the threat and actively tries to prevent it, while Clarissa seems to have no clear idea of both being oppressed and contributing to it until the very end of the novel.

Coming back from the war, Septimus not only suffers from shell shock but from a sudden change in perspective about life. He was the first to volunteer for the war, believing that it was his duty to protect a world with both Shakespeare and his current love, trusting in the strength of his passion for both of these to support him through the war. However, after the death of Evans, he not only loses all emotion, but comes to lose the prospects in life that truly make him happy. The literary texts and poems that he used to adore are suddenly full of hidden messages telling him that life is full of “loathing, hatred, despair” (Woolf 139). His possible future with Isabella is extinguished when he desperately marries Rezia in fear of dying before the end of the war.

After despairing at the realization that he has become numb and that the world is not as inviting as he first believed, Septimus becomes aware of the hauntings of “human nature”, believing that “the verdict of human nature on such a wretch was death” (Woolf 138). He becomes aware that his thoughts aren’t welcome in society and struggles to stay away from any who try to oppress him, explaining his hatred of both Dr. Holmes and Sir William. Dr. Holmes adamantly denies anything is wrong with Septimus, instead suggesting he take bromides or go golfing. Sir William seems to have something of a superiority complex, firstly criticizing Holmes and other practitioners for their incompetence, then bluntly telling Rezia that there is no hope for Septimus and that he needs to be put in a home. His attitude suggests both arrogance and the need to fix only what he believes needs to be fixed, oppressing and further antagonizing Septimus. In the end, Septimus, albeit reluctantly, commits suicide in his refusal to undergo anyone else stripping him of his freedom and thoughts and in despair of the hatred existing in the world.

Clarissa, when hearing about Septimus’ suicide, is at first disgusted by the fact that death is being discussed during her party. However, after retreating into a separate room away from the party, she realizes that Septimus decided to die in anger of being oppressed and knowing he would never be free: “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” (Woolf 184). And in realizing why Septimus died, she also realizes something more important, something that the reader may have realized since the beginning of the novel: she is part of the problem. She realizes that “somehow it was her disaster — her disgrace” (Woolf 184). Throughout just that one day, Clarissa had many thoughts about her need to host the perfect party, about her fortune of becoming the perfect hostess, feeding into the society that had oppressed Septimus in the first place. She herself has been oppressed, restraining herself to one, linear role, and disgraces Septimus’ death in staying where she is. And in her revelation, she decides that “she felt glad that he had done it; thrown it away” (Woolf 185), something that she doesn’t have the strength to do just yet.

Through the novel, Woolf is able to effectively show how little society understood about the trauma suffered by many from the war and society’s almost poisonous attitude towards those not fitting the status quo, becoming a moving novel in its time.

 

Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1925. Print.

The Rift Between Generational Ideals

In light of our recent focus on the trauma and brutality of the Great War, it proves difficult to dissociate Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway from its historical context. In the aftermath of the Great War, there existed a desire to return to normalcy, to a sense of what things used to be rather than what they existed as post-war. Whilst the older generation clung to what once was, the newer generation, the generation of men who sacrificed their lives and sanity, the generation of women who watched playmates and brothers go off to war, never returning exactly as they were, the newer generation struggled to escape from the past. Woolf’s characters do a marvelous job of reflecting this rift which exists between the generations, for while she is the title character, Mrs. Dalloway’s story is not the only one of extreme importance to the text. As a member of the soldiers’ generation, Septimus Warren Smith’s story parallels Clarissa’s, providing the contrast which is necessary to highlight the themes of transition and the desire to move away from antiquated societal norms.

In many ways, Clarissa and her companions represents a part of society which existed before the start of the Great War and which has since ceased to be important for the younger generation. This becomes apparent in Clarissa’s obsession with her party and the focus which the party-goers’ pay to material objects and judgements. Even Lucy, who is not of the same status of Clarissa and her friends but still a member of this culture, maintains this materialistic ideology as she describes one of the party rooms and how the guests will react not to the atmosphere of the party but to “the beautiful silver, the brass fire-irons, the new chair-covers, and the curtains of yellow chintz” (Woolf 165). Their concern is not of anything of importance but objects which they have commodified and determined to have worth, and for many of them, these objects of value do not include human life or real human concerns. Even when presented with death, the party goes on and Clarissa, as a figurehead for this materialistic generation, bemoans the fact that “Oh!…in the middle of my party, here’s death” (183). She is not as much upset by the fact that someone who fought for their country took his own life but that his death would possibly invade her party, ruining the experience for herself and her guests.

