Skip to main content

Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again- Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf is considered to be one of the greatest writers in history. Her novels like Mrs. Dalloway, To The Lighthouse and Orlando, and feminist essays like A Room Of One's Own and Three Guineas, are critically acclaimed and renowned in today's world. After graduating from King's College, London, she fell into the world of literature and joined a circle of artisans and intellectuals known as the Bloomsbury Group within which she met her husband, Leonard Woolf. It's her fourth novel- Mrs. Dalloway- that made her famous. She made her stand as a revolutionary writer but even though, her writings were crisp and clear, her mental state... not so much. She had attempted suicide many times. She has a history of suffering from sexual abuse at the hands of her half-brothers. The loss of her mother, her half-sister and her father further added to her trauma. She suffered from mania and hallucinations in her lifetime. Though she sought many psychiatric treatments, they were all futile. On the morning of March 28, 1941, her husband, Leonard Woolf knew that something was off-putting about his wife of twenty-nine years so he suggested to her that she go inside and rest. And unfortunately, that's the last time he saw her alive. Leaving two suicide letters behind, on an early spring day, she filled her coat pockets with rocks and walked into a nearby lake. Her death was said to be "the end of a world" by T.S. Eliot. It also inspired a team of researchers to start working on an app that could predict a person's suicide tendencies from their writings. As she died, she left a novel and autobiography unfinished. Her suicide note was her final piece of writing. 

Dearest,

I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times. And I shan’t recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can’t concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness.

You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don’t think two people could have been happier ’til this terrible disease came. I can’t fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know.

You see I can’t even write this properly. I can’t read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that — everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you.

Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can’t go on spoiling your life any longer.

I don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been.

 V.

Reading that note, addressed to her husband, I couldn't help but tear up. Even though the authenticity of that letter is still a subject of debate, it was a piece of writing that truly hurt my soul. In that letter, we can see how she begins to relapse into her mental illness again and how she can't just fight it anymore. And even though she loves her husband with everything in her, she does not want to end up a burden. It clearly portrays the mind of a person suffering from mental illness. How they see the love- acknowledge it- but never believe it can save them because their own mind has led them to believe they can never be redeemed.


Her story shows how important it is to notice someone who is struggling and help them before they reach a stage where it is impossible to help them any further. Mental health problems are real. They're cruel. They turn a person hopeless and vulnerable. I wonder what more could've come from Woolf if she hadn't met such a drastic end- what all she could've further accomplished if her life hadn't turned out the way it had. But it did. And she died. In my opinion, that is one of the greatest tragedies the literary world has ever suffered.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Significance of Jo March's Monologue in 'Little Women'

'Little Women', a classic novel by Louisa May Alcott was adapted into a movie under the direction of Greta Gerwig (one of my absolute favourite directors of all time) in the year 2019. It portrays the lives of four sisters- Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy- navigating love, aspirations, and societal expectations during the Civil War era. The film beautifully captures their individual journeys and the evolving dynamics of sisterhood. Jo March, who is the second of the four March sisters, is the protagonist who aspires with every fibre in her to become a well-acclaimed writer. It's even more interesting how the character of Jo is actually based on Louisa May Alcott herself, making the story sort of a semi-autobiography. Played by Saoirse Ronan, Jo is portrayed as an extremely independent woman, challenging the gender roles and the restraints placed upon women in society.  Even though the whole movie is something that strikes the very depths of our hearts, there is one particular monolo...

Lost in the Waves

Beaches have always been a favourite of mine. It's almost like the sea calls my name, beckoning me to embrace its folds. To throw myself into the waters and have no care in the world is something too special to me. Because when I'm neck-deep in there, I'm nothing. My weight against the force of the waves becomes irrelevant. And I'm not just speaking of the weight of my body but of my heart too. In fact, I think my heart is far more heavy than my body ever will be. After all, it is a museum of everything I have loved and lost and loved again. And the artefacts within it weigh down on me- it makes me slump my shoulders and drag my feet while I should be floating around with ease. It makes even the easiest tasks undoable. But the moment I step into the water, I'm free of it all. Maybe it is an inherent nature of mine- to dive into something that is ragingly unpredictable. But rage is so dear to me. Unpredictability is so dear to me. It's something I've grown up...

Academic Burn Out

I used to be someone who was at the top of her class. I've always had a rank above five till my ninth grade. It's not that I felt pressured to study that hard but people appreciated me best when I did. And I craved that appreciation and validation from my parents, teachers and relatives, even if it meant unending sleepless nights and constant stress. I wasn't particularly exceptional at any co-curricular activity or sports event. I was just in the middle of everything- not that poor but not that good either. Studying was the one thing that people accepted I was really good at. So I did everything to keep their beliefs intact. But in my tenth grade, academic burnout hit me and it hit me hard. I felt like I was literally draining myself too much. I lost the will to study. I barely passed my model exams. Tenth grade is believed to be a turning point in every single student's life- the phase where they're supposed to work the hardest. But I couldn't focus. I couldn...