Virginia Woolf’s Authorial Agency-3

36 Chapter Three: Clinical Methods of Healing Trauma Through Literature In order to highlight the progression of Woolf’s symptoms as she grew to adulthood under the lewd gaze of the Duckworth brothers, as well as delineate clinically proven practices that promote healing in trauma survivors, this thesis will create a conceptual mapping of relevant findings in recent clinical studies, with a distinct focus on research surrounding childhood sexual abuse. Throughout my research, I have paid particular attention to the manner in which trauma disrupts processes of human memory, as the idea of a “ruptured narrative” is central to both Woolf’s writing style and my own analysis of how survivors choose to textually represent their traumatic memories. Although I will continue to reference these ideas throughout my close reading of significant scenes in ​Mrs. Dalloway​ , I hope that this chapter provides readers with a comprehensive understanding of modern trauma research in order to moderate the abstraction of literary trauma studies and formulate an interdisciplinary framework of analysis that can be used by future Woolf readers for decades to come. By no means, through the incorporation of such research, am I trying to claim that Woolf suffered solely from PTSD. Rather, I believe the causes and symptoms of such a condition must be fully understood in order to recognize the various ways in which it could have both influenced her mental illness and presented itself stylistically in her texts — ultimately granting readers a more complete view of her life and writing. Although I laid out my full working definition of trauma in chapter two — any event shocking or distressing enough to affect an individual’s psyche or processes of memory — it is necessary to clarify that when used in a clinical setting, the term trauma denotes the event that is 96 ​Schönfelder, 39. 37 incredibly disturbing or painful to an individual, while the mental and physical effects of the event in question are classified as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Whether or not someone who has experienced trauma shows specific symptoms of PTSD depends on a multitude of personal and environmental factors, which is why ​the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Medical Disorders’ definition is constantly in flux in regards to its increased focus on a “response-based notion of trauma” in order to take such varying factors into account.97 Tracking these changes to the DSM is critical to understanding the broader societal implication of trauma studies, as the manual serves as the bedrock of a classification system used by psychiatric professionals worldwide, consequently holding immense weight in regards to defining what society considers a “normal” symptom of mental illness. In upholding a response-based understanding of trauma, it is critical to understand that viewing symptomatology through the narrow lens of traditional mind-body dichotomies is impossible, as PTSD symptoms “tend to be so powerful that they involve an intense mental and bodily experience, making trauma victims feels as if they are literally reliving the past in the present.”98 The most recent version of the DSM, the DSM-V, groups symptoms into categories based on their combination and severity. Symptoms categorized under “re-experiencing” and “avoidance” deal with unwanted, troublesome memories and intense periods of “prolonged physiological distress,” while symptoms falling under “negative cognitions and mood” can manifest as a complex range of emotions, from a strong desire to remain isolated from others to persistent self-blame by the individual. Finally, symptoms categorized under “arousal” are defined by manic and volatile behavior, which often presents in the form of disrupted sleep patterns and intense alertness.99 As these newly-defined S ​ chönfelder, 62. S ​ chönfelder, 65. 99 ​“What is Posttraumatic Stress,” American Psychiatric Association, accessed January 10, 2019, https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/ptsd/what-is-ptsd. 97 98 38 categories make evident, survivors are forced to repetitively confront their individual traumas with no clear indic​ation of what parts of their body or mind will be affected. The DSM-V has greatly expanded the boundaries of what researchers consider to constitute a traumatic experience, as it now includes not only forced sexual intercourse, but also “abusive sexual contact, non contact sexual abuse, [and] sexual trafficking” within its guidelines. This expansion is particularly interesting in light of Virginia Stephens’s relationship with the Duckworth brothers, who still worsened her PTSD symptoms, even when they were not physically molesting her, due to their intense focus on her appearance and social status.100 Furthermore, DSM researchers have worked to include a wider range