Railed in by a maddening reason: a reconsideration of Septimus Smith and his role in Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway.(Critical essay)

Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway includes irrational characters-individuals whose lives are marked in various ways by their tendencies to be illogical or whose behavior seems based on an emotional response at the expense of a reasonable approach. Through these characters Woolf explores alternativ...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Papers on language & literature 2017-12, Vol.53 (1), p.3-3
Main Author: Sautter-Leger, Sabine
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
20th century
British & Irish literature
Emotions
English literature
Fictitious characters
Modernism
Novels
Schizophrenia
Subjectivity
War
Woolf, Virginia (1882-1941)
Writers
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway includes irrational characters-individuals whose lives are marked in various ways by their tendencies to be illogical or whose behavior seems based on an emotional response at the expense of a reasonable approach. Through these characters Woolf explores alternative possibilities of perception as well as the divergent significance of a private self in the public world. However, where previously critics have argued that irrationality, when it is read positively, promotes a turn inward, the author suggests that Mrs. Dalloway indicates that irrationality is propitious because it can help them to get out of damaging introspective tendencies. The discussion brings together current philosophical ideas on the twentieth-century self-relating subject and recent innovative interdisciplinary research into schizophrenia. The novel pictures Septimus mostly in his post-war traumatized state, and he is showcased as an individual critically unable to cope with his quotidian reality.
ISSN:0031-1294