Running on the Verge: the motives of self-destruction in Virginia Woolf’s mrs. Dalloway and the waves

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Running on the Verge: the motives of self-destruction in Virginia Woolf's mrs. Dalloway and the waves

V. Larionov

The twentieth century became an epoch of the major upgrade not only for literature but for the entire art. Modernism destroyed classic approach to literature and ruined the long-standing dictatorship of realism. The most significant modernist `movement' is the literature of the "stream-of-consciousness" that is justly considered to be "the epitome of modernism" (F. Karl), and, according to Robert Humphrey, those writers who decided to develop the "stream-of-consciousness" technique "have created a fiction centered on the core of human experience" [4, 22]. The initial goal of the literature of the "stream-of-consciousness" is to reproduce the complexity of human's thinking with all its peculiar properties. The uniqueness of this approach to the literature lies in the using of the plotles s story and illogical associations of the characters; that is, the writers refused to write the story with an inclusive description of the world and concentrated on the analysis of the human consciousness.

Once Roland Barthes stated that the modern "writing is that neutral, composite, oblique space where our subject slips away, the negative where all identity is lost, starting with the very identity of the body writing" [2, 142]. However, the literature of "stream-of-consciousness" and especially the prose of Virginia Woolf unexpectedly combined impersonal dramatic mode of narrative and the openness to autobiographical motives. Woolf described in the diaries her mental suffering, her outlooks on life, and very often she wrote about the process of creating of a certain text. With help of her diary entries we have a great opportunity to analyze her prose in detail. In this article we will try to analyze motives of suicide and depression in Virginia Woolf's novels Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and The Waves (1931) as the projection of personal author's reflections.

In the process of writing Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf noted in the diary that this novel helped her to get inside the richest layers of her consciousness [8, 35, 13.01.1923]. She wanted "to think [it] out" and therefore she set herself a goal "to foresee this book better than the others and get the utmost out of it" [8, 54, 09.29.1922]. If Mrs. Dalloway was to be a discovering of the new literary form, get ting the highest experimental structure in The Waves, she sought to deconstruct the classical form of the novel and to use "a completely new attempt" in her protomodernist texts [8, 133, 09.22.1928]. She wrote that this novel had been conceived as "an abstract mystical eyeless book: a playpoem" [8, 137, 11.11.1928]. That is why, according to the opinions of scientists, "The Waves is often regarded as a 'classic text' of modernism" [5, 135]. Such novels as Mrs. Dalloway and The Waves are based on the interaction between the author's consciousness and `streams' of thought s of the main characters.

The motives of self-destruction, namely suicide and lingering depression, are the most important themes in Woolf's prose. In Mrs. Dalloway we meet Septimus Smith who decides to commit suicide by throwing himself from the window. This action has two reasons at the base: firstly, after returning from the war, Septimus realized that society does not need him anymore; secondly, he disappointed in humanistic ideals because he has seen all the horrors of the war. This character does not represent the only collective image of the whole society that survived the world war, but also encapsulates a crisis of humanistic ideas.

According to Mark Hussey, "Septimus believes that the world, not he, has a l- tered, and he must hold on to this belief for the security of his own being" [5, 17]. He had a fugitive thought that "the world itself is without meaning" [10, 133] and that is why his feeling of disappointment and even despair possessed his disintegrated consciousness. Andrey Astvatsaturov writes that Septimus's escaping from the reality and his attempts to limit himself from the world around have exacerbated his depression because "finding the unity with irrational side <...> leads to the madness as the energy of life does not care about human values" [1].

In The Waves we meet the almost similar personage as in Mrs. Dalloway. Rhoda, one of the six characters, has much the same world outlook as Septimus. She holds herself aloof from the crowd of `complete and whole' human beings, but, besides, she tries to avoid the people, she lacks the society and, what is very important, society itself does not want to accept her. "I am turned; I am tumbled; I am stretched", says Rhoda [11, 20]. She does not feel comfortable "among these long lights, these long waves, these endless paths, with people pursuing, pursuing" [11, 20], she is "to be cast up and down among these men and women, with their twitc hing faces, with their lying tongues, like a cork on a rough sea" [11, 77]. Rhoda's friend Louis says that "she despises" and "dreads" all the people because they "wake her" and then "torture her" [11, 86] - she does not feel safe with anyone, she is "alone in a hostile world" [11, 113]. "The human face is hideous" [11, 113], says 283 Rhoda. She is abandoned even by her friends and that is why she says: "I am to be broken. I am to be derided all my life" [11, 77], "I am afraid of you all" [11, 93]. Rhoda is broken from society, she decided to live her own life, to dream her own dreams and she voluntarily exiled herself from the world of other people. modernist literature consciousness

However, Rhoda cannot live alone, she cries for help. "Hide me, I cry, protect me, for I am the youngest, the most naked of you all" [11, 76], - says she, - "terror rushes in; terror upon terror, pursuing me" [11, 75]. Rhoda always "comes cringing to our sides", says Louis. Rhoda needs somebody to "replenish her dreams" [11, 86] b e- cause she lives only with the help of her internal experience. This character is torn between two opposite thoughts: she needs to avoid the world, but also she wants "to awake from dreaming" [11, 20] and join the exterior life. "I want publicity and violence and to be dashed like a stone on the rocks", says Rhoda and we clearly unde r- stand that she will never be able to communicate with people as much as they do - she sees only the dark sides of other people. As stated above, she just wants somebody to protect her; Louis says that Rhoda always "comes cringing to our sides" b e- cause "for all our cruelty there is always some name, some face" [11, 86]. She can not identify herself, and that is why she thinks that other people are more real and solid the she is. That is the main reason why she constantly repeats: "I have no face" [11, 24, 87, 93, 158]. In a moment she understands that she is tired of being herself, she is not comfortable in her own body. When she was a young girl she said "I sink, I fall!" [11, 20] and when she grew up she decided to commit suicide to stop her mental suffer: "I ride rough waters and shall sink with no one to save me" [11, 114].

