Last week, we spent a lot of time in class discussing Septimus and the affect that the war had on his life. There was a lot of debate about whether or not he was simply suffering from severe depression or something closer to insanity. I think that some argue that it’s closer to insanity, because, unlike normal depression, Septimus is hearing voices in his head, a sign of a medical condition much closer to insanity. I think that his medical condition is somewhere in between the two. Today, Shellshock is called PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which is clinically closer to depressions than insanity.
In Urbana, there is a homeless man named Bill that wanders the streets. The story is that he went to Vietnam and when he came back, he chose to live on the streets to live a life of simplicity. Since we read Mrs. Dalloway, every time I see him, it’s hard for me not to think of Septimus and what is going through Bill’s head and how the war affected his life. In a way, Bill is like a modern-day Septimus.
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The contemporary term for Septimus's condition is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD (maybe PDSD is what people suffer from after a rigorous production of a play is completed!). The great comedian and critic of language George Carlin has a great riff on the evolution of the terminology we use for what's basically the same condition: "shell shock" (the original term, coined after WWI) is poetic, expressive, stark--the patient has been *shelled*, and he suffers from *shock*. Then, around Vietnam, the term "combat fatique" crept in, which, Carlin points out, dilutes the reality considerably (I'm *tired* of all this combat! I need a rest!). And then the much more clinical and sanitary-sounding "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder," which (Carlin says) insulates us from the harsh reality the term is used to describe (there was a trauma, now we're "post" that traume, and apparently some kind of "stress" has led to a "disorder").
Oh, and the local online zine smilepolitely.com just ran a long article (under "opinions," curiously) all about Bill, and the city of Urbana's efforts to find him a place besides the city building to spend his days. I don't recall the story mentioning Vietnam, but I may have missed it.
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