of cultural backgrounds, genders, and ages in their studies in order to avoid over-generalizing their conclusions regarding the difficulties of living with certain symptoms of PTSD.101 Out of these various demographics, the rapidly growing field of childhood trauma studies is most relevant to my analysis as Woolf’s abuse began at the early age of 6, and, as leading trauma psychiatrist Judith Herman notes, “[r]epeated trauma in adult life erodes the structure of the personality already formed, but repeated trauma in childhood forms and deforms the personality.”102 Furthermore, when such traumas are perpetrated by someone within the family, and occur for long periods of time, Herman states that survivors will often manifest symptoms much more serious and obscure than those suffering from other forms of PTSD. This “complex” form of PTSD is marked by the “the simultaneous or sequential occurrence of child maltreatment, including psychological maltreatment, neglect, physical and sexual abuse, and domestic violence that is chronic, and that begins in early childhood and occurs within the primary caregiving system,” and can completely ​Lee, ​Virginia Woolf, ​144-145. S ​ chönfelder, 72. 102 ​Judith Herman, ​Trauma and Recovery, ​(New York, Basic Books, 1997), 92. 100 101 39 shatter a survivor’s sense of identity while “ruptur[ing] systems of meaning.”103 According to Herman, these ruptures can result in suicide, self-harm, and various other dissociative and somatization disorders that last long into adulthood.104 As Woolf used the pairing of Septimus Smith and Clarissa Dalloway to represent the complex nature of her traumatic memories, this research provides an interesting lens through which to view the characters’ struggles to understand their own fractured subjecthood, as well as Smith’s violent suicide at the conclusion of the novel. Although clinical trauma research has gained more influence within the sphere of traditional literary scholarship, the transition has happened rather gradually. Writer Louise DeSalvo is one of the few Woolf scholars to have published a book-length study, as recently as 1989, on the wide-reaching impacts of childhood sexual abuse on Woolf’s adult life. From her very first page, she classifies Woolf as an incest survivor, and proceeds to identify the specific risk factors which she then uses as points of reference in her case study. ​ DeSalvo notes that this work is fueled by her belief that many of Woolf’s biographers inaccurately portray her as insane and fail to acknowledge that “Virginia’s anxious, ‘mad’ behavior” could have been driven, at least in part, by her traumatic experiences.105 Psychologist Lucia Williams helps delineate the risk factors DeSalvo identifies in her book, such as the fact that that Woolf’s abuse began when she was young, the abuse lasted nearly 20 years, the abuse occurred in many different forms, she was abused by both Gerald and George Duckworth, the abusers were close family members, and “another member of the family was also abused” in reference to Woolf’s sister Vanessa.106 ​As a child, Williams writes that Woolf felt incredibly isolated and was routinely overcome by a ​Herman, ​Trauma and Recovery, ​119-21. ​Herman, ​Trauma and Recovery. 105 ​DeSalvo, ​The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Her Life and Work,​ 1. 106 ​Lucia Williams, “Virginia Woolf’s History of Sexual Victimization: A Case Study in Light of Current Research,” in ​Psychology, ​( ​São Carlos, University of São Carlos, 2014),​ 1155. 103 104 40 “hopeless sadness” during which she would “[slink] off alone, feeling horribly depressed.”107 During these depressive episodes, Woolf remarked that she felt powerless over her own body, as well as in her interactions with others. To describe a childhood altercation with her brother Thoby, Woolf writes, “I dropped my hand instantly, and stood there, and let him beat me…” and “I became aware of something terrible; and of my own powerlessness.” Furthermore, Woolf remarks that her abuse was accompanied by a deep sense of shame, questioning why she would “still shiver with shame at the memory of [her] half brother, standing [her] on a ledge, aged about 6, and so exploring [her] private parts.” She asks herself, “Why should I have felt shame then?”108 DeSalvo further suggests that Woolf exhibited dissociative behaviors characteristic of severe PTSD, referring specifically to instances in which Woolf describes how “[a] disembodied trance-like intense rapture... used to seize [her] as a girl” and that she once struggled to cross a puddle because “everything suddenly became unreal; I was suspended…”109 ​These elements of dissociative behavior reappear in the character of Septimus, who, unable to integrate his traumatic memories of war into standard processes of memory, remains trapped in a world where his arm is nothing but a “piece of bone”110 and his “macerated” body is “spread like a veil upon a rock.”111 To illustrate the processes behind this disassociation, Bessel van der Kolk describes the psychological coping mechanism of “indifference,” used by soldiers in order to mentally escape the horrors of war and “the sight of mutilated comrades, the smell of their blood and bowels, the incessant sound of their cries and moans heard through the noise of machine guns and exploding ​Lucia Williams, “Virginia Woolf’s History of Sexual Victimization: A Case Study in Light of Current Research,” 1154. 