Van Gogh's painting Starry Night. Is this how Septimus sometimes sees the world?
sentimental has at least three meanings:
1. marked or governed by feeling, emotional idealism, or sensibility (awareness of, sensitivity to, responsiveness to something)
2. resulting from feeling rather than reason or thought
3. having an excess of sentiment (reliance on feeling) or sensibility
Note that (1) is neutral, neither positive nor negative; (2) is either neutral or a little bit negative; (3) is pretty clearly negative.
Clarissa Dalloway worries that she might be too sentimental, at least in the eyes of Peter Walsh; that she might be guilty of definition (3).
Is Septimus, in tonight's reading, sentimental according to any of the three definitions?
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Septimus has an excess amount of sensibility and is very overemotional letting his feelings and emotions guide him to the point of seeing imaginary things. For example, when a little dog came over to Septimus and sniffed his pants, Septimus agonized in fear because he thought and imagined that the dog was turning into a man. He lets his feelings guide him so much that they take over his reality and lead him to creating an imaginary world mixed with elements of the real world. "When a Skye terrier snuffed his trousers and he started in an agony of fear. It was turning into a man! He could not watch it happen! It was horrible, terrible to see a dog become a man! At once the dog trotted away."
I also think that Septimus does see things like the painting by Van Gogh, Starry Night. It is very possible and quite likely that Septimus sometimes sees things in smooth swirls, which is like the brush strokes of Van Gogh. "Wherever he looked at the houses, at the railings at the antelopes stretching over the palings, beauty sprang instantly. To watch a leaf quivering in the rush of air was an exquisite joy. Up in the sky swallows swooping, swerving, flinging themselves in and out, round and round, yet always with perfect control as if elastics held them."
I think Septimus does see the world in a way somewhat analogous to the "Starry Night" painting. Reality, in his eyes, is somewhat fluid. The swirled liquifaction of the brushstrokes in the Van Gogh piece reflect the fact that Septimus' reality is not governed by the natural confines of shape and space -- it is ambiguous and yet hauntingly beautiful. (Take, for example, the way he is always uncovering "secrets" of the universe -- the fact that trees are alive, the concept of universal love.)
As far as sentimentality is concerned, Septimus' entire personality seems government by, in variation, all three definitions of the word. He is governed by emotional idealism when he ponders various "supreme secrets," (see above.) He has this emotionally idealistic illusion that the idea of "universal love," "no crime," and "living trees" will genuinely affect people.
He is ruled by emotion rather than reason/logic when he says of Lucrezia: "since his wife had thrown away her wedding ring; since she had left him." If he were reasoning logically, he would see that Lucrezia has made every effort to reach out to him, that her love for him is killing her, that the only reason she doesn't wear her ring is because she has grown so thin from worrying about him.
Septimus exhibits an excess of sentiment when he puts himself in a category with the "Greeks, Romans, Shakespeare, Darwin." He considers himself a prophet of sorts. This sentimental and illusioned view of himself and of the world is definitely excessive, especially because it is damaging the people around him, such as Lucrezia, and is potentially dangerous. (Those with a prophetic complex are often radically unwilling to alter their opinions.)
By way of such examples, it is clear that Septimus's illness causes him to behave sentimentally -- in accordance with all three of the definitions provided.
I would say Septimus is guilty of the second definition, definitely, and also maybe the first. He defintely operates out of feelings rather than out of thoughts or logic. Whatever it is that is wrong with him, he is so overly into things like heaven, or his dead friend Evans. However, he also seems to be very loving towards his wife. The wedding ring not being on her finger upsets him to the extreme. He even stops his crazy rant when she tells him "But I am so unhappy..." Feelings seem to be what drive him, not logic.
From the reading, Septimus is clearly not an emotionless person. He is even scared sometimes by his lack of feelings. he speaks (or thinks) about his admired friend Evans from the war and how he died: "But such things happen to everyone. Everyone has friends who were killed in the war." He seems to not have even felt pain. He does, however, have some sort of sentimental capacity in him. He recognizes that Rezia gave up a lot to be with him but he sees so much evil in the world. He makes "disturbing" remarks to Rezia about killing themselves together. He doesn't want to bring up children in, according to him, such a horrible and disgusting world. Because Septimus is not completely oblivious to emotion and because he does feel strongly about certain negative subjects, i think that he is an example of the 2nd form of sentimental.
sorry i just re-read what i wrote and
i meant to say (at the beg.) that he is clearly not an emotionless person EVEN though he seems to fear his lack of emotions in some cases (ie. his friend dying in the war, etc.)
sorry for the confusion!
checking in and I agree with Gabby on how Septimus sees the world like the painting Starry Night.
