Topic > A Sense of Proportion - 2140

More English soldiers died in the Great War than in any other conflict in the British Empire. Under the best circumstances, this would have been a difficult burden to bear. Furthermore, the way of fighting shattered all romantic notions of noble and valiant warfare: there is nothing noble or gallant about trench warfare or poison gas. Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf is a novel that talks about the late trauma and cruelty of not being able to face reality. Much of this sentiment is expressed by the futile struggles of Septimus Smith, a psychologically crippled soldier returned from the Western Front. And, while feeling incapable of love contributes to Septimus's death, the immediate cause is the intensely evil conduct demonstrated by his doctor, Sir William Bradshaw. Septimus suffers from both a frozen heart and a stricken soul. Since his return from the war, now married for five years to Rezia from Milan, his life has become increasingly monotonous and unfulfilling, struggling as always to make sense of things, but without real success, except for a few sporadic moments of clarity and understanding. of himself. . His mind and heart remain prisoners of the suffering of war, from which he can never truly overcome. His affliction is ever-present and all-encompassing, no matter where he is or what he is doing. Even the relationship with his wife appears null and non-existent, happy as he is, he appears: "talking to himself, talking to a dead man, on the seat over there" (65). Septimus's shock his condition gets much worse in his post-war context: “he goes down another step into the grave… he drops his head into his hands. Now he had given up; now the others must help him" (90). Doctor Holmes, kindly, amia... half of the paper... went to Sir William for a consultation. Her previous experience with Sir William now connects her to Septimus and also confirms Smith's fears in dealing with Sir William. Sir William, for Clarissa, is a messenger of terrible news. “OH! thought Clarissa, in the midst of my party, here is death, she thought” (183). Sir William is a sinister and threatening force to her, and the sight of him “curls her” (182). She recognizes him as an “extraordinarily skilled” doctor (183), but “yet to her darkly evil, without sex or lust, extremely kind to women, but capable of some indescribable outrage – forcing your soul, that's all” (184). In Septimus, Clarissa not only sees her own mortality, but also feels a fleeting and fragile human existence that questions sin, guilt, evil, death, and redemption. Sir William is clearly the metaphor for evil par excellence in the novel.