When the war broke out in 1914, everyone expected it to be over rapidly, yet it lasted for four long old ages, claiming the lives of 1000000s of immature soldiers. Never had anyone seen such a barbarous devastation before, and it was commoly referred to as the “ Great War ” . It had shaken whole Europe, affected the lives of both soldiers and civilians to a great extent. The dark image of desolation overshadowed all walks of life, including literature. Many poets, and civilians every bit good, who endured the horrors of the battlegrounds, turned to poetry and fiction in order to come to footings with their experiences. The War besides influenced the plants of creative persons populating in the fatherland, far off from the existent conflicts, yet for of all time surrounded by the idea of it. Furthermore, it remained in the Centre of literary attending after it ended in 1918, and the most of import plants about the War and its long-run effects were born in its wake.
Virginia Woolf, one of the most exciting figures of the early 20th century ‘s literary life, was besides extremely influenced by the War. “ The First World War as a ruinous interruption, and as the event which shaped the 20th century, overshadows Virginia Woolf ‘s work ” , wrote Lee in her life of the writer ( 341 ) . Virginia, who was merely retrieving from a serious nervous dislocation when the war broke out, had a day-to twenty-four hours, immediate experience of the war, which had been a enormous daze to everyone. She was preoccupied with the inquiry of art ‘s topographic point in relation to the war, and even reviewed the plants of war poets. Her sentiment was clear: “ We do non like war in fiction ” ( quoted in Lee 343 ) . She and her closest friends in Bloomsbury Group took up an foreigner, anti-war place. She thought that war was “ a clip when the constructive energies of our species sleep ” ( Gordon 163 ) . However, the consequence of the four old ages of devastation on her plants can non be denied. After coming to footings with the War, she became one of the most important post-war creative persons. “ Her books are full of images of the war ” , as Lee observed ( 341 ) .
Woolf ‘s 4th novel, which eventually put her among the greatest endowments of her clip, Mrs Dalloway ( foremost published in 1925 by Hogarth Press ) , is a “ dramatic commixture of autobiography and history ” ( Lee 341 ) . Set on a all right June twenty-four hours in 1923, the novel, which tells a adult female ‘s whole life in one individual twenty-four hours, is underlied by the dark thought of the War. There are no direct images, Woolf does non put her supporters on some battleground, yet it is crystal clear that the War plays a important portion in the narrative. It lives in dreams, lunacy and memories. The book is a strong unfavorable judgment of the modern-day English society and tells a sad narrative about how the War can act upon ( and ruin ) immature lives. The characters can be grouped on the footing of their relationship to the War. “ We see society devided between those who have profited from the war and those who, like Septimus Smith, have been destroyed by it ” ( Lee 342 ) While composing Mrs Dalloway, Woolf stated her purposes clearly: “ I want to knock the societal system, and to demo it at work, at its most intense ” ( quoted in Zwerdlig 120 ) .
The first group, the 1s who profited from the Great War, are the members of the regulating category that controls society. Clarissa and Richard Dalloway, the “ admirable Hugh ” , Lady Bruton, and even Peter Walsh belong here. They are all “ life on borrowed clip ” ( Zwerdlig 121 ) , their antique values had been shaken by the new century. They are clearly populating in the yesteryear, they are shouting over their long lost young persons, loves and dreams uselessly. All these personal “ calamities ” seem pathetic and bantam in comparing with the loss of 100s of 1000s immature lives during the four old ages of the War. Besides being unable to pass on their feelings ( for illustration, at one point of the narrative Richard Dalloway can non even state he loves his married woman ) , the regulating category is besides “ incapable of responding appropriatly to the critical events of their times ” ( Zwerdling 122 ) . It seems they are non cognizant of the existent significance of what had happened. They try to disregard the jobs of the existent word, wrap themselves up in limbo and memories, they merely care about their “ small occupations at Court ” , their fiddling, mundane jobs. For case, Clarissa Dalloway is to the full preoccupied with forming her party, overstating its significance. The general job of the regulating category lies in the fact that they seem to hold moved on excessively rapidly. For them, the War is over and they ignore its obviously present effects. When Clarissa takes a walk on a all right June forenoon – a walk, which ( harmonizing to Lee 353 ) Virginia Woolf took herself during the War – , she is overwhelmed with the beautiful, lively metropolis full of “ twirling immature work forces and express joying misss ” ( Woolf 9 ) . Peter Walsh, newly arrived from colonial India merely sees the last five old ages ‘ fast growing of civilization: “ Never had he seen London look so bewitching ” ( Woolf 78 ) .
For Virginia Woolf, all hope of a fresh New World is done for because of the incapacity of the opinion category. As Zwerdlig wrote: “ The hopes for a new society are betrayed by the return of the old ” ( 122 ) . There is heavy unfavorable judgment in these words. The power is in the custodies of antique, self-content, casual people, a group that has the “ influence to except the threatening forces and to protect itself from any kind of intense feeling ” ( Zwerdlig 122 ) . That is why the people who are unable to command their feelings became castawaies: Miss Kilman and particularly Septimus Smith. Their eccentricity can non be stomached by a society governed by 19th century values.
The lone character in the novel who had experienced the existent horrors of the meaningless slaughter is Septimus Warren Smith, and he is the lone 1 who had met decease face to face. He has an of import function in the narrative because it is through his character that the writer can convey her message and draw attending to the inalterable and ghastly effects of the War on every individual person. Through Septimus ‘ character “ she surveies the consequence of four old ages of brutalisation on an single soldier ” ( Gordon 164 ) . Septimus can be seen as the theoretical account of all those immature, gifted work forces whose lives had been taken or ruined for of all time by the War.
