Today, I had an opportunity to attend my first panel presentation. I really enjoyed both that were presented: not only did they influence me more into Mrs. Dallow, Septimus and the thoughts of relativity, I also learnt and understood what to do and what not to do in my own panel presentation (funny cause it's like in October). I really thought of the first panel presentation (From the article "Trauma and recovery in Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway" by Karen Demester) as quite intuitive relating Septimus to Mrs. Dalloway, in ways that I had not really thought of before. Septimus is a war veteran, with the war severely affecting him and his perspective of life (mainly suffering from shell shock) such as a disbelief of death, seeing signs and other abstract things which others don't. On page 24, when Woolf takes us into Septimus' head " ...how there is no death ..... But he dared not look. Evans was behind the railings." Evans is dead, he died in front of Septimus, and yet Septimus still sees him. Similarily, it was brought up that Clarissa saw her sister die in front of her with a tree comming down. This brings up an interesting question "Is Clarissa really a trauma victim?" To answer this question correctly, it will be necessary to look at the definition of trauma closer. Trauma is, in general, a deeply disheartening, distressing and disturbing experience. By this definition, Clarissa has been through a serious traumatizing experience However- unlike Septimus who at first did not react at Evans death considering himself "manly", he later has severe emotional distress and depression, which can also be referred to as shell shock- Clarissa, from what is depicted in the book, went through this moment, and has locked it in a place in her head and moved ahead. Clarissa has become a socially accepted person in society as she has moved on; and so could have Septimus, had he been able to move on. I don't know, what do you guys think?
I think that it really depends. Like Leah and others said, trauma appears in different forms. The thought that Clarissa seemed to not mention her sister at all throughout the book is actually kind of unsettling. We had to get the information from Peter. I think that instead of Clarissa getting over her sister's death, she tries as hard as possible to block it out. This would be reasonable since her sister died in front of her when she was younger. Both Bradshaw and Holmes want Septimus to become more like Clarissa, a socially acceptable person. What I think Virginia Woolf is trying to convey through her novel is that not everyone can be treated the same way so that we are all alike. Septimus needs to be approached a different way.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Tommy that Clarissa has blocked out this memory because it was traumatizing to her. However, I think that she is still affected by it on a daily basis. Though we don't see this in the same way we do in Septimus, to me Clarissa is the way she is because her sister was killed. I think that because of her sisters death, she has a need to be "the perfect hostess" and lead the life that was expected of her. Even in today's world, we try to treat those who have lost loved ones in familiar way to provide stability, and I think that Clarissa may have subconsciously done this for herself. She is a trauma victim, but she has handled the consequences that are beyond her control in a much different way than Septimus.
ReplyDeleteClarissa may not have symptoms of the specific kind of disorder Septimus displays (which they called "shell shock" at the time, and we now know more clinically as PTSD). And the fact that she doesn't explicitly think of this terrible experience from many years ago doesn't mean that she's repressed it, necessarily--it's not like she'd be expected to think about it every day, more than 30 years later. But we can see how this early experience shaped her view of religion (first "bitterness" at God, and then an absence of belief), and we can also see it in her "personal religion" that affirms life and social interaction and all that. Clarissa has a keen sense of the fleeting nature of life--that it "all must end"--and we may well connect this to her early traumatic experience. (And the psychoanalysts can do what they will with the idea that her father is partly to blame . . .)
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