Journal 2
From Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
“Dropping dead down the aeroplane soared straight up, curved in a loop, raced, sank, rose, and whatever it did, wherever it went, out fluttered behind it a thick ruffled bar of white smoke which curled and wreathed upon the sky in letters. But what letters? A C was it? an E, then an L? Only for a moment did they lie still; then they moved and melted and were rubbed out up in the sky, and the aeroplane shot further away and again, in a fresh space of sky, began writing a K, an E, a Y perhaps?
“Glaxo,” said Mrs. Coates in a strained, awe-stricken voice, gazing straight up, and her baby, lying stiff and white in her arms, gazed straight up.
“Kreemo,” murmured Mrs. Bletchley, like a sleep-walker. With his hat held out perfectly still in his hand, Mr. Bowley gazed straight up. All down the Mall people were standing and looking up into the sky. As they looked the whole world became perfectly silent, and a flight of gulls crossed the sky, first one gull leading, then another, and in this extraordinary silence and peace, in this pallor, in this purity, bells struck eleven times, the sound fading up there among the gulls.
The aeroplane turned and raced and swooped exactly where it liked, swiftly, freely, like a skater —
“That’s an E,” said Mrs. Bletchley — or a dancer — ”
In this scene, Woolf shows a scene of community, in which everyone outside looks up to see what an airplane is writing, but they all think it says different things. In this scene, Woolf is highlighting the differences in how all people live their lives, even when they seem to be experiencing the same things.
Throughout Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf connects various characters who are all experiencing the same day. The novel connects the experiences of upper-class woman Clarissa Dalloway, her former lover Peter Walsh, and the World War I veteran Septimus Warren Smith. They are all experiencing the same day, but their different places in life lead them to have vastly different experiences. Clarissa spends the day preparing for a party she is throwing that evening, and is paid a visit by her former lover Peter Walsh. Septimus spends his days suffering frequent hallucinations and seems trapped within his own mind. His wife Lucrezia attempts to help him with his issues, but the two of them struggle to find any helpful solution to his situation. While Clarissa plans her party and frequently thinks wistfully about her past, Septimus grows more desperate and unwell. He eventually commits suicide after his doctor plans to commit him to an institution, which Clarissa hears about at her party.
The vastly different experiences of these characters highlight the different ways in which people live their lives, even when they live in the same city. Despite these differences however, these characters are all connected in some way. Peter watches Septimus and Lucrezia in the park, and later Clarissa’s party is attended by Septimus’s doctor who tells her about his suicide. They may come from very different lives and have very different days, but they are all connected unavoidably.
From Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
“‘We all have our moments of depression,’ said Sir William.
Once you fall, Septimus repeated to himself, human nature is on you. Holmes and Bradshaw are on you. They scour the desert. They fly screaming into the wilderness. The rack and the thumbscrew are applied. Human nature is remorseless.
‘Impulses came upon him sometimes?’ Sir William asked, with his pencil on a pink card.
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That was his own affair, said Septimus.
‘Nobody lives for himself alone,’ said Sir William, glancing at the photograph of his wife in Court dress.
‘And you have a brilliant career before you,’ said Sir William. There was Mr. Brewer’s letter on the table. ‘An exceptionally brilliant career.’”(Woolf).
In this scene, Woolf characterizes the mental health services available in England at the time of the book’s writing and publication. She depicts the highly respected psychiatrist Sir William Bradshaw as dismissive and unhelpful, as the novel as a whole depicts the failures of treatment for mental health issues at the time.
In this scene, Septimus and his wife have sought out Sir William at the recommendation of Septimus’ doctor. They are both desperate for assistance in treating Septimus’s condition, which has not improved and leaves him debilitated. However, their hopes for help are ruined when Sir William dismisses Septimus’s issues and seemingly misunderstands how they even work. Sir William implies that Septimus is both selfish and dramatic, and essentially tells him he has a good life and should not focus on his depression or do anything rash. None of this is helpful to Septimus, as his condition is not something he can simply turn off or focus less on. Ultimately this lack of care for his condition and the failure of his doctors to assist him leads Septimus to commit suicide, showing the failure of the system. Septimus’s fate serves as a condemnation of the way mental health was thought of and treated at the time, and shows Woolf’s thoughts of the institution.
From Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
“What business had the Bradshaws to talk of death at her party? A young man had killed himself. And they talked of it at her party — the Bradshaws, talked of death. He had killed himself — but how? Her body went through it first, when she was told, suddenly, of an accident; her dress flamed, her body burnt. He had thrown himself from a window. Up had flashed the ground; through him, blundering, bruising, went the rusty spikes. There he lay with a thud, thud, thud in his brain, and then a suffocation of blackness. So she saw it. But why had he done it? And the Bradshaws talked about it at her party!” (Woolf).
In this passage, Woolf uses disjointed language, with phrases breaking off and flowing into each other, to reflect the natural flow of Clarissa’s thought process as she hears and processes the information she is given about Septimus’s death. In doing so, Woolf highlights Clarissa’s discomfort with death, and her need to have control.
Throughout the scene in question, Clarissa is dedicated to throwing a successful party, and fears she will fail. Since the beginning of the novel, we have seen her preparing for this party and heard her obsession with success. In this scene we see her frantic response to what she fears is throwing a wrench in her plans. She must step away from the party in order to process what she is told. The frequent breaks in her thoughts, and the details she imagines in Septimus’s death depict how shaken and flustered Clarissa is. She is upset that the Bradshaws would bring up such an event at her party, and throw her into such a state. We’ve seen Clarissa prepare all day for this party, but because of the words of one of her guests she feels the control she has over it slips away.
From White Teeth by Zadie Smith
“It occurred to him that, for the first time since his birth, Life had said Yes to Archie Jones . . . Life wanted Archie. She had jealously grabbed him from the jaws of death, back to her bosom. Although he was not one of her better specimens, Life wanted Archie and Archie, much to his own surprise, wanted Life.”(Smith 17).
In this scene, Smith uses personification in order to show the extreme emotional state Archie is in here, and to depict his epiphany which then fuels the rest of the story.
In this passage, Archie has had his suicide attempt interrupted by Halal butcher Mo. This last-minute intervention that saves his life appears as a sign to Archie from life itself, which he characterizes as a woman, deciding she still wants him and would not allow him to die. This personification shows Archie’s thinking about life, and shapes his thinking for the rest of the book. This epiphany leads Archie to go to the End of the World Party where he meets Clara and shortly after marries her. This action is partially explained by the state Archie is in, as he acts impulsively following his near death experience.
This epiphany is also interesting as the book focuses on Archie’s life following this failed suicide attempt, almost showing the second life he had following this failure. By having the book open with Archie’s failed suicide, Smith creates a context for the all of the events of the story.
