Understanding Virginia Woolf's Psychological Disorder

The purpose of this paper is to explain the importance of understanding Virginia Woolf’s psychological disorder in reading her fiction. I have sectioned this paper into three parts. First, I will give a summary of Virginia Woolf’s life as a 20th century English writer. Second, I will explain her psychological disorder and her mental breakdowns. Finally, I will discuss how her psychological disorder is reflected throughout her fiction: Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse.

Adeline Virginia Stephen was born on 25 January 1882, as the daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen, editor of the Dictionary of National Biography, and of Julia Stephen. Unfortunately, according to Hermione Lee in her book Virginia Woolf, it is no longer possible to analyze Woolf’s biography without her psychology in mind (Lee 3). To Lee, Woolf is not simply a regular writer, but a very intelligent writer – Woolf is very concern about how she writes and the purpose of her writing (Lee 5). Lee also wrote, “What she does with her life, how and what she writes, has to be read as a feature of the dramatic shifts in English cultural history between the 1880s and the 1930s” (262). Throughout her diary we can also see that her egotism is often a theme of her writing. This is noticed by Freud, whom she met in 1939, who gave her a narcissus – for taking herself very seriously (Lee 5) to some extent.

Virginia Woolf was born into quite a large family. Her father had been a widower for three years when he met Julia, who had been a widow for eight years. Her father already had one child, and her mother had three. From Leslie and Julia’s marriage came four children: Vanessa, the eldest, whom Woolf was very attached to throughout her life, she later became an important avant-grade visual artist; Thoby, the second, who died tragically young; Virginia Woolf, the third; and the youngest Adrian, who became a psychoanalyst and prominent pacifist (Goldman 4). Growing up in the 19th century Victorian period, Woolf’s education was primarily contributed to by her parents. Her father was the one who, “Shaped her intellectual foundations, encouraging her to roam freely, from an early age, through his extensive library, and later giving her daily supervision in reading, writing and translation (of Greek and Latin) (Goldman 5). Unlike her brothers, or males in that time period, Woolf and her sister, Vanessa were educated at home (Goldman 5).

Despite having this well educated family, Woolf’s childhood and adolescence were not as ideal as one could imagine. Her half-sister from her father, Laura, was considered disturbed and therefore was merited “permanent consignment to an asylum” (Goldman 5). Woolf was sexually abused by her half-brothers from her mother’s side, especially by George, Julia’s eldest son (Goldman 5). To add to her horrible childhood, when she was thirteen, her mother, the center of the family, died (Goldman 6). Stella, Julia’s second child, took over her mother’s role after her death, but it did not last long. After two years taking care both her father and her own family, she died (Goldman 6). Then in 1904, Woolf’s father, Leslie Stephen also died (Goldman 7).

Sometime after their father’s death, Vanessa moved the Stephen’s household to Bloomsbury, where later on Vanessa, Woolf, and some other friends started ‘The Bloomsbury Group’ (Goldman 8). This group was characterized as a “liberal, pacifist, and at times libertine, intellectual enclave of the Cambridge-based” (Goldman 8), and the life was defined by, “The freedom to talk, without self-consciousness, about anything at all” (Goldman 9). In August 1912, Virginia married Leonard Woolf (Goldman 14), who throughout their marriage took care of Woolf during her mental instabilities and recorded Woolf’s mental state from time to time.

In his book The Flight of the Mind: Virginia Woolf’s Art and Manic Depressive Illness, Thomas Caramagno wrote that Woolf was diagnosed as suffering from bipolar affective disorder or manic-depressive illness (1). Caramagno explains manic-depressive illness as, “A mood disorder that can profoundly modify cognition, personality, judgment, sleep patterns, and metabolism” (33). He also describes affective psychosis as, “A severe mood disturbance in which prolonged periods of inappropriate depression alternate either with periods of normal mood or with periods of excessive, inappropriate euphoria and mania” (33). Throughout her life, Leonard wrote that she had gone through four mental breakdowns, in which she often attempted suicide. Her first minor breakdown was in her childhood, for which I found only a few references. Her major breakdowns happen in the year 1895, after the death of her mother. She attempted suicide by jumping out of a window (Caramagno 34). Another mental breakdowns occurred in 1914, which lasted for several months, with an overdose of veronal – suicide attempt (Caramagno 34). Finally in 1940, she experienced the worst mental breakdown and successfully committed suicide in 1941 by drowning herself in the river Ouse (Caramagno 34).

There are four categories of bipolar: “MD is for bipolars who suffer both mania and depression at moderate or severe levels or with psychotic features; whereas Md is for frank manias but mild depressions; mD is for mild manias but pronounced depressions; and md is for cyclothymia” (Caramagno 35), a milder period of high and low mood. Out of these four categories, during her serious breakdowns, Virginia was experiencing MD, although most of the time she “had milder bipolar episodes” (Caramagno 35). Later, as Woolf grew older, she was classified as “mixed” or “cycling” – a very quick cycle of intense mania and depression – which has four times the risk of chronic illness than the other categories (Caramagno 37). What is really interesting about Woolf was the fact that she had recognized her mental states and possibly even her mental breakdowns. In a sense she was even anticipating the mania and depression to come. During her manic episodes, before they reached severe levels, Woolf found herself able to write and to think very clearly. Even so, as soon as they hit the severe levels, she lost control of herself, which she regretted when she was transitioning to the depressive period. This caused her depression to become even more severe – as she experienced the embarrassment of her mania. She classified herself as sane – the “brilliant” Virginia, and the insane – the “incompetent” Virginia (Caramagno 41).

