Tag: stream of consciousness

Just Get Up, You’re Fine!

“Once you stumble, Septimus wrote on the back of a postcard, human nature is on you. Holmes is on you. Their only chance was to escape, without letting Holmes knowl to Italy— anywhere, anywhere, away from Dr. Holmes” (pg. 90).

This passage shows the clear difference between Septimus and Dr. Holmes in terms of mental health. Woolf wants us to see how afraid Septimus is of the world, while also showing how out of touch people can be about mental health if they haven’t experienced it themselves. You can’t make a mistake or be weak without people putting pressure on you to be better.

Old Uncle William

“And her old Uncle William used to say a lady is known by her shoes and her gloves. He had turned on his bed one morning in the middle of the War. He had said, “I have had enough.” Gloves and shoes; she had a passion for gloves; but her own daughter, her Elizabeth, cared not a straw for either of them.”

– Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway, 8 (from a Feedbooks scan)

This shows the way Clarissa thinks while with herself, thinking back to her old Uncle while looking at gloves in a store. There’s also a link to her daughter, who gets introduced through this memory, which shows how the people she thinks about may be important.