Mental Health Represented in Books
While reading Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs. Dalloway, I couldn't help but think about the mental health aspect of the story, and it led me to think about other stories involving such topics. First and foremost, the representation of mental health in Mrs. Dalloway is one of the better ones I have seen, quite possibly because it was written by someone who knows what it's like to endure these feelings. If we take a look at another book that doesn't do it any justice, we can clearly see the difference between experience and wanting to make something young people will eat up and pay for. Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher is a good example of a bad thing. Jay Asher wrote about Hannah Baker, a high school freshman girl and why she commits suicide. Jay Asher has no experience with any of this, and if you read the book it's very obvious how much he doesn't know what he's talking about. Comparatively, Virginia Woolf has these experiences of mental health struggles. She knows whereas Jay Asher does not. A novel that does characterize mental health very well however, is It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini. The novel was written based off of the author's experiences in the mental health healthcare system in New York City, and characterizes teen mental health very well. It makes it more personal, and doesn't show it as completely cut off from the world. It makes the reader feel like they are reading about a real person, and they basically are seeing as it is based off of author experience. Mrs. Dalloway does the same thing with Septimus, it makes him feel like an actual person who has had real experiences, and doesn't make his emotions seem fabricated for the plot of the story.
Great post! I completely agree with your points about how well Woolf portrays mental health in Ms. Dalloway. Her decision to write about Septimius's PTSD through first person was powerful and made his experiences genuine. This is the first novel where the portrayal of mental health has left such a deep impact on me. When inside Septimius's mind the reader is able to experience how messy his thoughts are how they feel like they are being rushed along. Nothing about Septimius's life was romanticized which made his story feel so real.
ReplyDeleteI also appreciate how Septimus is shown as a much deeper character than just an outlet to express Virginia Woolf's criticisms of society. Septimus definitely represents a lot of Virginia Woolf's own experiences, but the unique first person experience lets us know so much more about his own mind. His mind is much more than just, man suffering from PTSD.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree. I think Thirteen Reasons Why is a book that kind of romanticizes suicide, and turns it into a highschool drama instead of a realistic story about a person struggling with mental health. Septimus doesn't exist to further the plot in the book, he exists just to be himself and show the affects of PTSD. Great post!
ReplyDeleteWhat makes me feel, makes Septimus portrayal of his mental illness even better and more realistic is the entire style of Mrs. Dalloway. It's written from the perspective or consciousness of the character, and Virginia Wolf does great for every character. Septimus was especially convincing, and the reason seems clear that It is because of her own struggles. You point out in your post other book that do a good job at mental illness portrayal and others that don't, and it seems to me that authors that have experience their own mental health issues are much better at putting that into words in a book.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that an author with experiences tied to mental health struggles will help them accurately display it in writing. I like how you compared Mrs. Dalloway representation to other books and I think you make a good point about how many books about mental health struggles are written for drama value instead of to accurately depict what is happening. I also wonder about how Virginia Wolff's experiences may have influenced how characters other than Septimus were written.
ReplyDeleteThe gendered aspect is interesting in this example, though--I don't know the Asher book, but I have overheard and read a number of debates about it, and it seems like a bold and controversial move to focus on a teenaged girl and her struggles, where it would be easy to say that a male author presumably has no direct experience with these matters.
ReplyDeleteSeptimus's shell shock is very much a culturally masculine condition, especially at the time, when only men could serve as combat soldiers. Literally, at this time, only men were subject to shell shock (women's PTSD would not be diagnosed for a long time--no one is offering Clarissa therapy after the death of her sister before her eyes), and there was a good deal of skepticism even toward them (they're really "cowards" who couldn't "hack it" in the war, etc.).
Virginia Woolf knows nothing about the military or the war, first-hand, and she doesn't even try to really depict Septimus's experience as a soldier--the whole war is boiled down to him and Evans as a pair of dogs rolling around on the rug nipping each other's ear affectionately. It all sounds very domestic and tender. Maybe she could be criticized for not depicting the experience of war, but perhaps she wisely avoids what she can't represent directly (leave those scenes to Hemingway and his ilk). She does have direct experience with the terrifying and potent effects of trauma, though, and Septimus is a strikingly *personal* character for her, despite their vast differences in experience.
I completely agree with what you are saying here. I know that Virginia Woolf struggled with bipolar disorder, and I think this made her writing, especially depicting Septimus' struggled with PTSD, much more believable. She seems to accurately grasp his confusion with reality in both a dissociative and hallucinatory way. While it was hard to read, it was refreshing to read something that wasn't such a stigmatized and stereotypical description of mental illness.
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