Mrs Dalloway Depression

200662841

Francis O’Gorman
ENG 3259 Literature, Reading, Mental Health
Question 1. The Representation of Isolation and depression in Mrs Dalloway and The Bell Jar

Many studies of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway have focused on its themes of gender roles, repression, issues of feminism and its writing techniques. I will be examining it from a different perspective; that of mental health issues, particularly isolation and depression. Sylvia
Plath’s The Bell Jar also voices similar concerns with these issues of mental health. As an established writer, Virginia Woolf published her novel Mrs Dalloway in 1925. It was at a time when Woolf was mentally stable. She had previously been shattered with fits
of
“madness” that no amount of prescribed rest could cure. These bouts would usually come after she had experienced a traumatic event. Her early experiences with incest and parental deaths likely proved her depression.1 It seems that writing was one way of Virginia Woolf’s escape from her personal pain and loss. In Mrs Dalloway she began to find her own voice and work through her past by creating a new life on paper. Phyllis Rose states that: “ Mrs Dalloway represents Woolf’s fullest self –portrait as an artist; it contemplates the relationship between her own madness and creativity.”2It was originally entitled “The Hours” but was changed later by
Woolf to Mrs Dalloway.3 In the novel Woolf discovered a new literary form that was capable of expressing the new realities of post war England. Mrs Dalloway takes place in a single day in
June 1923 and depicts the subjective experiences and memories of its characters in post – world war London. Devoid of much physical action, the narrative voice focuses on the inner thoughts of the characters as they flow from one idea to another with little pause or explanation, a style referred to as free indirect discourse. This style gives the reader access to mind of the books protagonist Clarissa Dalloway, and a myriad of other characters as they try to make sense of life from their own perspective. There are several major characters and many minor characters that appear in the text, their thoughts linking together like a web. Occasionally the thoughts that they have connect together and they are successful in communicating with each other. More often however, their thoughts do not connect, which leaves the characters isolated and alone. The metaphors of fish swimming in water used by Woolf indicate how loose the connections between people really are. Characters see each other as objects rather than living people; they think about others but do not necessarily communicate with them. Clarissa’s husband Richard Dalloway loves her but he finds himself incapable of telling her this and uses flowers to convey his message.4 The party that Clarissa holds aims to bring people together, but instead it becomes rather a gathering of a group of people who are actually isolated within themselves. The isolation that they feel creates a deep fear within them. They think they are all alone and that the world is against them because it doesn’t understand them and their problems. In the text we are given the opportunity to see this first hand through the eyes of Septimus Warren Smith, a man who has gone mad because of the war. Having fought in World War 1, Septimus Smith’s mental illness is invariably a result of the casualties that he had witnessed and death, which he narrowly escaped. He is unable to deal with the flash backs and painful memories and as a result defies life by committing suicide. “ He was deserted. The whole world was clamouring; kill yourself, kill yourself, for our sakes?”5, “Besides, now that he was quite alone, condemned, deserted, as those who are about to die are all alone, there was a luxury in it, an isolation full of sublimity; a freedom that the attached can never know.”6 According to Julia Briggs: “ Septimu’s experiences are the only record we have of what Woolf’s illness felt like from the inside” , echoing “ moments from her earlier fiction.”7 Therefore writing about this characters madness means in fact re-writing madness, as Briggs states, and ( to some extent) re -living this traumatic part of the novelist’s personal history. Character creation emerges as ones self.8 Though we can certainly see that Septimus’s mental health has been affected by the violence and death of the
War, many Characters in the novel deny this very possibility of madness. Dr Holmes in particular has the utter lack of comprehension and compassion when dealing with Septimu’s case and thinks that Septimus is just “in a funk”, and that by eating porridge and distracting himself with some sort of activity or a hobby will be the perfect cure.9 Woolf herself had a similar experience and suffered at the hands of her own doctor, Dr Savage. Who like Dr Holmes suggested that she fatten herself up with milk and take plenty of rest.10 This clearly shows the attitude of the doctors post World War 1, towards victims of shell shock and how they were seen and treated. Although Dr Bradshaw is more understanding than Dr Holmes, and diagnoses Septimus correctly, as suffering from post War shell shock trauma, he still wants to send him off to a
“rest” home. His attitude is still revealing of some of the doctors at the time of post World War
