Trauma and Recovery in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dallowa

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By Karen DeMeester. Modern Fiction Studies 44 (1998): 649-73. Reported by Anne Chen

The Psychological Effects of Trauma

The fragmentation of consciousness A loss of faith in the ideologies of the

past Chronological and spatial confusion Seclusion in the closed system of his

private, subjective consciousness Repression by past memories & society

Woolf’s narrative corresponds to trauma

Woolf’s stream-of-consciousness narrative form corresponds to the trauma survivor’s perception of time: intermingling the past and future with the present

Woolf’s narratives is identical to the trauma survivor’s perception of space: using repetition to show the closed system of subjective consciousness

Septimus as a trauma survivor

The past becomes the force of repression War neurosis is the result of a shattered sens

e of identity Septimus’s neurosis comes to be a disturban

ce to communicate with others He is resisted by members of the community

(Dr. Holmes & Sir William Bradshaw) No recovery: destroy the meaningful recovery

from the war

Clarissa as a trauma survivor

Her faith in social convention as a means of ordering a post-traumatic world—her party

To conform the social ideologies, she feels the loss of individuality and identity– sense of being herself invisible; unseen; unknown

Recovery: recommit herself to a life and returns to her party but life lacks meaning and vitality