Twentieth-century author Virginia Woolf shows how English society continues to be affected by the devastation of World War I in the years of peace through her celebrated novel Mrs. Dalloway. Although middle-aged Clarissa Dalloway never fought in the trenches like Septimus Smith, her daily reality and relationships are also complicated by the events of the war and the influenza pandemic of 1918. Clarissa attempts to overcome the alienation of modern life that Septimus and his wife Rezia feel so deeply by throwing a party to bring people together in connectedness and community. Even in June 1923, the war continues to affect Septimus and Clarissa’s daily realities and relationships as they yearn for a healing from the past that can only come through connection with empathetic people.
Even though Clarissa was not a soldier or a nurse, she is deeply affected by the war and the influenza pandemic that immediately follows it. Beidler remarks: “In Mrs. Dalloway, the chief representatives of war trauma include the mad, shell-shocked veteran Septimus Smith, but also the upper-class party-giver and hostess Clarissa Dalloway, who has notably lost her health and her earlier vision of life through a near fatal infection with Spanish Influenza” (4). Clarissa is one of the millions of people who fell victim to Spanish Influenza that decimated the world in the final year of the war. People say that Clarissa’s heart is affected by influenza and she has “grown very white since her illness” (4). Although she might seem to be a woman only concerned about her party, Clarissa is aware of the suffering of people around her and her own suffering as society attempts to recover from the devastation of the war.
Like Septimus’s doctors, many people believe that the war is a thing of the past and that the world has moved on and forgotten the trauma of those four devastating years. When Clarissa’s husband Richard sets out to buy flowers for his wife, he thinks: “Really it was a miracle thinking of the War, and thousands of poor chaps, with all their lives before them, shovelled together, already half forgotten, it was a miracle” (115). Kathryn Van Wert comments on Richard’s seeming indifference and asks: “Is this really the picture of a consciousness impinged on by the war? Like many of the explicit references to war in Mrs. Dalloway, it seems rather to indicate the uncanny distance that characters… feel from the war and its realm of consequence” (Van Wert 72). Some people want to forget about the war and move on with their lives. Yet, for people like Mrs. Foxcroft, who sat “last night” at the “Embassy…eating her heart out because that nice boy was killed,” the war will never be over (5). People forget that the events of the past influence the present. Clarissa is reminded of the war by the sight of the aeroplane over the busy streets of bustling England. The aeroplane is described as an ominous sight to the crowd and the “white smoke” coming “from behind” is only a reminder of the aeroplanes that terrorized the sky and bombed the city during the war years (20). Although Clarissa might appear to have moved on with her life, she is keenly aware of the effects of the war and feels a strong connection with Septimus.
Through news of Septimus’s suicide, Clarissa is reminded of the war even at her party, which is supposed to be a celebration of life and bring people together. Beidler remarks that in “the era of postwar social recovery and rehabilitation, the war becomes the great party crasher” (7). The reminder of the war and the “great party crasher” emerges when Clarissa overhears Sir William talking about Septimus’s death when he says that a “young man…had killed himself” (183). Clarissa is initially annoyed that the Bradshaw’s “talk of death at her party” since her party is supposed to celebrate life and bring people together (184). Death is the great disconnector that tears people apart. Yet after some reflection, Clarissa feels “somehow very like him—the young man who had killed himself. She felt glad that he had done it; thrown it away” (186). She recognizes that although Sir William appears to be “a great doctor,” he is “to her obscurely evil, …capable of some indescribable outrage” (184). Clarissa sees Sir William’s lack of empathy and understands the isolation and helplessness the young soldier must have felt. She decides that she does “not pity” Septimus because he “made her feel the beauty; made her feel the fun” (186). Despite the darkness of the war-torn past, Clarissa sees beauty in life and finds healing in connecting with others. This connectedness is the purpose of her party which she views as “her gift,” as “an offering; to combine, to create” (122). Clarissa thinks that it is “unsatisfactory…how little one knew people” and hopes to combat feelings of alienation and isolation with communion and fellowship with other human beings (152).
Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Smith are examples of the casualties of war in a world where everyone is trying to forget the past, not realizing that one’s past shapes present realities and relationships. Septimus’s shell shock isolates him from society as he lacks a way to communicate his suffering and his crime. He becomes unable to connect both emotionally and physically with his wife, Rezia, and his doctors, Dr. Holmes and Sir William, are unable to empathize or understand his condition. In the same way, Clarissa suffers from the effects of influenza and is constantly reminded by the grief of mourning mothers, like Mrs. Foxcroft, and ominous airplanes in the sky that the trauma of the war still remains. Clarissa understands that healing from the past can only come through connection with others and hopes her party will be the platform for such communion. Clarissa realizes that Septimus’s suicide is an example of the tragic consequences that occur when an individual lacks connection and continues to be isolated in society, even by the people who think they are trying to help him.
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Works Cited
Beidler, Philip D. “The Great Party-Crasher: Mrs. Dalloway, the Great Gatsby, and the
Cultures of World War I Remembrance.” War, Literature & the Arts: An International Journal of the Humanities, vol. 25, 2013, pp. 1-23. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=94829631&site=ehost-live.
Van Wert, Kathryn. “The Early Life of Septimus Smith.” Journal of Modern Literature, vol. 36,
no. 1, 2012, pp. 71-89. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=84915720&site=ehost-live.
Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. Harcourt, 1925.
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