1: “ Health we must have; and health is proportion; so that when a man comes into your room and says he is Christ (a common delusion), and has a message, as they mostly have, and threatens, as they often do, to kill himself, you invoke proportion; order rest in bed; rest in solitude; silence and rest; rest without friends, without books; without messages; six months rest.”11 This portrayal of Dr Bradshaw also reflects Virginia Woolf’s own experiences and experiences of other patients who were mistreated, suffered from shell shock and other mental health illnesses. The desire for death is very strong in Septimus. His delusional visions mirror those that
Virginia Woolf herself experienced: “ In writing about the mad delusions of Septimus Warren
Smith, Virginia Woolf described her own insanity and feared people might not be interested in so alien an experience. In fact she provides the best description of a kind of visionary state many people in the twentieth century have experienced in other ways, not at all drug induced.” 12This can be seen in one of Septimu’s delusional episodes where he often speaks to no one but himself, rambling on about the visions that he sees: “ He would shut his eyes; he would see no more. But they beckoned; leaves were alive; trees were alive. And the leaves being connected by millions of fibres with his own body, there on the seat, fanned it up and down; when the branch stretched he, too, made that statement.”13, “ He waited he listened. A sparrow perched on the railing opposite chirped Septimus, Septimus, four or five times over and went on, they sang in voices prolonged and piercing in Greek words, from trees in the meadow of life beyond a river where the dead walk, how there is no death.”14 Septimus is also plagued by hallucinations of his dead friend Evans returning from the battlefield. He cannot bear the presence of death near him, even if it is a product of his imagination. In the end this struggle and his unwillingness to mourn lead him to suicide. He feels the pain intensely. Unable to share his inner torment with others he sees no other way out. Septimus’s visions are a huge problem and a source of anxiety for his wife Lucrezia. She feels ashamed of his behaviour and feels like she has to hide him from the prying eyes of the public: “ Suppose they had heard him?. She looked at the crowd. She must take him away into some park.”15 Lucrezia also suffers from isolation whilst looking after
Septimus. She feels alone at times: “To love makes one solitary she thought.”16, “It was she who suffered- but she had no body to tell. I am alone; I am alone! she cried.”17 She feels isolated and cut off from her family as she has left them in Italy to come to England with
Septimus and has no real friends that she can confide in about Septimus’s illness apart from the doctors, whom like septimus, she thinks are against them at times. This leaves her feeling as isolated as Septimus. By presenting Septimus the way she does Virginia Woolf suggests that war can cause a profound psychological effect on mental health that society at her time was not prepared to accept because it did not conform to the behaviour of the British people and was too often considered as a taboo subject, and as an embarrassment. Her own struggles with mental health gave her the opportunity to witness first hand how insensitive medical professionals could be, and she critiques their tactlessness in Mrs Dalloway. In the introduction to the 1928 edition of Mrs Dalloway, Woolf explains outright that
Septimus and Clarissa are doubles. In fact, she originally planned to have Clarissa kill herself in the end. Both Septimus and Clarissa are disturbed by the social structure and oppressions of
British Life. 18 The two protagonists also share psychological qualities, where Clarissa manages to feel nothing after witnessing the death of her sister, like wise Septimus is also initially pleased with his manly detachment from Evan’s death. The thoughts of death are central to both of them: Septimus thinks about Evan’s death and Clarissa dwells on her own, “ Laying her
Brooch on the table she suddenly had a spasm, as if , while she mused, the icy claws had, had the chance to fix in her.”19 This passage gives an implied sense of separation of the mind/ consciousness from its encompassing body, causing pain, and ultimately death. In this passage
Virginia Woolf uses Mrs Dalloway’s experience to relate to the objective world of fact by relating it to an emotional perception and thus using it as an image to express the emotional reality towards apprehensions such as death. Another example of this kind of imagery can be seen in the text where a “pistol shot” interrupts Clarissa’s vision of beauty at Mrs Pym’s flower shop, coming from the royal car20, which begins a cluster of imagery containing awareness of death. Clarissa is isolated within her upper class society. She feels the need to be the perfect hostess my masking her real feelings and thoughts. Whilst she is out in London on her walk, she feels a kind of loneliness and has melancholy thoughts: “ she had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cab, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day.”21 Clarissa is concerned about her recent illness and ageing. She wrestles with the meaning of life and death: “ Did it really matter that she must inevitably cease completely; all this must go on without her: did she resent it; or did it not become consoling to believe that death ended absolutely.”22 She feels isolated within her upper class circle of friends and feels the need to be a perfect hostess by masking her identity as she prepares for her party.