The same situation happens with Septimus. He cannot get rid of stress he has gone through, he tries to overcome it, but morbid consciousness responds to him by creating a phantom, a peculiar tulpa of Evans who was "a great friend of Septimus's" and "had been killed in the War" [10, 99]. Septimus's wife, Rezia, cannot realize the tragedy of the situation which wounds his heart. She is moved by thought that "such things happen to every one" and people should not react on the reality in this way b e- cause "every one has friends who were killed in the War" [10, 99]. She thinks that he would not kill himself and she would tell no one [10, 11] about his mental problems because she loves him no matter what. Llana Carrol writes that Rezia's "love for him <...> makes her lonely" and she "suffers because Septimus suffers" [3, 78].

The Waves also contains an image of the dead friend. Percival is a sui generis catalyst for each of the six characters. Memories about him reveal their personal qualities and give us an opportunity to recognize their personalities. The main characters are affected by him in different ways. Neville is fallen in love with him and this love is main a reason of idealization of Percival. He is an object of Neville's fantasies which cannot leave him even after death of the apple of his eye. "Not a thread", says Neville, "not a sheet of paper lies between him and the sun <...> as he lies naked, tumbled, hot, on his bed" [11, 35]. For Louis he is a muse, he "inspires poetry" [11, 29] and "who makes [them] aware that these attempts to say, "I am this, I am that"" [11, 98]. Bernard is ignited by Percival, by his intelligence, independence and commitment: "you are not Byron", says he, "you are your self' [11, 64]. However, it is Rhoda who says the most important words about Percival. She says that "he is like a stone fallen into a pond" and they are "like minnows, we who had been shooting this way, that way, all shot round him when he came" [11, 98]. Percival is a bridge, a link for the main characters of The Waves; his death becomes a reason of reunion of the friends who sees in him a muse, an idol, and even a lover.

The similar situation can be traced in Woolf's life, too. "People never get over their early impressions of death", writes Woolf in the diary, "I always feel pursued". [8, 62, 4.05.1924]. The first time Virginia Woolf met the face of death was when her mother died, and after her father's death she had a fear of him and sometimes heard his voice [8, 138, 11.28.1928]. The death of Lesley Steven, a famous literary critic, was a heavy blow to Virginia's feeble mind, but then she perceived that if he had not died, "his life would have entirely ended" her dreams of becoming a writer. "What would have happened?" asked Woolf herself and answered immediately: "No writing, no books", [8, 138, 11.28.1928] because her father had a harsh character and was raised according to the strict Victorian traditions.

Two years after father's death, Woolf's elder brother, Thoby, who was one of the closest people for her, died of typhus. The images of the dead father and brother became prototypes for the dead friend of Septimus Smith. It must be noted that after Virginia Woolf had finished The Waves, she wanted to write "Julian Thoby Stephen, 1881-1906 on the first page" [8, 169, 02.07.1931] of the manuscript, but she decided not to do it.

In addition to the haunting shadow of the dead friend, Septimus also sees the talking birds which "sing freshly and piercingly in Greek words" [10, 36]. In The Waves we encounter the similar situation at the beginning of the novel where each of the characters reproduces the images created by their young consciousness. Rhoda starts her `stream of thoughts' with saying that she hears a sound and then she im i- tates the birds: "cheep, chirp; cheep chirp" which are "going up and down" [11, 6]. Alexandre Livergant writes that Woolf herself had the same visions as Septimus and

Rhoda [7], so we can say that it is not just an eventuality that Woolf uses the images of birds in her texts.

If Clarissa Dalloway represents the light side of the writer, so Septimus epitomize all the dark and painful labyrinths of the subconscious. Clarissa even does not know about Septimus and sometimes it causes confusion in the reader's head. Wo olf writes in the diary about this situation that critics would say that it [novel] is sketchy because the scenes of madness are not connected with the scenes where we can see Clarissa [8, 35, 01.13.1923]. However, a tragic death of Septimus makes Clarissa to take outsides the hidden thoughts of the woman. Lada Kougiya writes that "Septimus's suicide exempts Clarissa from compulsive idea of death" [6, 217] which could not find a way out to be finally said. Thus, Septimus's suicide connected all the sep a- rate themes of the novel that seemed disparate. The similar feeling of universal interconnection occurred in Woolf's life, too. It is described in detail in the book Moments of Being where she writes: "I overheard <...> that Mr. Valpy had killed himself. The next thing I remember is being in the garden at night and walking on the path by the apple tree. It seemed to me that the apple tree was connected with the horror of Mr. Valpy's suicide" [9, 71].

In conclusion, it must be said that Septimus is a typical representative of the "lost generation". He has forsaken the dreams about a happy future of humanity b e- cause he understands the comprehensive misery of the world. In the case of Rhoda, we can say that she has lost the connection with people only because they did not want to accept her as a normal human being. She was different and that is why society squeezed her from the life, so she perhaps had no other choice but to end her existence. All these motives of self-destruction used by Woolf are partly autobiographic, and she wrote much about herself, her friends and relatives. The motives of death and lingering depressions pursued Virginia Woolf for the entire life and eventually led to the tragic consequences and her life path.

"Andthe waves broke on the shore' ' [11, 211].

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