Suicide in Mrs. Dalloway
Woolf uses Septimus’s suicide as a way to show the suddenness of mental health. Virginia Woolf struggled with mental health throughout her lifetime, even going into periods of insanity. She used her own personal experiences to portray Septimus and his mental health issues. She describes his death as a powerful statement rather than an act of cowardness, which is how suicide is most often thought of as. Septimus’s suicide was romanticised, and it seemed to be a way of taking back his own life. Rather than letting the doctors take him to the mental institution, he kills himself. This allowed for him to die with honor, rather than have his life be taken away from him. When Septimus began to have suicidal thoughts, he described it as “quite alone, condemned, deserted”. During this time period, mental health was much less understood than it is today. Septimus, being a veteran with mental health issues was not understood. Even today, a large portion of the veteran population struggles with...