I agree with Audrey, in a way, because after first reading this passage the first word to pop into my head probably would not be sentimental but I do think that Septimus has the capacity to understand emotions. I would probably say that he falls into the first definition of sentimental though, because most of his actions when he is acting “strange” are products of his emotions or visions at the time. When Septimus lets himself go and just speak to himself or act out in ways that are governed by his emotions, Lucrezia gets embarrassed. However, he is just letting his emotions take over his actions without putting any thought through his brain first.
For example, “He lay on the sofa and made her hold his hand to prevent him from falling down, down, he cried, into the flames!” Usually, in a situation that involves holding hands and sentiments the first thought would be a couple in love holding hands and talking or walking through a park. However, with Septimus the situation is very different. His emotions are not the expected kind; he has visions of falling into flames, which are assumed to be hell. This is what I was talking about in the beginning of my post, because I feel like Septimus does not really show emotions, or act sentimental, in a predictable way, or one that is defined in a dictionary.
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I agree with Catherine that Septimus's way of showing sentiment is untraditional.
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I agree with Julie completely about how Septimus operates and/or feeds off of feelings for the most part of himself. He is in extreme love in regard of his wife and the ring not being on her fnger makes him all too upset to not suggest him feeding off of emotions. That instance applies to definiton 1 and 2. Not really 3. Definition 3does play into in a minor way because being upset isn't exactly positive, it is negative. He loves emotions. He broke down immeadiatley when he saw no ring. I don't think he's open to any form of other reason than his own. He has feelings and beliefs that are very concrete. Therefore, emotion is what drives him.
I think septimus is definited governed by feeling. In this way he falls under the first definition and he seems think all of his feelings out as if he doesn't know why is he feeling something. When he sees the ring missing he pulls away, scared then he seems to be surprised that he is scared and suddenly wonders why he feels that way.
His way of thinking definitely did remind me of the picture "starry night" because he sees everything very abstractly and everything seems to blur together.
Septimus seems to be blending reality with fantasy, or as has been said that he lets his sentiments guide his thoughts. He sees and hears imaginary things and gets excited or sad about them, letting them shape his reality. He thinks he can see into the future and see through bodies and really this is him losing the boundaries of his imagination and reason. They are getting swirled together as one.
I think it is pretty accurate to say that Septimus is governed by his feelings, and they definitely take charge of him sometimes. The three definitions definitely describe Septimus. He operates in accordance with his feelings, instead of with logic, and he is overall just an extremely emotional person. He because very worried when his wife wasn't wearing her wedding ring, and wouldn't get near the dog because he thought it would transform into a human. Like Gabi said, I think a lot of this can be attributed to the fact that he is not only a very sentimental person, but an ill one as well. Aside from being sentimental though, I do not think he is very optimistic. He does not trust the world around him, and does not want to have a family for this reason. He is a combination of all three of these definitions, but I am leaning towards the second one more than the other two.
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I do agree, especially with Ms. Fee (don't think I didn't notice you used 'liquifaction' ...) about the comparison of Septimus's sentimentality and the type of painting that 'Starry Night' by Van Gogh is.
Van Gogh's 'Starry Night' is almost like the impressionist paintings of Auguste Renoir and Monet, where from far away they look like a complete picture, but from up close they look like pools of colors. I think Septimus's sentimentality can be looked through this scope as well.
It seems that in the bigger picture, things are fine - Lucrezia takes care of him, he is still afloat, even Dr. Holmes said there was nothing wrong with him. And in Septimus's mind, he is not thinking about his marriage, which is all Lucrezia can think about. To Septimus, the 'bigger' picture (when looked at from far away) is about his thoughts of the world, which when viewed up close, almost seem jarring - his views on death, heaven, his hypocritical thought of how wicked people are, when he doesn't realize how he treats his own wife.
