Virginia Woolf works with the natural human instinct to care about, pity, and feel badly for those who are presented as weaker and lost, such as Septimus Warren Smith, by providing the reader with the perspectives of those around him and of Septimus himself. Spetimus is a shell shocked soldier from World War I. He is fragile and the reader is made to care about him through Woolf’s use of various perspectives. She mainly uses the perspectives of Smith’s wife Rezia and of Septimus himself. He is shown to lack the ability to comprehend emotions and everyday situations. He is often confused by what happens around him, causing his wife Rezia to be confused by his actions. Septimus’ mental state varies throughout the text as well, making the reader understand…show more content… Tears ran down his cheeks”(21-22). While Septimus is out with his wife Rezia, a skywriter scrawls an advertisement with smoke across the sky. Rezia urges him to look up at the writing but Septimus is looking at the ground crying. He is so emotionally unstable that, though he knows the writing to be beautiful, he is brought to tears. The reader is immediately left exposed to his weakness and attains a sense of pity for this man, even though they have just been introduced to him because they are shown him in such a fragile state, crying over an advertisement for toffee because of its beauty, which causes the reader to care about him. Septimus is easily startled by anything abrupt. “’Septimus!’ said Rezia. He started violently. People must notice… For she could stand it no longer. Dr. Holmes might say that there was nothing wrong. Far rather would she that he were dead! She could not sit beside him when he started so and
