![]() Believing that the mentally unstable “should drink milk in bed,” Sir William “not only prosper himself but ma England prosper, seclud her lunatics… ma it impossible for the unfit to propagate their views” (99). In tracing Septimus’ visit to the renowned Sir William, Woolf indicates that even English doctors serve the sinister purpose of removing all disturbing agents from public life. Indeed, ironically, it is in the thick of his insanity that he realizes that “human beings have neither kindness, nor faith, nor charity…They desert the fallen” (89). However, because English society wants nothing to do with abnormality, Septimus finds himself “swallowed up” in London along with the “many millions of young men called Smith” (Woolf 84). ![]() Incapable of recalling ordinary emotions, he hallucinates and experiences bouts of melancholia and exhilaration, punctuated by moments of lucidity. Septimus finds himself desensitized after fighting in the Great War and utterly unable to return to daily life, where empathy is a vital quality rather than a hindrance. ![]() ![]() Through the conflict between half-crazed World War I veteran Septimus Warren Smith and his prominent doctor, Sir William Bradshaw, Woolf highlights one of the English system’s most tragic failures: its tendency to isolate “undesirables” at any cost to human dignity. ![]()
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