"So [Septimus] was in their power. Holmes and Bradshaw were on him" (Woolf 147). In other words, Septimus felt smothered by the doctors that were supposed to be taking care of him and acting in his interest. He felt stifled by their treatments. Right before his suicide he laments what he is about to do, "He did not want to die. Life was good" (Woolf 149). Thus, he had gone against his own feelings of not wanting to die and thinking that life was good in order to escape the pain that he associates with life. He did not want to be crazy anymore, he did not want to be separated from his wife by Dr. Bradshaw, and he did not want Holmes barging into his home in order check on him. Some readers might think that Septimus fails himself and his wife by taking his life. Other people might even think him a coward, as Dr. Holmes exclaims when he sees the body (Woolf 149), but Woolf portrays his life and death as a success as compared with that of Mrs. Dalloway, Peter Walsh, and all of the other characters in the novel. The reason for this portrayal of success lies in the fact that Septimus took control of his life. Through his suicide Septimus basically accepts responsibility for world events, such as the war and the pain and suffering it has caused, that are in no way his responsibility. He experiences the pains of life much more fully than the other characters and therefore cannot stand to live through the atrocities that have taken place in the world. However, while Mrs. Dalloway and other characters feel nothing, at leas Septimus feels something, and unfortunately that something is pain. Septimus knew that his life would never get any better than it was right now and just decided to end it on that high note. He felt smothered by society and its pressures and just absolved himself from participation in society. .
As a parallel character to Septimus, Richard, in The Hours, also takes his life as a means to relieve himself from the struggles of society and his condition.
General Overview Mrs. Dalloway is unique novel which takes place in a single day of the life of Clarissa Dalloway, an upper class woman in post-World War I England in mid-June 1923. ... "The Inscrutable Mrs. Dalloway" a research paper analyzing Mrs. ... Dalloway" a psychological study of Mrs. ...
Their failures allowed the illness to be forgotten each time epidemic cases following war faded, but several brilliant minds over the century continued to tussle with the problem and contribute, little by little, to the shaping of a scientific diagnosis. ... Robbed of all humanity and courage and everything else that makes life worth living, really, they descended to something less than human." ... Virginia Woolf also incorporated a character named Septimus, who suffered from shell-shock, in her novel "Mrs. Dalloway." Septimus relived the moment in his life when his best friend was blown to...
