Mrs Dalloway Madness Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Section.Paragraph)

Quote #4

She could not sit beside him when he stared so and did not see her and made everything terrible; sky and tree, children playing, dragging carts, blowing whistles, falling down; all were terrible. (1.66)

Septimus’ madness ruins everything. Rezia cannot enjoy the simplest of everyday things knowing that Septimus is crazy, and getting worse.

Quote #5

Men must not cut down trees. There is a God. (He noted such revelations on the backs of envelopes.) Change the world. No one kills from hatred. Make it known (he wrote it down). He waited. He listened. A sparrow perched on the railing opposite chirped Septimus, Septimus, four or five times over and went on, drawing its notes out, to sing freshly and piercingly in Greek words how there is no crime and, joined by another sparrow, they sang in voices prolonged and piercing in Greek words, from trees in the meadow of life beyond a river where the dead walk, how there is no death. (1.70)

Septimus dwells on the idea of the crime, which is never totally defined. Woolf seems to suggest that the crime is beyond one person’s actions.

Quote #6

He said people were talking behind the bedroom walls. Mrs Filmer thought it odd. He saw things too – he had seen an old woman's head in the middle of a fern. (4.37)

Septimus’ shell-shock involves seeing and hearing strange things. It’s hard to avoid the judgment of others.