108 ​Bell, 44. 109 ​DeSalvo, ​The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Her Life and Work, ​105. 110 ​Virginia Woolf, ​Mrs. Dalloway, (​ New York, Houghton Mifflin, 1981), 16. 111 ​Woolf, ​Mrs. Dalloway,​ 68. 107 41 shells, and even the taste of death.”112 Due to his experience fighting on the frontline, Septimus no longer perceives himself as human, or as having access to experiencing the full range of emotions emblematic of the human experience. In the world of the sane, “communication is health; communication is happiness,” and as a trauma survivor Septimus finds himself unable to describe to either Rezia or his doctors the extent of the horrifying thoughts plaguing his mind.113 In a similar manner to how soldiers suffering from PTSD sometimes begin to feel utterly repulsed by the physicality of their bodies, Woolf, from early childhood, displayed symptoms of anorexia nervosa. Glenny notes that in the spring of 1888, the Stephens children were stricken with whooping cough and lost immense amounts of weight during the illness, however ​Virginia never regained her childish plumpness after her recovery — Bell writes that during this time period she became “marked . . . by that thin, fine, angular elegance which she kept all her life.”114 As Gerald Duckworth began abusing Woolf the following summer, Glenny poses the question of whether it was his abuse that caused her to engage in seemingly anorexic behavior from such a young age.115 Although studies, like the once conducted in 2014 by Dworkin, Javdani, Verona, and Campbell, have tentatively shown that CSA can increase binge-eating and purging in trauma survivors, a much more robust association can be drawn from clinicians’ reports of conversations with their patients.116 Despite being somewhat tenuous, this thesis highlights the connection between Woolf’s trauma and her disordered eating as these same associations between food, weight, and ridicule are foregrounded within ​Mrs. Dalloway​. In my close reading, I will detail the manner in which Woolf uses Clarissa’s dinner party as means for her character to gain ​Bessel van der Kolk, “Trauma and Memory,” ​Traumatic Stress: The effects of overwhelming experience on mind, body, and society, (​ New York, Guilford Press, 1996), 282. 113 ​Woolf, ​Mrs. Dalloway​, 93 114 ​ Bell, ​Virginia Woolf: A Biography,​ 25. 115 ​Allie Glenny, ​“​Ravenous Identity: Eating and Eating Distress in the Life and Work of Virginia Woolf,” (New York, Palgrave MacMillan, 2000), 18. 116 ​Williams, 1155. 112 42 agency in a patriarchal society by presiding over the distribution of food and drink, as well as the location where she is finally able to reunify her fractured sense of selfhood. As research surrounding CSA has only become prevalent over the past couple of years, it is not surprising a collection of older 20th century biographers “victim-blamed” Woolf in their underestimation of the immense impact trauma can have on the wellbeing of a survivor, especially one already struggling with significant mental illness. For example, in Lee’s critically renowned biography ​Virginia Woolf​, she asserts that Woolf’s memories regarding her sexual abuse have an air of “something inconclusive about them” and that her friends also present “confusing” reports in regards to this time period of her life.117 Lee criticizes DeSalvo for her consistent “manipulation” of CSA data, implying she “over-interprets” research in a manner to fit with Woolf’s behavior.118 Further moderating this liberal sphere of scholarship, Lee questions whether Woolf could have used George “as an explanation for [her own] terrifyingly volatile and vulnerable mental states,” as she seemingly reacted to his death with feelings of tenderness.119 I applaud Lee’s speculative nature, yet it is important to note the existence of clinical research comparing the emotional ties between survivors of CSA and their abusers to Stockholm syndrome, which may account for Woolf’s strange behavior in regards to her relationship with the Duckworth brothers.120 A more shocking example of this victim-blaming mentality can be found within the work of scholar Lyndall Gordon, who, in ​Virginia Woolf: a writer’s life,​ claims that ​“George’s behavior… may have been irresistible to a girl like Virginia,” and that he “thought [himself] very handsome and his combination of sensual lips and considerate manners made him the pet of society ladies.”121 Williams notes that survivors of CSA ​Lee, 152-153. ​Williams, 1157. 