Evil Proportion
Sir William Bradshaw! We don’t like him, do we? He played a pivotal role in Septimus’s suicide (not as pivotal as Dr. Holmes, but pivotal nonetheless). He’s quite incompetent by our modern standards. He makes Rezia feel miserable after she leaves his office. Clarissa, with her gift for reading people, thinks there’s something off about Bradshaw, and even our good friend Richard “‘didn’t like his taste, didn’t like his smell.’” By the end of Mrs. Dalloway, we’re definitely not fans of Sir William. However, I think it’s interesting to note that the very first time we meet him, on pgs. 92-93, we’re not given an entirely negative picture. In fact, I was quite inclined to like him when I read Woolf's initial description of his character. Here’s an abridged excerpt from it, with some key phrases highlighted:
“He had worked very hard; he had won his position by sheer ability (being the son of a shopkeeper); loved his profession; made a fine figure-head at ceremonies and spoke well — all of which had… given him a heavy look… which… increased the extraordinary distinction of his presence and gave him the reputation… not merely of lightning skill, and almost infallible accuracy in diagnosis but of sympathy; tact; understanding of the human soul. He could see the first moment [the Warren Smiths] came into the room… it was a case of extreme gravity.”
Doesn't he seem like such a sensitive and skilled doctor? All throughout his initial assessment of Septimus on p. 93, he acts professional and quickly draws some conclusions about Septimus’s condition that are better than anything we've seen rom Dr. Holmes. Septimus seems like he's in good hands. However, in the end, Bradshaw prescribes the rest cure, doesn’t substantially help Septimus, and leaves Rezia feeling helpless. Then, now that we've seen Bradshaw's incompetence firsthand, Woolf launches us into a reflective section about Sir William’s "goddess, Proportion,” painting him in a very different light than when we first saw him. It’s so strange how the color of the writing seems to shift here, how the mask of the “intelligent doctor” collapses.
“Naked, defenceless, the exhausted, the friendless received the impress of Sir William’s will. He swooped; he devoured. He shut people up. It was this combination of decision and humanity that endeared Sir William so greatly to the relations of his victims. But Rezia Warren Smith cried, walking down Harley Street, that she did not like that man.”
I don't like him either, Rezia :(.
Was anyone else surprised by the change in Woolf's characterization of Sir William Bradshaw? Let me know what you think!
-NC
I found your post interesting because it gave me a fresh new take on William Bradshaw. I originally didn't think that Woolf actually changed the characterization of Bradshaw as much as she just took our preconceptions of educated doctors and kind of twisted them throughout the book.
ReplyDeleteI didn't really notice this until you pointed it out, but I think that this shift of characterization could have been kind of a contrast from what the public thought of doctors and her own experiences with her doctors.
ReplyDeleteI find that interesting. I definitely agree that from the point of view of Septimus and Rezia he isn't doing much of anything to help but from a purely objective standpoint what he said was a common cure back then. And if I remember what we said in class correctly then it did actually help people.
ReplyDeleteI actually kind of noticed this too, but I completely forgot about it until I read your post. I remember first thinking Bradshaw was a pretty decent guy, and then being a bit jolted by how rapidly Woolf's descriptions of him devolved once she got started. Maybe that was to like show how a lot of people think he's this amazing, miraculous, kind person on surface level, but the more time you spend with him the more you realize he's still a farce, just a different kind than Dr. Holmes. I've also noticed that Woolf in general tends to give both sides of a character - she never only describes someone in a negative or positive light, you always get a bit of both (even if it's sometime obvious that she doesn't actually believe some of the things she's written other characters as thinking)
ReplyDeleteI read a LOT of irony into Woolf's initial characterizations, which you've highlighted: these sound to me like a form of free-indirect discourse, reflecting Sir William's very self-satisfied image of himself as an infallible expert who is so well respected (and well compensated!) for his very important skills. It's one of the rare moments in this novel where I think Woolf "shows her hand" and lets the reader see more directly what she thinks of the characters.
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