Septimus started off as a promising, smart, idealistic immature poet who was among the number ones to volunteer. “ He went to France to salvage an England which consisted wholly of Shakespeare ‘s drama and Miss Isabel Pole in a green frock walking in a square. ” ( Woolf 94 ) . However, his sentimentalism and the bright hereafter in front of him were shattered at one time when he experienced the cold devastation and the loss of a friend which affected his whole personality. “ The last shells missed him ” ( Woolf 94 ) and he was sentenced to populate.
Although he survived, he would ne’er be the same once more. Something inside him broke and the universe made it go on. “ aˆ¦his encephalon was perfect ; it must be the mistake of the universe so – that he could non experience. ” ( Woolf 96 ) Harmonizing to Gordon, Septimus suffers from mental isolation and lost “ communicating with the universe outside ” his head ( 56 ) . He lost religion in world as a whole: “ human existences have neither kindness, nor religion ” and “ one can non convey kids into a universe like this ” ( Woolf 97 ) . This arrant letdown in the universe environing him and absolute hopelessness entails the gradual loss of his saneness. “ Having witnessed the war he wants no less than to alter the universe “ ( Gordon 196 ) . He takes on the function of the chosen one, a Messiah-like figure, in whose custodies lies the salvation of world. Septimus sees himself as “ the greatest of world ” ( Woolf 30 ) , “ the Godhead of work forces ” ( Woolf 74 ) , “ a immature adult male who carries the greatest message in the universe ” ( Woolf 91 ) . This is the lone manner in which he might be able to get by with the daze of the War. Having experienced the deepest crud of human nature ( that is, killing without intent ) , he feels it is his duty to deliver it. “ I went under the sea. I have been dead, and yet am now alive. ” ( Woolf 76 ) His endurance, the fact that his life had non been wasted in the battlegrounds, provided him with this sense of responsibility to convey the message of Universal Love.
Gordon sees the chief beginning of Septimus ‘ insanity in “ his inability to react to the decease of a individual whom he had loved most in the universe ” ( 46 ) , Evans, his senior officer. Septimus and Evans had an extraordinary bond between each other, a chumminess that can merely be born under particular fortunes, under the relentless threath of decease, of being killed, of being lost and forgotten. The decease of Evans made Septimus vulnerable and defenceless, his delicate head was non able to take the force per unit area and eventually wrecked. He becomes paranoid, he suffers from terrible hallucinations in which his long lost friend visits him. “ He sang. Evans answered from behind the tree. The dead were in Thessaly, Evans sang, among the orchids. ” ( Woolf 77 )
He can non suit into the shoal, untrue rabble of his clip. Not that society is so eager to take him back. Not even the physicians understand. The two physicians looking in the novel, Dr Holmes and Sir William Bradshaw, are the representatives of the modern-day British society, comfortably wrapped up in limbo. They can non place the beginning of his unwellness. What is more, Dr Holmes claims that Septimus “ … had nil whatever serious the affair with him ” ( Woolf 26 ) . Sir Bradshaw, the “ priest of scientific discipline ” as Septimus ‘ married woman called him at one point, can see his hapless status, his non holding a “ sense of proportion ” ( that is, saneness ) , but does non associate it to the horrors he endured during the War. He says his recovery is “ simply a inquiry of remainder ” ( Woolf 105 ) . This negative image of physicians ‘ inability to make something worthwhile may deduce from Virginia Woolf ‘s ain misgiving of scientific disciplines and bad experience about sanatariums. In 1910 she was forced to pass six hebdomads in a private nursing place, and subsequently even the idea of acquiring back at that place drove her to perpetrate self-destruction ( Gordon 52 ) . The really same thing happens in the novel: the people whose undertaking would be to assist the anguished psyche were the 1s to coerce Septimus into giving up his ain life and leap out of a window. When it comes to the autumn of Septimus, Woolf puts at least half of the incrimination on society. “ aˆ¦sufferer and society portion duty, though physicians blame him entirely, peculiarly his opposition to their definitions of normalcy ” ( Gordon 61 ) . Had the physicians been somewhat more understanding, Septimus ‘ calamity might non hold been inevitable.
Rumor has it that originally Woolf did non desire to include Septimus in the novel and planned to “ kill ” Clarissa Dalloway, but subsequently she changed her head, that is how the “ lunatic ” entered the narrative. Bing himself a poet, Septimus could be seen as an allegorical character, his destiny could be seen as the symbol of Art ‘s topographic point during the war and its wake. The cold slaughter and the carelessness of a grandiloquent society made it impossible for the sensitive Septimus to acquire by and besides for every creative person to make freely, seriously, without doing via medias. As the Latin stating goes: “ Inter arma silent Musae ” .
In decision, we could state that one of the greatest strenghts of Woolf ‘s Mrs Dalloway is that by unifying autobiographical and historical elements, she managed to knock modern-day British society in a really elusive manner, grapsing the defects of its most typical figures, concealing her negative jugdements behind the narrative of an upper middle-class English homemaker. In the novel, Woolf besides set up a reminder to the memory of the 1000000s and 1000000s of human lives that had been or will be taken by inhuman treatments of war.