She gazes into her mirror alone in her room. At this moment she draws herself into focus, into the semblance of a unified self whilst at the same time she exposes such an impression, which seems like an illusion “ seeing the delicate pink face of a woman who was that very night to give a party.”23 Clarissa therefore performs versions of herself when called onto by social conventions, which is a theme that echoes throughout the novel as Clarissa’s day progresses. Both Clarissa and Septimus participate in a lifestyle that also validates imperialism, nationalism and war. While Clarissa manages better than Septimus, they both manage to see beauty in spite of suffering and isolation. Septimus succeeds by rebelling against convention but is only able to do this by committing suicide. Clarissa as an expression of defiance experiences his death, a real communication of the self from which she can benefit too: “ a thing there was that mattered; a thing, wreathed about with chatter. This he had preserved. 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 embrace in death.”24 Phyllis Rose states that: “ Septimus acts out instincts supressed in Mrs
Dalloway, withdrawing to live in a self-enclosed dream – world which becomes a nightmare and
Finally opting for death, while she continues to push herself to connect with people and to respond to the beauty of the world outside her.”25Virginia Woolf and Clarissa do not consider
Septimu’s death as a tragedy.
It is more like a ultimate acknowledgement of the failures of the world around him, a bold rejection of the tyranny and the only way to preserve himself. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is another book that deals with mental health issues of isolation and depression which are mainly seen through the eyes of Esther Greenwood the protagonist of the book. The Bell Jar an isolating object in itself is used as a representation of
Esther’s mental suffocation by her depression upon her psyche. This representation is very important as to how the book can be read and understood in terms of Mental illness. Critics such as Pat Macpherson view Plath’s novel solely through a lens of social criticism. To her Esther’s suicide attempt becomes an act of retaliation against suburbia26and her ultimate release from the mental hospital, or her “ last – passed test” is simply a reflection of her “social” and “psychic” maturity.27 Other critics like Marjorie Perloff describe Esther’s depression as her “ human inability to cope with an unliveable situation”.28 By no means are these points of view accurate descriptions. They do not take into consideration the immediate reality of Esther
Greenwoods mental illness. Most of these critics come to a conclusion that it is the society Esther lives in which is causing her depression and making her ill. They overlook the fact that it may not just be the society but her own intense perfectionism and pre disposition to loss which triggers her onset of depression and drives her to commit suicide. Esther is portrayed as an ambitious student who has excelled academically. A student with a slew of academic scholarships to her name. She is the winner of a New York fashion magazine contest, and as a prize is given an internship with accommodation and all expenses paid for.29
Despite her ambition and success Esther feels isolated and disconnected from society, discouraged and unsure about her future: “ I was supposed to be having the time of my life. I guess I should have been excited the way most of the other girls were, but I couldn’t get myself to react. I felt very still and very empty, the way the eye of the tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo.”30This use of metaphor helps the reader understand how Esther feels as she is unable to react and is disconnected from her feelings.