In the text, a passage shows this blissful, borderline sentimental, view of heaven, life, death, and human nature. "He dropped her hand. Their marriage was over, he thought, with agony, with relief. The rope was cut ... as it was decreed that he, Septimus, the lord of men, should be free; ... he, Septimus, was alone, called forth in advance of the mass of men to hear the truth, to learn the meaning ... the supreme secretmust be told to the Cabinet; first that trees are alive; next there is no crime; next love, universal love, he muttered, gasping, trembling, painfully drawing out these profound truth which needed, so deep were they, so difficult, an immense effort to speak out, but the world was entirely changed by them for ever."
I think in this passage the sentimentality being talked about it is whimiscal: it is very idealistic, in a way, Septimus is allowed this: because he is 'not well', he can complain about his marriage, say it's over, reclaim himself 'free'. I think the 'bigger picture' that Septimus and Lucrezia gives at a distance is that of starry-eyed beliefs: there is something slightly off about them, that they are always slightly balancing on that invisable rope between letting go and holding on.
Also, I think the dynamic between Lucrezia and Septimus is interesting: isn't Lucrezia supposed to be the one with stars in her eyes, hoping, wishing, her husband gets 'better' or 'comes back around' to her? Instead, she is the one who is so tired, who has such a deep-bone weariedness, that she her fingers are too small for her wedding ring to stay, and that she has to hide it in her purse.
For Septimus he is almost justified of his cynical mystisim. He is allowed to feel things, say things, believe things that seem to acute, so obtuse, and Lucrezia has to glue it all together. If the doctor says there's nothing wrong with him, there musn't be. But to Lucrezia, there is something broken - that sentimental view of her marriage, of that 'unverisal love' that Septimus was talking about. Septimus is allowed another change at sentimentally about himself, about his life in heaven. Lucrezia's sentimentality is almost fraying; she is not allowed a second chance to look onto a 'greater place' or a 'starry night'. She is only happy with the Septimus she knows. Septimus is happy with the Septimus she doesn't know.
Van Gogh's "Starry Night," with it's swirling whirls of sky and town, is filled with extensions of truth: it takes a cloud, then swirls it into a complex, more definite being with a rich story of its own. Van Gogh takes reality and expands it further into the his own images of what reality could be. This seems, to me, to be precisely what Septimus does sometimes (although presumably Van Gogh could turn when he thought in this way on and off; Septimus can't). Septimus takes a basic sight, a reality or truth like the sound of the horn or a car, and he swirls it into his own complex image, and his whole reality shifts: "Music began clanging against the rocks up here. It is a motor horn down in the street, he muttered; but up here it cannoned from rock to rock, divided, met in shocks of sound which rose in smooth columns (that music should be visible was a discovery) and became an anthem, an anthem twined round now by a shepherd boy's piping (That's an old man playing a penny whistle by the public house, he muttered) which, as the boy stood still came bubbling from his pipe, and then, as he climbed higher, made its exquisite plaint while the traffic passed beneath."
I think Septimus is sentimental given all three definitions. Basically, see Gabby's comment :)
Also--I'd like to bring up the effective shift in diction that Woolf uses to portray the different types of thoughts of the different characters into whose minds we are given a window. When writing about Clarissa and Peter, it's true that her sentences can be appropriately meandering, as in the thought of any person, but when it comes to Septimus, Woolf clearly portrays the way his brain works differently, with the length and structure of her sentences. For example, "I have been dead, and yet am now alive, but let me rest still; he begged (he was talking to himself again--it was awful, awful!); and as, before waking, the voices of birds and the sound of wheels chime and chatter in a queer harmony, grow louder and louder and the sleeper feels himself drawing to the shores of life, so he felt himself drawing towards life, the sun growing hotter, cries sounding louder, something tremendous about to happen." The majority of this is not in first person, is not the exact phrasing of Septimus's thoughts, but it is still from his point of view, so the sentences and ideas are long, somewhat meandering, and full of words and urgency. It builds with the repetition of words "louder and louder," and with words that intensify, "the sun growing hotter," that portray Septimus's own intense inner dramas.
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Mmmm. Checking in. Must say, we all write really good comments. I agree with all of you. (:
Oh, and Mike this is for you: Chez Starbuck. Coffee drink? Merman? You be the judge. (Told you I would!)
I'm going to stray away from the prompt since there have already been 18 comments, and also kind of follow Laurel's comment on diction and such. I've definitely been taking heed of the language in Mrs. Dalloway. We have talked somewhat about the stream of consciousness, the semicolons, etc, but I've definitely noticed all of the insight and depth to life every page in this book has.
