Examples Of Mental Illness In Mrs Dalloway

Mental illness is very clearly described in Mrs Dalloway. Septimus is a character in the book who suffers from mental illness, and Gay (2007) gives examples of this: he hears a sparrow, which gives him a message about death not existing and this becomes torture for Septimus. He also has hallucinations; he sees his dead friend Evan, who sings to him about the dead in Thessaly. He goes as far as committing suicide (85). Mrs Dalloway is a book where the past and the present connect and one way of connecting this is with Septimus and his mental illness. He has become ill after the war, probably post-traumatic stress syndrome which is common for people who have experienced war. His hallucinations are examples of the past; Thessaly is a mythical

Gay (2007) also says that Woolf is claiming past literature for herself and other female writers, she is celebrating life-affirming properties in Mrs Dalloway. Woolf’s method brings the past and the present together (84). Septimus’ suicide is a consequence of his illness and a way Woolf uses to tie the knot in her book. She could have let him live, but it seems that she used a man, a war hero to make mental illness and suicide more legit and acceptable than if she had characterized Clarissa with mental illness and committing suicide. Nevertheless, Woolf is clearly imitating precursors with Mrs Dalloway and this is presented in Allen (2000) when he discusses Bloom’s vision of the intertextual process. Woolf has used Greek literature. One example is Thessaly that is presented in Septimus’ hallucinations. Other examples of intertextuality are the ones Gay (2007) presents in her text, the words from Shakespeare Septimus hears before committing suicide: “Fear no more, says the heart in the body; fear no more” (Gay 91). In my opinion, Woolf uses previous literature creating something new and trying to legit something that was taboo during her

This is also a clear example of homoerotic desires in the book. “The strange thing, on looking back, was purity, the integrity, of her feeling for Sally. It was not like one’s feeling for a man. Then came the most exquisite moment of her whole life (…) Sally stopped (…); kissed her on the lips” (Wolf 25-26). Clarissa clearly rejects heterosexual relations according to Gay (2007), Gay continues with stating that Clarissa doesn’t sleep with her husband which could indicate that she is a virgin. Even though Clarissa is presented as the perfect society wife, Woolf offers alternative potentialities of Clarissa’s attraction for Sally Seaton (Gay 89). Woolf has illustrated homoerotic desires in a very subtle way; it feels like she is testing the field. Homosexuality was not acceptable during her days, this is also one way for her connecting the past and the present because homosexuality among men was common in Greek literature. It seems like she has twisted things to make a point, women are commonly seen as mentally ill in books and in life and men were ‘accepted’ as homosexuals in ancient Greek. Allen (2000) refers to Kaup who claims that 19th-century romance either ends in marriage or death. Resolutions of a marriage plot inscribe the sex-gender system and feed women into heterosexuality (p.146). This is not the case with Woolf; her ‘heroine’ is married but has homoerotic