Elisabeth Bronfen states, “ What should have been a glamorous, enlightening experience
Becomes an ordeal; New York is dark and unfriendly, her work is un interesting, and she
Isolates herself from the other women around her.”31Esther’s disconnection gradually intensifies as the novel progresses. According to Dr Aron.T.Beck’s research “The Development of Depression”32 Esther suffers
From two common and distinct causes of depression. The first cause Dr Beck states is that “ In the course of development, the depression prone- person may become sensitised by certain unfavourable types of life situations such as the loss of a parent”33. As a result of this early traumatic life experience the depressed individual can further exaggerate the losses they have later on in life..34 We can an example of this in the novel when Esther mentions that the last time she had actually felt happy was, when she was nine years old: “ I felt happier than I had been since I was about nine and running along the hot white beaches with my father that summer before he died.35” From this passage we can infer the fact that since her father died she has not been happy at all. In one of the later scenes in the novel we find Esther laying her face down on to her father’s grave: “I couldn’t understand why I was crying so hard. Howling my loss into the cold salt rain.”36This clearly shows that her father’s death has had an impact on the deterioration of her mental health and is the cause of her underlying pain. The second factor of Dr Becks study that applies that to Esther’s mental break down is that “ Depression – prone individuals spend their childhood setting rigid, perfectionist goals for themselves so that their universe collapses when they confront inevitable disappointments later on in life.”37 From the beginning we are given a description of Esther as a perfectionist: “All my life I’d told myself studying and reading and writing and working like mad was what I wanted to do. I did everything well enough and got all A’s and by the time I made it to college no body could stop me.” “I was college correspondent for the town gazette and editor of the literary magazine and secretary of honour of board.”38 It is only when she is rejected from the Harvard writing group that Esther’s depression rapidly spirals out of control: “… you didn’t make the writing course. The air punched out of my stomach.”39 Because of this rejection Esther feels like she has nothing to look forward to, as the academic scholarships and the writing course had so far defined her. This causes Esther to progress further into depression that in turn isolates her from her mother, community and the people around her. She loses interest in the outside world and is unable to concentrate on her reading and writing. Her depression becomes so severe that she is not able to wash and dress her self. All she wants to do is crawl back into bed and shut out the daylight:
“…. even my eyelids didn’t shut out the daylight. They hung the raw, red screen of their tiny vessels in front of me like a wound.”40 The description given here by Esther emphasises the emotional pain that her depression is inflicting upon her through the use of the words “ raw”,
“red”, and “wound”. Further use of this kind of imagery is provided in the passage : “ I crawled between the mattress And the padded bed stead and let the mattress fall across me like a tombstone.”41 The image of the mattress as a tombstone gives a dark death like connotation to the sentence. Both of these passages combined together convey Esther’s depressive state of mind. According to Dr Beck it is this “precipitating event” which sparks the full onset of
Esther’s depression.42 Dr Beck further states that although such an event need not be isolated or sudden, it must assuredly be a great significance to the individual. One of the “Precipitating events” that many clinical and research reports agree on is the “ failure to attain an important goal.”43 In Esther’s case it is her rejection from writing course at Harvard. It is also the precipitating event that leads her to full blown depression, and the important goal that she has failed by her not being accepted on the writing course. Esther’s depression eventually leads to attempt suicide, where she crawls under the porch of her house after swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills: “red and blue lights began to flash before my eyes. The bottle slid from my fingers and I lay down.”44Elisabeth Bronfen states that: “ The plethora of death plots Esther designs for herself before she finally takes an overdose of sleeping pills are, of course, linked to her realisation of her limitations as an artist. Because she has not been chosen to study with a celebrated author at the same time that her lack of experience prohibits her from writing a novel on her own”45 Bronfen further states that: “ Plath emphasises the difference between the Esther, whose symbolic universe is slowly caving in, reduced entirely to its inherent void, and the