119 ​Williams, 1157. 120 ​“Stockholm syndrome and child abuse,” US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, accessed March 10, 2018, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16203697. 121 ​DeSalvo, 5. 117 118 43 still face this sort of gendered bias today, as one only needs to look at startlingly low number of sexual assault convictions in modern society to draw conclusions about the continued systematic privileging of male voices over female experiences.122 In the midst of today’s “Me Too” movement, the debate between scholars regarding the extent of Woolf’s abuse, despite the extensive amount of existing evidence, holds an especially weighty relevance. Trauma and fragmented processes of memory I must now discuss one of the most prominent concerns amongst both literary trauma theorists and clinical physicians — that being the ​myriad ways in which trauma negatively affects cognitive functions of memory — in order to later delineate the immense restorative potential that trauma writing holds for survivors. In the words of van der Kolk, intrusion and amnesia can occur when “structures of autobiographical memory” fail to integrate trauma-related memories into their pre-existing lexicon of non-traumatic, day to day memories.123 As a result of this cognitive interference, it can become nearly impossible for survivors to willfully recall certain traumatic memories, and instead they fall victim to series of “sudden, uncontrolled intrusions” into their everyday lives.124 Furthermore, these often frightening memories are structured along “somatosensory or iconic levels,” meaning that the sheer power of what the survivor sees and feels, coupled with the startling “here and now quality” of such visions, can render them trapped in a state of “speechless terror.”125 Because these memories cannot be easily explained, they take on an incomprehensible, almost “haunting quality,” that make “trauma [survivors] feel locked up in the past.”126 In a study on the frequency of posttraumatic nightmares, Van der Kolk found that survivors will sometimes re-experience the same traumatic ​Williams, 1157. ​Bessel van der Kolk, ​Traumatic Stress: The effects of overwhelming experience on mind, body, and society, ​282. 124 S ​ chönfelder, 75-75. 125 ​van der Kolk, “Trauma and Memory,” 287. 126 S ​ chönfelder, 83. 122 123 44 experience over and over again for up to 15 years. In his words, “traumatic memories are timeless, and ego-alien” — meaning that such memories continuously shatter the survivor’s sense of self and can produce immense inner-turmoil.127 These debilitating aspects of traumatic memory have become a prominent theme in literature, as authors focus on how such intensive memories can reorient the lives of their protagonists so that they begin to define every subsequent lived event through its relationship to the original trauma.128 129 One of the most culturally prominent examples of a survivor’s fixation on traumatic memory is that of Toni Morrison’s ​Beloved, a​ haunting narrative concurrently bound by the horrors of the supernatural and chattel slavery, in which Morrison explores the concept of repressed trauma — specifically the trauma of a collective group of people — and how it resurfaces later, sometimes insidiously, as “re-memory.” In ​Beloved​, re-memory comes in the form of the ghostly return of the main character’s daughter, who slowly sucks the life out of her mother to represent the insidious nature of how trauma affects those who harbor it deep within their psyches. Van der Kolk has further studied the intrinsic connection between literature and traumatic memory, writing that if survivors are continually re-exposed to the site of their trauma, whether in reality or through the form of intrusive memories, they will eventually find themselves unable to function in reality. In order to halt this degeneration of selfhood and sanity, he argues that it is necessary that they work towards “the integration of the alien, the unacceptable, the terrifying, and the incomprehensible; trauma must be ‘personalized’ as an integrated aspect of one’s personal history.”130 In other words, survivors must transform their once incomprehensible trauma memories into cohesive narratives in order to fully understand their experiences, as well ​van der Kolk, 295-296. S ​ chönfelder, 76. 129 ​DeMeester, 651. 