Septimus Warren Smith, because of his mental health, interprets things differently than any other character in the novel Mrs. Dalloway, sometimes even seeing or hearing things that no one else does. His entire world is distorted and seems crazy, but Wolf always manages to relate his reality back to actual reality through his wife Lucrezia. Whenever we see Septimus from Rezia's perspective, she is always trying to nudge him back into the real world, and whenever we see the world through Septimus's eyes, the next perspective is almost always Lucrezia's.
This is a big help to understanding how Septimus's mind is distorting reality, because it allows us to see the parallels between his and the outside world without Wolf having to break from her usual style of writing through the perspectives of her characters. When we first meet them, Spetimus was endlessly slipping back into his own convoluted mind, which, from the reader's perspective, was a mess of illogical connections that eventually lead into totally backwards philosophy. If it weren't for Rezia being a link back into the real world after every paragraph of this nonsense, we would become lost in this strange world of Septimus without understanding how it relates to anything. Rezia brings us back, allowing us to make connections between Septimus and his surrounding, so that we can better understand how he warps reality, and that helps us understand his character, especially once we learn Septimus's backstory, at which point it is possible to look at the way in which he sees the world with a new understanding and sympathy.
I think its also interesting to look at the differences between sections in Septimus's mind. While there are threads throughout these sections and there is a lot that doesn't really make sense, we can see differences in character. Septimus takes everything to the extreme, so you can see in the way he thinks the kind of mood he is in. He can be terrified in one section and be overwhelmed with the beauty of the world in the next. The way Woolf shows us this is through his own understanding of his surroundings, then the perspective shifts to Rezia to bring us back to reality.
ReplyDeleteI think you described Woolf's technique of changing point of view well. If Lucrezia's thoughts were left out, the sections describing Septimus' thoughts would be very confusing, since there wouldn't be much context. In addition, free indirect discourse allows for those very seamless transitions between different people.
ReplyDeleteI really liked your point about Lucrezia helping Septimus's story more clear. Alone, Setimus's story would be totally confusing, but with the perspective of Lucrezia we start to understand how Septimus is on the outside. That, supplemented with Septimus's internal thoughts really helps us get the full view on Septimus's perspective. Because we really understand Septimus's actions and how he feels, we are lead on to be sympathetic of him. Its pretty neat!
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think Rezia's perspective is definitely necessary for Woolf to create a fuller novel, and I think I'd have a much rougher time understanding Septimus if not for Rezia and her connection between ol' Septy and the real world. I think this point is also important for understanding Woolf's depiction of both Clarissa and Septimus; Septimus is more of the deep and crazed part of Woolf, even needing a translator (Rezia) to understand, while Clarissa is level headed but still depressed.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with you that since Septimus' field of vision is so detailed (and seemingly inevitably narrow, let alone the wacky components) a larger perspective is needed in order to appreciate his thought process and figure out why it leads where it does. Another thing that Rezia does well is provide the perspective of an outsider who is close to Septimus. This really helped me understand how Septimus looked and behaved from a sane viewpoint that wasn't completely detached from him.
ReplyDeleteI had never noticed that before but after you pointed this out it really stands out. We talked about how the scene would switch from Rezia and Spetimus to some other perspective, but we never talked about how the scene changed between them. It also came up in one of the panel presentations. We talked about how Woolf used a parenthetical in Rezia's point of view to bring the story back to the real world quickly.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree. If it wasn't for Rezia bringing us back to the "real world" after Septimus' mind wanderings and meticulous analyses of his surroundings that we would regularly find simple/normal, I believe that we would oftentimes be stuck in the rather heightened, extreme reality of the setting that Septimus shows through his thoughts. Also, Woolf's stylistic use of parentheticals was a very useful way for her to input Rezia's POV as Septimus lingered on his own thoughts.
ReplyDeleteoften times with situations like Septimus' you need someone that can take a step back and explain things. The ordinary reader likely doesn't have much in common with him so like you indicate, Woolf uses Rezia as a catalyst. I think that this technique is really effective and makes for a more enriched plot line in terms of Septimus' story. Nice post :)
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