Trauma and Recovery in Virginia Woolf

1
Trauma and Recovery in Virginia Woolfs Mrs.
Dalloway

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

2
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

3
Woolfs narrative corresponds to trauma

• Woolfs stream-of-consciousness narrative form
  corresponds to the trauma survivors perception
  of time intermingling the past and future with
  the present
• Woolfs narratives is identical to the trauma
  survivors perception of space using repetition
  to show the closed system of subjective
  consciousness

4
Septimus as a trauma survivor

• The past becomes the force of repression
• War neurosis is the result of a shattered sense
  of identity
• Septimuss neurosis comes to be a disturbance 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

5
Clarissa as a trauma survivor

• Her faith in social convention as a means of
  ordering a post-traumatic worldher 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