Esther belatedly transforming this experience of psychic dissolution into a narrative, which focuses on the exaggeration and histrionic quality of these death scripts”46 as Esther attempts to commit suicide again by lying in the bath tub imagining she is some Roman Philosopher and tries to cut open her veins.”47 Whilst trying to carry out this act of attempted suicide, Esther realises that she cannot bring herself to cut open her wrists. She acknowledges the fact even if she was successful at carrying it out, she was not really achieving anything, as it was not she body that was causing her pain but something much deeper which signifies that it is her mind and mental state that inflict her with pain.48 When Esther goes to see Dr Gordon regarding her mental health issues, he does not seem that interested and is more concerned with superficial things like how pretty the girls were at
Esther’s college: “ I thought he was going to tell me his diagnoses, and that perhaps I had judged him too hastily and too unkindly. But he only said I remember your college well. My they were a pretty bunch of girls.”49 He then ends the meeting without actually saying anything to comfort or reassure Esther that seems insensitive of him. On Esther’s second visit he seems un interested in the letter she tries to show him that she has tried to write to her friend but failed because of her depressive state of mind, and misapplies her with shock treatment.50 This reflects the attitudes of the Psychiatric Medical profession of the 1950’s towards mental illnesses and how they were seen as a defect that was to be hidden. It was not seen as an illness that could be understood or discussed. There is a similar situation shown in Mrs Dalloway, where Dr
Holmes misdiagnoses Septimus and doesn’t seem too interested in his patients symptoms but much rather on the walls of the house Septimus lives in: “ These old Bloomsbury houses said Dr
Holmes, tapping the wall, are often full of very fine panelling.”51 This passage further indicates the fact that the doctors did not fully understand and take into account the concept of mental illness, rather they talked around it misdiagnosed their respective patients in the texts. The lack of support and help by Dr Gordon could be seen as a factor that pushes Esther into further isolation and depression that result in her eventually trying to commit suicide. Dr Nolan on the other hand like Dr Bradshaw is more understanding than Dr Gordon and Dr Holmes as she makes a more accurate diagnoses. The treatment Esther receives in the private asylum is very different to the treatment she received at Dr Gordon’s private hospital. It is much better and she is treated very kindly and sympathetically by Dr Nolan. Dr Nolan actually listens to Esther’s problems unlike Dr Gordon and gains her trust. Whilst in the asylum Esther’s mental health improves to some extent. After her treatment, the experience she tells Dr Nolan about is quite different to the one she experienced at Dr Gordon’s hospital “ I felt surprisingly at peace. The
Bell Jar hung, suspended, a few feet above my head. I was open to the circulating air.” 52 Despite the very many problems and stresses Esther is faced with in life due to her displacement in society by not fitting into an ideal mould of a woman of the 1950’s, and not conforming to the social convention around her. She commits suicide that is not due to these external problems and issues but the internal depression and mental illness that affects her mind, indicated by Dr Beck in his two common cause of depression model. The environment she lives in does play a part in the deterioration of her mental health but it is the “ precipitating event” of her rejection to Harvard that triggers these unfortunate events, and her own perfectionism, which is a truly sad case as she feels isolated, trapped and enclosed inside her Bell Jar. Mrs Dalloway is from a different perspective, more concerned with how society mistreats Septimus’s mental illness and is the cause for his isolation and his ultimate death as he sees no other way out due to the lack of understanding and help from his doctors.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Beck, T. Aaron, “ The Development of Depression: A Cognitive Model.” The Psychology of Depression: ( Contemporary Theory and Research. Ed Raymond, J. Friedman and Martin M.Katz ( Washington: Hemisphere Publishing Corporation,1974)
Bell, Quentin, Virginia Woolf: A Biography: Volume 2 (London: The Hogarth Press Ltd, 1972)
Briggs, Julia, Virgina Woolf: An Inner Life, (London: Penguin Books Ltd,2005)
Bronfen, Elisabeth, Sylvia Plath (Newcastle: Athenaeum Press Ltd, 2004)
De Salvo, Louise, Virginia Woolf: The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on her life and work (Boston: Beacon Press, 1989)
Macpherson, Pat, Reflecting on The Bell Jar (London: Routledge, 1991)
Perloff, Marjorie, “A Ritual for being born twice: Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, Contemporary Literature 13.4: Autumn, 1981.
Plath, Sylvia, The Bell Jar (London: Faber, 2005)
Trombley, Stephen, ‘All That Summer She Was Mad’ : Virginia Woolf and Her Doctors (London: Junction,1981)
Woolf, Virginia, Mrs Dalloway, ed by Stella Mc Nichol (London: Penguin Books ltd, 2000)