Septimus and Blanche: Victims of Patriarchal Culture
Septimus in Mrs. Dalloway and Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire are interesting fictional characters who suffer from mental illness in the 1920s. Septimus' illness stems from his wartime experiences while Blanche's illness stems from her position as an oppressed woman under patriarchy. In a sense, patriarchal society has produced both illnesses because exploitation of others, war, and oppression of women are characteristic of the patriarchal system. Both Septimus and Blanche have separated themselves from painful reality and have created a new, less painful unreality for themselves. In this essay we will compare Septimus' illness to Blanche's by investigating their symptoms, the influence of patriarchal culture on their concepts of manhood and womanhood, and the situations leading to exacerbation of their symptoms.
At the end of World War I, Septimus has all the symptoms of shell shock, later called battle fatigue, and currently called post-traumatic stress disorder. "He went to France to save an England which consisted almost entirely of Shakespeare's plays and Miss Isabel Pole in a green dress walking in a square." In other words Septimus went to war for personal reasons rather than political. He seemed to be fine, a good soldier and a hero, until the war was over; then, he discovered he had lost all feeling. Today we know that loss of feeling allows people to survive in violent situations that would otherwise be too terrible to endure, such as prolonged child abuse, cruelty in a concentration camp, or several stints in active combat. Numbness allowed Septimus to see his friends, including Evans, die without losing his own ability to function. Afterwards, however, he can't turn it off. He wants to feel again, but doesn't know how.
In the patriarchal view of what a "real man" is, shell shock is unmanly; there is a stigma attached; thus, he has to hide his trouble. He cannot discuss his difficulty or shame with anyone. Untreated, his symptoms get worse. He passes judgment on himself, blames himself, and begins to see evil everywhere. All the weakness, frailty, and ugliness of the human condition begins to take on huge...
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