Diagnosing Septimus Smith

Diagnosing Septimus Smith

Virginia Woolf’s novel, Mrs. Dalloway, features a severely mentally ill man named Septimus Smith. Throughout the novel the reader glimpses moments of Septimus’s dementia and how his poor frazzled wife, Rezia, deals with him. Septimus, who has returned from the war and met Rezia in Italy on his discharge, has a seriously skewed version of reality. He has been through traumatic events during the war, including the death of his commanding officer and friend, Evans. Upon his return to England he suffers from hallucinations, he hears voices (especially Evans’), and he believes that the trees have a special message to convey to him. Rezia attempts to get Septimus help by taking him to several doctors. Ultimately Septimus commits suicide rather than let the doctors get to him.

Based on the textual evidence it seems that Septimus Smith is afflicted with schizophrenia. According to the American Medical Association schizophrenia is characterized by apparently disconnected remarks; blank looks; sudden statements that seem to spring to the speaker’s mind; hearing voices (often hostile); having hallucinations; having odd physical sensations; creating fantasy worlds; and exaggerated feelings of happiness, bewilderment, or despair. Another symptom of schizophrenia can be becoming devoid of emotion to the point that it is impossible to connect emotionally with the individual. Some schizophrenics also develop what is called paranoid schizophrenia. Symptoms of this type of schizophrenia include constant suspicion and resentment, accompanied by fear that people are hostile or even plotting to destroy him or her. (Kunz 295-296)

Virginia Woolf’s first description of Septimus Smith immediately gives the reader the sense that Septimus is not mentally well. “Septimus Warren Smith, aged about thirty, pale-faced, beak-nosed, wearing brown shoes and a shabby overcoat, with hazel eyes which had that look of apprehension in them which makes complete strangers apprehensive too. The world has raised its whip; where will it descend?” (Woolf 14) The final sentence in this passage adds significance to the description of Septimus’s apprehensive look. Septimus is completely convinced that the world is ultimate evil and that it is out to get him. This is a prime example of fearing that people are hostile and plotting to destroy him which is a symptom of paranoid schizophrenia.

An example of Septimus having exaggerated feelings of bewilderment and despair comes on page 15. “And there the motor car stood, with drawn blinds, and upon them a curious pattern like a tree, Septimus thought, and this gradual drawing together of everything to one centre before his eyes, as if some horror had come almost to the surface and was about to burst into flames, terrified him. The world wavered and quivered and threatened to burst into flames. It is I who am blocking the way, he thought. Was he not being looked at and pointed at; was he not weighted there, rooted to the pavement, for a purpose? But for what purpose?” (Woolf 15) In this section we see that Septimus is unreasonably terrified of seeing the car with the notable personage in it. He also seems to think that the car has stopped because of him and that everyone is looking at him rather than at the personage in the car. He has this paranoid delusion that everything is happening because of him but he doesn’t seem to know exactly why.

Septimus experiences a moment when he believes that some entity is trying to communicate with him through a plane which is skywriting an advertisement for toffee. “So, thought Septimus, looking up, they are signaling to me. not indeed in actual words; that is, he could not read the language yet; but it was plain enough, this beauty, this exquisite beauty, and tears filled his eyes as he looked at the smoke words languishing and melting in the sky and bestowing upon him in their inexhaustible charity and laughing goodness one shape after another of unimaginable beauty and signaling their intention to provide him, for nothing, for ever, for looking merely, with beauty, more beauty! Tears ran down his cheeks.” (Woolf 21-22) A psychiatrist would say that Septimus had created a fantasy world, the inhabitants of which were trying to contact him. He is also experiencing a moment of exaggerated happiness. For reasons known only to Septimus the letters being written by the plane are a beautiful gift given to him by some unknown creatures, a gift just for him and this moves him to tears.

We get more insight into Septimus’s condition when Rezia begins to think about it on page 66. “He (Evans) had seemed a nice quiet man; a great friend of Septimus’s, and he had been killed in the War. But such things