130 ​Van der Kolk, xvi. 127 128 45 as recover a sense of stability in their tumultuous lives.131 Luckily, a number of modern research studies point to the conclusion that survivors can begin healing by narrating their past traumas through the written or spoken word.132 Through this form of “exposure therapy,” patients are forced to re-confront their trauma through either “in vivo” or “imaginal” exposure, where they can either physically return to the site of trauma or situate themselves there using their imaginations.133 This method of therapy places the survivor in a controlled trauma simulation during which a trained professional can aid the survivor, whether through guided visualization or writing, in lessening trauma’s paralyzing grip over his or her life. In ​Virginia Woolf and Trauma: Embodied Texts, S ​ uzette Henke and David Eberly argue that Woolf used a similar form narrative writing to achieve “healing through the aegis of traumatic reformulation,” a process the pair has since deemed scriptotherapy in order to capture the intrinsic connection between creation, reexperiencing, and healing.134 Their theory is best evidenced by Woolf’s declaration, in “A Sketch of the Past,” of how writing has helped her make sense of the “shocks” and “blows” of her traumatic youth. She writes,“It is only by putting it into words that I make it whole; this wholeness means that it has lost the power to hurt me; it gives me, perhaps because by doing so I take away the pain, a great delight to put the severed parts together.”135 Woolf’s revelation, that putting together the fragmented memories of her trauma through writing helps “take away the pain,” clearly emulates what modern researchers, such as van der Kolk, have demonstrated in their own studies. Earlier in the diary entry, Woolf describes feeling as if she routinely oscillates between the intense shocks of traumatic memories, and the ​Herman, 176. S ​ chönfelder, 106. 133 ​“Exposure Therapy Helps PTSD Victims Overcome Trauma’s Debilitating Effects,” American Psychological Association, accessed October 20, 2019, ​https://www.apa.org/research/action/exposure​. 134 ​Eberly, ​Virginia Woolf and Trauma: Embodied Texts, 15. 135 Woolf, “A Sketch of the Past,” 72. 131 132 46 “cottonwool of [her] daily life” in which “nothing is lived consciously.”136 According to Herman, these spans of unconscious living reflect the manner in which trauma survivors will numb their emotional capacities as a defense against the intense pain of trauma.137 As delineated above, such modern trauma research holds immense potential for illuminating why Woolf textually represents her fractured memories in the unique way she does. ​Schönfelder best captures the reasoning for my desire to create a transdisciplinary structure of analysis in the passage below, establishing trauma studies as a discipline which must move away from abstraction and ahistoricism to produce meaningful conclusions regarding a survivor’s experiences. She writes: It is precisely because of the inherent tensions between these disciplines that an interdisciplinary dialogue is fruitful — and this applies especially to a notoriously slippery, complex, and controversial subject such as trauma. More specifically, as outlined above, an interdisciplinary approach constitutes a crucial pillar of my theoretical trajectory for several reasons: exploring trauma through the lens of psychiatry and psychology allows me to move away from the paradigm of literary and cultural studies that conceptualizes trauma in metaphorical and aestheticized as well as abstract and ahistorical terms.138 In my subsequent close readings, I will draw upon a multitude of disciplines, ranging from the theories of 20th century French feminists to clinical trauma research, in order to draw connections between Woolf’s personal diaries and how she represents traumatic memories in her literature. ​Of course, this thesis does not cover Woolf’s body of work in its entirety, yet I foreground a collection of scenes from ​Mrs. Dalloway ​that I believe most vividly reflect her use of scriptotherapy and gendered experience of trauma. ​The plot of ​Mrs. Dalloway i​ s essential to ​Woolf, “A Sketch of the Past,” 70. ​Herman, 37-38. 138 S ​ chönfelder, 86. 136 137 47 my analysis as the Woolf’s doubling of her protagonists, Septimus Warren Smith and Clarissa Dalloway, befittingly demonstrate the gendered nature of trauma — Septimus suffers from PTSD as a result of fighting in the Great War and ultimately commits suicide, while Clarissa appears to live a frivolous life, marked by shopping on Bond Street and hosting extravagant parties, as a high society woman. However, certain elements of Clarissa’s experience, from feeling trapped in a loveless marriage to yearning for the affection of an old female friend, illustrate the manner in which traumatized women have been forced to deal with their symptoms in secret, as the significance of their experiences remain unrecognized by society.​ ​Most importantly, Clarissa’s steadfast devotion to hosting her party, in which she confronts memories of figures from her past head on, illuminates the restorative potential of trauma writing in a manner that Smith’s death, so upheld by trauma scholars as being indicative of Woolf’s experience, cannot.