On the other hand, Septimus’ character represents quite the opposite because Septimus is not a member of the older generation but of the generation which experienced the trauma of war first hand. Septimus, thus, does not belong to the same social circle nor does he apply the same societal ideals to his own life. Rather than attempting to maintain the pre-War culture, Septimus attempts to repress the past, choosing to instead focus on what he can decipher as real. He focuses on his present, focusing on “the sideboard; the plate of bananas; the engraving of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort; at the mantelpiece, with the jar of roses…all were still; all were real” (142). Septimus thus focuses on materials in a similar way Clarissa but his focus is not the material worth of the objects but on the physical fact that they are real, that they exist like him. He is a victim of society and of the war and he struggles in vain to forget the trauma of war, of the loss of his friend Evans, of the utter destruction and brutality that was forced upon him by his nation. And though he is a member of the younger, war generation, Septimus finds himself isolated within his age group as there is no one he knows who understands the war as he does. Even his wife, though just as young as him, fails to understand Septimus and his experiences, choosing to instead focus on their possible. She wishes to escape the past and for her husband to escape the past which her husband has been forced to endure.

Of course, Clarissa is not at fault for the materialistic actions of her peers or society but as a central character of the text, she acts as a figurehead for the older generation who refuses to relinquish their hold on the past ideals. Clarissa is a product of the pre-war society just as Septimus is a victim of the war itself. They both struggle to deal with the past, but they attempt this in different ways. Clarissa attempts to forget about the war by celebrating the glorious culture of her youth while Septimus attempts to forget about the war by centering himself on the present. Yet instead of trying to separate themselves from the past, Clarissa and her companions return to the antebellum ways of society, hanging onto the threads of the world which they grew up in and which are slowly, but surely, crumbling beneath their fingertips, while the youth attempt everything in their power to escape the traumatic confines of the past and in particular the Great War.

Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. Harcourt, Inc., 1981.

The Tragedy of Septimus Warren Smith

War is a brutal thing. War is an unforgiving thing. War is a thing that takes the very best of men and grinds them down to the primeval level that they hide from in the cloak known as civilization. And it is this War that took Septimus Warren Smith and crushed him. It is through Septimus, specifically through Septimus’s reading of Shakespeare, that Virginia Woolf is able to give a profound understanding of the significant philosophical pivot that occurred due to the Great War.

Septimus was an academic, a man “…devouring Shakespeare, Darwin, The History of Civilization, and Bernard Shaw” (Woolf 85). Woolf characterizes Septimus, before the war, as the best of Britain: a cultured, well read gentleman. And so, when the Great War dawns surely he is the first to enlist, surely he is the first to fight and die for his beloved country. Woolf uses Septimus to be reflective of the social consciousness of the time. Men Septimus’s age, nourished in the British glories of the Victorian era, were fascinated by the perceived glories of war, and ached for a chance to defend their cherished homeland. In the trenches, Septimus finds brotherhood in Evans and as a result finds acceptance and understanding. And so for a large part of the war, Septimus has what we yearn for as human beings: validation, purpose, and friendship. Then Evans is killed. They didn’t talk about this in the books, in the poems, in the plays. They never mentioned the feeling of empty despair as you gaze upon the shell your friend once inhabited. Septimus does not know what to do, and so “…he congratulated himself upon feeling very little and very reasonably” (Woolf 86). The visage of idealism he–and all his countrymen–went into the trenches with was left there, horribly mutilated beyond recognition when they all climbed out. There was nothing there but death, nothing there but horror, nothing there but the depravity of the human soul. And so when Septimus climbs out of the trenches, he is not able to process what he has gone through. His cherished system had failed him. All the stories, all the patriotism had failed him. And so for a time, he numbly conforms. He goes through the motions, marries in haste, comes back to London, trying desperately to go back to the way things were. And then Woolf has him open Shakespeare again.

Where there was beauty, Septimus now finds depravity. Where there was idealism, Septimus now finds cynicism. He applies his own exegesis of Shakespeare to his life as fervently as a Puritan would apply scripture to his. Even sex, the embodiment of intimate affection, is unattractive to Septimus, who decides that, based on his new interpretation of Shakespeare, the “…business of copulation was filth to him before the end” (Woolf 89). His idealism shattered, Septimus has no desire to see children enter this depraved world. In fact, he sees himself as doing a moral good in this, arguing that he “…cannot perpetuate suffering, or increase the breed of these lustful animals, who have no lasting emotions, but only whims and vanities…” (Woolf 89). And so Septimus gives up. To him there is no grand story to life, no hope beyond the present, no moral worth fighting for. Everything is vanity, everything is a chasing after the wind. And so he gives up, like his brothers in arms have across England. The war ruined the collective psyche of a generation of European men. The system that they so firmly believed in, the war they put their dreams of conquest and glory in, ultimately failed them, and they had nothing left. In many ways they felt betrayed, cheated out of a true existence.

Shakespeare had not changed before the war or after the war. Shakespeare had stayed the same for the past 300 years. But the cultural feelings had changed, the cultural philosophies had changed, and this reflected in their understanding and reading of not just Shakespeare, but literature in general. Horror had been pushed onto the mainstream culture in a way no one conceived to be possible up until that point. Septimus’s reading of Shakespeare before and after the war indicates a clear societal movement from idealism to nihilism, as the Victorian era is drowned out by the deafening sounds of horror in the trenches.

Works Cited

Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1925. Print.