Traumatic Encounter with History: The War and the Politics of Memory in Mrs. Dalloway

Abstract

In this essay-”Traumatic Encounter with History: the War and the Politics of Memory in Mrs. Dalloway”-I discuss the problematic issue of memory in the narrative of trauma. Drawing on recent trauma studies, I argue that Mrs. Dalloway offers a version of history as haunting, in which Woolf depicts not only the chaos of Septimus's shattered mind but also situates the aftermath of war in relation to a larger society. I argue that postwar British society is troubled by the overwhelming flood of dangerous emotions resulting from the traumatic impact of an event on the scale of World War I. Representing the nightmare of history as well as the troubling and unresolved effects of the past, Septimus is subtly encouraged by society to kill himself so that the past can be resolved and forgotten. However, my reading indicates that the novel's ending, as a long-waited discharge of traumatic excitations in the wake of Septimus's death, does not offer consolation; instead, the ending is deceptive. Though written off physically from the novel, Septimus returns to ghostly haunt Mrs. Dalloway's party. In other words, Mrs. Dalloway offers a version of history as haunting, in which the effects of the war are most definitely not put to rest. Trauma therefore serves to introduce the problem of the relation of narrative to remembering and forgetting. To sum up, Woolf responds to the legacy of shell-shock by focusing on the cultural, sociopolitical, and psychological contexts of trauma.