The Highly Disorganized Post in which I Argue, Among Other Things, that Septimus is a Critique of the British Upper Class (to be Organized Later)

In Mrs. Dalloway, we are presented with two (intertwining?) stories following two characters: one who is conscious of their appearance, analyzes the world around them, and thinks their life is meaningful, and one who appears unfeeling towards the death of a close friend, finds their present constantly infiltrated by their past, feels threatened by a certain frequent visitor, and is unsure about their life.

The latter, of course, said she would buy the flowers herself.

When reading Mrs. Dalloway, perhaps the one passage that really jumped out at me was when Peter mentioned in his musings that Clarissa turned cold and reserved after her sister Sylvia was crushed by a falling tree.

...Syvlia?

Clarissa never mentioned a Sylvia.

For me, it was one of those moments where I stop reading and think, "Naholdonaminut. That completely changes how I view this character." I speculated that since Peter says that Clarissa changed after the event, it must have occurred during the time that Peter knew her--the time at Bourton that Clarissa has been obsessing over throughout her party preparations. It doesn't take much to remind her of Bourton in the first page of the book, so I presume it is not just something she's thinking about on this particular day. Yet in all of her reminiscing on the sea air and Peter and Richard and Hugh and Sally, not once does she mention someone named Sylvia who was crushed by a falling tree.

Hm...

As someone who enjoyed reading about Septimus and Rezia far more than reading about Clarissa, Peter Boring Walsh, and Hugh the Intolerable Ass (and all those other characters), I feel like they should have a purpose in the novel beyond just criticizing psychiatric medicine and making Mrs. Dalloway appreciate life. Instead, I am going to enter a conspiracy-theorist trance and say that Septimus' story is a criticism of the British upper class.

Yup.

To start off with, the novel takes place in London after World War I. The whole city is still recovering. But how much did it actually affect Clarissa? She mentions that she knows some people whose sons died in the war. But other than that, she's convinced that London is coming alive again. Clarissa's experience with WWI does not reflect what was reality for many families: young men (such as Septimus) enlisting in the nationalism-driven frenzy of war plans that revolved around taking the enemy capital before Christmas, and then getting gassed, mowed down by machine guns, blown up by shelling, or killed by any number of diseases going around. The other WWI experience we learn about (other than Septimus', of course) is that of Mr. Brewer, Septimus' employer. What did the Great War do to him?

"(...) took away his ablest young fellows, and eventually, so prying and insidious were the fingers of the European War, smashed a plaster cast of Ceres, ploughed a hole in the geranium beds, and utterly ruined the cook's nerves at Mr. Brewer's establishment at Muswell Hill." (84)

That description doesn't come from Mr. Brewer's thoughts--it's buried in a section of solid narration by Woolf. I can't see any way of interpreting the wording other than sarcastic. Prying and insidious can do a whole lot more than smash flowerbeds.

Septimus and Rezia, on the other hand, are the true face of postwar England. Septimus is mentally scarred from his experience on the battlefield; Rezia is a family member fretting over what to do with her injured loved one. Italy lost a higher percentage of its population than Britain did during WWI, so Rezia presumably faced war woes at home, though this is not depicted in the book.

Septimus and Rezia are still trying to heal the wounds of the war; Clarissa and the rest of the upper class seem to have already gotten over it. Compared to S&R, the stories of the other characters seem so... frivolous.

If you think I'm just saying this because I was bored to death by Peter Walsh ordering Bartlett pears and Hugh the Intolerable Ass acting like a jewelry connoisseur, please say so in the comments.

Clarissa saw her sister die, but doesn't seem to think about it any more. Has she forgotten how to feel? Is the "manliness" from the trenches (suppressing emotions) essentially the same thing that makes Clarissa the perfect hostess, the thing that defines the behavior of British high society? As I see it, Septimus the emotionally damaged war veteran is more sincere in his feelings and more in touch with reality than Clarissa and her fellow socialites are.

That's not to say that Woolf presents Clarissa as a superficial person. The upper-class characters are depicted with all the depth and complexity Woolf thinks is necessary in modern writing; it's just that their less significant struggles are elevated in their minds to the same level as Septimus' psychological "crime" and punishment.

...aaaand I've totally lost any sense of organization. Please excuse the mess.