One of the most significant skill that Woolf learned though her mental states was the ability to, “Invite the external, objective world into her internal, subjective world, while still maintaining the power to create fictional” (Caramagno 51) characters. For example, in her mental breakdown in 1895, the delusions she had that there were birds in her garden talking in Greek similar to the bird in Mrs. Dalloway. Before Septimus committed suicide, there was a similar bird imagery (Caramagno 47). The mental breakdowns she also had after her parents death were manifested in her book, To the Lighthouse, through Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay. The characters in her fiction often “experience similar disillusionment and deflation of wishful thinking while still remembering the value, the truth, of illusion” (Caramagno 51). In this sense, we learn that Woolf had always been in control – sane – throughout writing her fiction. Woolf incorporated her own manic-depressive experience, into her fiction, “The ability to imagine wedded to a lucid recognition of reality, an epiphanic moment when her inner being and the outer world cooperated with each other, each ratifying the existence and the worth of the other, so that self became more than a walking shadow or an inflated ego; it became both real and invented, like a work of art” (Caramagno 73). It is this skill that truly interests me in her work and understanding her life.

Through understanding Woolf’s psychological disorder, I found that reading Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, helped me to make more sense of her fiction. I will now discuss some of her main fictional characters in Mrs. Dalloway that relate to her bipolar experience: Septimus, “the psychotic ‘mixed’ state”; Peter, “the egoistical precursor state”; and Clarissa, “the euthymic state, which attempts to integrate the other two” (Caramagno 215). On the second part I will discuss Mr. Ramsay, Mrs. Ramsay, and Lily Briscoe in her fiction, To the Lighthouse.

Septimus Warren Smith was a young, idealistic, aspiring poet, but after coming back from the World War I, he suffered from shell shock. In the story there were two doctors, Dr. Holmes and Dr. Bradshaw who seem to take Septimus depression very lightly. In a sense, it was an attempt to “deny the reality of mental illness” (Caramagno 212). The doctors said that there is “nothing whatever seriously the matter with” Septimus (31), and that Septimus symptoms, “is largely a matter of our own control” (138). Unlike Woolf, Septimus was not aware of his illusions. At the end of the story when Septimus decided to end his life by freeing his soul in a manic episode, the scene reflects a parallel of how Woolf similarly desired to free herself from her mental illness. Ultimately, Woolf committed suicide, although with a different method as did Septimus.

Peter Walsh, although in the story was not diagnosed as having a disorder can actually be seen as being “mildly bipolar subject-object … by creating idealized objects and expectations that are repeatedly destroyed” (Caramagno 218). This is observed through his longing for Clarissa and the reality that she was not his. The idea is again seen in how he was following an anonymous woman and imagined her to be his “ideal” or “perfect” lover.

Clarissa, on the other hand, shares what both Septimus and Peter experience. Clarissa was “a latent lesbian”(Caramagno 229), who longed to be free, like Septimus, from the “ideal” life she chose. Like Peter, Clarissa had a self-esteem problem. But she had three ways to deal with her self-esteem that Caramagno describes: she organized parties because it made her feel “good” and important; she reviewed and reaffirmed her decision not to marry Peter which reflected her fear of not having a financially stable family; and Woolf used the “term virginity, emptiness, nun to imply a liberation from confining sexual and familial roles, an anonymity that frees the woman artist from restrictive definitions imposed by cultural hegemony” (Caramagno 233).

The fiction To the Lighthouse was written as an autobiography of Woolf’s parents. Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay reflect Woolf’s parent who would take the family out for vacation as depicted in this fiction. Mr. Ramsay was characterized as being very satirical and highly dependent on his wife and other people to sympathize with his insecurities (Goldman 63). We can see the parallel in Leslie, Woolf’s father, and how he expected Stella and Vanessa to take over his wife’s role in providing emotional assurance. Mrs. Ramsay on the other hand, was the center and focus of the story – a selfless woman, based on Woolf’s memory of her mother. Although she also died early in the story, Woolf, “Brought back the dead and perpetuated them on paper as Lily Briscoe, the artist in To the Lighthouse, perpetuates the Victorian family on canvas” (Gordon 4).

Finally, we will discuss Lily Briscoe, the painter who tried to depict Mrs. Ramsay. Although, at first Lily dislike Mrs. Ramsay because she told Lily to follow the “ideal” women’s role, to get married, she finally understood her and the importance of her role and decided to finish her painting in attempt to make “the moment something permanent” (Whitworth 115). Similar to what Woolf was going through in the 20th century, Lily’s life and thoughts showed the struggle of a woman who wanted to be free from the weak stereotype, but at the same time understood that if a woman did not fulfill her role to support men, the world would not function well.

I find both Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse are excellent fiction that describe Woolf’s deep knowledge of her bipolar disorder, and how she uses her manic-depressive experiences to enrich her writing. The fact that throughout her writing she was fully in control and managed to insert her illness in the characters at the same time, was a brilliant way of explaining what she felt and had experienced in her life.

Works Cited

Caramagno, Thomas. The Flight of the Mind: Virginia Woolf’s Art and Manic Depressive Illness. California: University of California, 1996. Print.

Goldman, Jane. The Cambridge Introduction to Virginia Woolf. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Print.

Gordon, Lyndall. Virginia Woolf: A Writer’s Life. London: Norton, 2001. Print.

Lee, Hermione. Virginia Woolf. London: Chatto and Windus, 1996. Print.

Whitworth, Michael. Virginia Woolf: Authors in Context. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print.

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