Example: "The word 'time' split its husk; poured its riches over him; and from his lips fell like shells, like shavings from a plane, without his making them, hard, white, imperishable words, and flew to attach themselves to their places in an ode to Time; an immortal ode to Time..." (68).
Woolf takes something, like time, and then really, really expands on it, the word, the idea. And this is not the only case. She does it a lot, it's that stream of consciousness. It's that simple question Rezia asks of "what's the time" that an expansion lets us see more. Peter sees Rezia and Septimus as young lovers, but then there's the bony hand without the wedding ring and the time. The question of time. It's running out for them it seems like, or maybe not running out, but maybe they've had too much time together. It's just little things that I've noticed Woolf likes to have the characters think a lotttt about, and there has to be a reason for that.
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For starters I definitely agree with Gabby about Septimus seeing life through a similar lense such as 'Starry Night'.
Not only is his perception of things fluid, his train of thought it also. And, while it may seem random at times, his thoughts are very focussed. The fluid stroke patterns in the painting can somewhat act as a representation of Septimus' thoughts. His grip of reality is not an iron fist. For example, when he hears a car horn sound, he does not just think of a normal everyday sound; he believes that the sound from his 'high perch' "cannons from rock to rock, divided, met in shocks of sound which rose in smooth columns...and became an anthem..."
Not only does that quotation exemplify his loosening grip on reality, but also the format of the text of his thoughts. Many times, his thoughts appear as very long, almost run on sentences.
Instead of periods, which might imply direct, clear thoughts (such as say Mr. Parry would have) many, many, many commas and semi colons separate the fragments from the whole of the sentence(s). It can be easy to get lost in Septimus's thoughts because the sentences do not seem to have any clear structure and it is hard(er) for the reader to say "Oh Septimus is thinking/describing: this, this, and this."
His discriptions really are (as Gabby said) 'hauntingly beautiful' yet they are certainly not easy to
immediately follow.
In regards to Septimus' sentimentality (wow, say that 10 times fast), I believe that it is a mix of all three.
At some points his sentimentality is plainly neutral and possibly almost positive (ex: "Red flowers grew through his flesh; their stiff leaves rustled by his head) for he is simply taking in the world around him in a very non-simple way. Everything has an effect on him. Also, when he describes ridding the world of crime and building only love, this idea he has is very positive and while he sees himself as the ruler of the world this is definitely idealism at work (an ideal, perfect world).
Yet, on the other hand, there are also examples of when he is clearly negative and his choices/thoughts are based on feeling and emotion rather than sense and reason. For example, when he examines his wife's hand and notices that she is no longer wearing her wedding ring. While she explains that her hand has grown thin and that she still keeps the ring in her handbag, Septimus immediately jumps to the conclusion (forgive that it is slightly paraphrased) "Oh thank God! What a relief, I no longer have this bulging sack of bricks weighing me down!!! I'm free!!!!!"
Not only is the ring a symbol to Septimus of marriage to his wife, but the apparently the simple fact of not wearing, means that she does not love him anymore and that their life together is over.
Mainly, depending on what he is observing, Septimus can take on a positive, neutral, or negative aspect. Interestingly enough, his thoughts of his wife are negative and his thoughts of simple things, like flowers and car horns, are optimistic and positive.
checking in. nice mr. mike D for pointing out that septimus' thoughts are negative towards his wife and yet positive to simple things
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First off, Christine! I thought your response was great! You added something new to the discussion which really was interesting! Woolf is certainly a talented writer, being able to give something intangible like time and brought a whole new feel/meaning to it.
Oh Kim, YOU WENT THERE! Um...can I get a Grande Chez Starbuck with whip cream? Anyone? Anyone? Oh, no sorry he only comes in a can, CAUSE HE'S A FISH...
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In my perpescetive, I think what leads Septimus to this strange phase in his life is, for that matter, his abundance of sentiment. How could someone ever be so observant and not feel the over charge that observing has in itself.
Even in his feelings about marriage being over, there's plenty of emotion there. The feeling, and yearning to be a young man again. To be free, although it may seem crushing. He's perspective on things is quite the opposite of many, but full of emotion he is.
Personally I hate the third definition of sentimental, an excess of sentiment always serves a purpose.
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