Slut Shaming

In class we have briefly discussed the character of Brett. Whether or not you or I like Brett, we can agree that Hemingway portrays her as a character of problems. By this, I mean that a lot of the conflicts of the novel are centered around Brett. Through this, I'm going to make the argument that Hemingway is slut shaming. This might seem like a stretch, but hear me out. 

Brett's relationships often entail sleeping around, and are generally not very serious. We can see this in her multiple marriages and in her confession to Jake that if they were together she would be unfaithful to him. She is also open about this aspect of herself, as she tells Jake and even Mike knows about it. We can see this in the way they address Brett's relationship with Cohn, criticizing him for not realizing that it isn't serious and he is not particularly special to Brett. Though we don't know if Brett for sure slept with Cohn or not, the general principle is there. With her being so open about her sleeping around and many relationships, it might've been easy for the men close to her to feel disgusted by her, or at the very least disapproving of her actions, but we don't really see that, which seems to refute my point of her being slut shamed. However, I'm not arguing that the characters are slut shaming Brett, but that Hemingway himself is slut shaming Brett. 

I argue this because of where Brett stands in terms of the plot. The conflict between Mike and Cohn and the conflict between Jake and Cohn are arguably centered around Brett. Additionally, Jake's relationship with Paris and his own inner conflict are also arguably centered around Brett. These are all major conflict points within the novel, not small sideplots. They all also seem to revolve about not just Brett, but the fact that she sleeps around and has these open relationships. The way that it is phrased within the novel is that if Brett could just keep it in her pants, these conflicts would go away. Indeed, it seems that Brett at least feels this way to some extent when she talks to Jake and talks of how horrible she is. However, it isn't necessarily just Brett's fault that these conflicts arise, it's also the fault of the men involved. If the men involved truly understood where they stood with Brett and where each other stood with her, then the conflicts would have a much smaller degree of importance. However, both Hemingway and the characters involved only seem to see this with Cohn, and that may be for a whole different set of reasons. It is in this way that Hemingway slut shames Brett, and gives the men little responsibility for their own actions in their affairs with her.  

Let It Go

Septimus Smith is a very complex character in the novel Mrs. Dalloway, who isn't understood by many of the people around him. Do you know who else is a very complex character who isn't understood by the people around them in their story? Queen Elsa of Arendelle. Yes, the pretty ice queen from that Disney movie with the annoying song is very similar to the seriously damaged man Septimus Smith. Both are told by the people around them to just be normal, or at least to act normal. Going along with the Frozen analogy, Dr. Holmes is like Elsa's parents, who tell her to "conceal, don't feel," and she tries her hardest to follow their words, but throughout the first ten minutes of the movie one can see that she struggles with keeping her powers down. Likewise, Dr. Holmes essentially tells Septimus to snap out of his state and take up a hobby, and be normal. We see that Septimus, like Elsa, is aware that he is not the same as other people when in his last ten minutes he is seeing his home staying still, and we know that he struggles a lot with trying to seem normal to people.

If Dr. Holmes is Elsa's parents, then it isn't too much of a reach to claim that Lucrezia is Anna, Elsa's sister. Anna knows about Elsa's powers, but doesn't know how to help Elsa with them, just that she wants to help. She sees Elsa struggling and wants more than anything for them to be how they used to. Lucrezia is the same with Septimus. She knows that there's something wrong (granted, she doesn't know what exactly), doesn't know how to help, but knows she wants to help and make things back to normal. We see this especially in the moments leading up to Septimus's suicide when she is ecstatic about how they joke around like they used to.

After a trigger Frozen, Elsa runs away and finally lets go of her powers, freeing herself emotionally of the burden she held and allowing herself to do whatever she wants. For Septimus, letting go mean committing suicide and letting go of life, essentially doing the same as Elsa; freeing himself of his burden. Both characters originally didn't want to let go, but felt they were forced to by a trigger.

The question then, is what was the trigger? Or rather, who was the trigger? For Elsa, it was Hans, a prince who comes to her inauguration and wants to marry her sister. So, who is Septimus's Hans? I don't actually have a solid answer for this, but I have two thoughts of who it could be. Either Dr. Bradshaw is Hans, who causes emotions in Anna (Lucrezia) more so than he does into Elsa (Septimus), or Dr. Holmes again is Hans, who pushes Elsa to flee. What are your thoughts?