Holmes was coming upstairs. Holmes would burst open the door. Holmes would say "In a funk, eh?" Holmes would get him. But no; not Holmes, not Bradshaw...There remained only the window, the large Bloomsbury-lodging house window, the tiresome, the troublesome, and rather melodramatic business of opening the window and throwing himself out. It was their idea of tragedy, not his or Rezia's (for she was with him). Holmes and Bradshaw would like that sort of thing. (He sat on the still). But he would wait until the very last moment. He did not want to die. Life was good. The sun hot. Only human beings -- what did they want? ...Holmes was at the door. "I'll give it to you!" he cried, and flung himself vigorously, violently down on to Mrs. Filmer's area railings.What struck me most about the passage was how focused Septimus is on Bradshaw and (especially) Holmes. His whole reason for killing himself at this point seems to be that he needs to escape from their 'treatments' any way he can, even if that requires fleeing into death. As Holmes is a doctor, it's both ironic and horrible that he is causing his own patient's death by his lack of comprehension.
This whole passage also serves to drive home the idea that suicide is never definite. Up to this point, Septimus seemed to be improving significantly, and even in the moments before suicide he says that he does not want to die. If Holmes had not been so ignorant or Rezia had been able to turn him away, Septimus' death could have been avoided entirely. This idea makes Septimus' death all the more tragic and gives us insight into how we ought to deal with suicide. Suicidal impulses are often very much in the moment, and recognizing that gives us a much better chance of preventing people from taking their own lives with quick intervention and better understanding of the underlying problems.
Septimus doesn't seem like the kind of person to plan out a suicide and carry through with it. His suicide was completely circumstantial, if the situation was different; say Rezia was still in the room when Holmes burst in, then I think Septimus wouldn't have done it. If somehow he didn't die this particular night I think he might have recovered quite well and maybe lived a normal life.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Septimus seemed to kill himself in a very spur-of-the-moment act, there was no element of planning. I think that his suicide was unavoidable, though, as it seems like, regardless of how much better he was feeling, the next arrival of one of the doctors would have caused it. The way he seems to want just a little more life at the end and he wants to give that up just to avoid the doctors shows how much he hates and fears them, and I think that Septimus would never really be able to escape that.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the sentiment that it's deeply ironic and saddening that Holmes and Bradshaw were essentially the cause of Septimus' death. You and Ezra bring up good points; his suicide appears to have been completely circumstantial, and if Holmes hadn't arrived unannounced and attempted to force his way into seeing Septimus, things could have turned out differently.
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking recently about how much more apt it is to describe a person as a "victim of suicide" rather than one who has "committed suicide," as the latter suggests a rational and even maybe inevitable decision, while the first acknowledges both that this is something that *happens to* a person, and that it is potentially avoidable. Septimus acts, even against his will ("he did not want to die"), in a split-second decision that his agitated mind deems irrevocable and necessary. Of course, Holmes is not "human nature," and Septimus need not have done what he did. Woolf represents his senseless death without romanticizing it at all, and in the end we see him as another casualty of war. He is a victim of suicide, as a "symptom" of shell shock.
ReplyDeleteSeptimus's suicide is portrayed like a panicked response to an attacker rather than an actual decision. He knows Holmes is coming, his first thought is that he'll never be able to escape Holmes (and others like him), and he acts like an animal backed into a corner. He doesn't take time to actually think about his decision or any alternatives(besides choosing the window as his method). It's almost like an instinctual reaction, which I found interesting and very tragic.
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