That One Escalator (Sasha)

        Peter Walsh, in Mrs. Dalloway , is one of the first post-War men. He would be, in The Sun Also Rises , “one of them”, alongside Jake and Brett. Peter Walsh is usually, like Jake, fairly judgmental. He also demonstrates a fairly developed since of humor throughout the story.  Hugh Whitbread, in particular, is the target of Peter Walsh, much like Cohn becomes the target of his fellows in The Sun Also Rises , and for essentially similar reasons. Peter criticizes Hugh for “having no heart, no brain, nothing but the manners and breeding of an English gentleman,”. The comment seems similar to what is regularly implied by the various characters in The Sun Also Rises about Cohn; that (in this case) Hugh is a relic of a past age. He does not understand the way in which the modern world works, and attempts to compensate for it by engaging in behaviors the other characters consider slightly or entirely ludicrous. Cohn constantly challenges people to fights fo...

            In Mrs. Dalloway , we are given the character of Septimus Smith, a man who has been broken by his experiences in war. There have been several suggestions in class, correctly, I believe, that part of his severe disorder lies in the culture of masculinity that pervaded England of the 1920s, and still pervades our modern culture (to an admittedly lesser degree).  Certainly, his ultimate suicide is caused by a male doctor failing to understand Septimus’ condition, and in the end, accusing him of “cowardice”, a ludicrous claim to make against a man who fought in the bloodiest war any character in the book has ever seen (with the exceptions of any very small children). Why is he accused of cowardice? Because he kills himself rather than once again bury his emotions, this time on the orders of a doctor, who spends his time essentially advocating that Septimus spend his time pretending that everything is alright, even when it clearly is not....