Today’s discussion was really interesting from a craft perspective. What I learned about Woolf’s mental health really helps me understand the narration of the novel. Woolf used free and direct discourse, which means that she had to basically become the character while describing it in third person. You (McLeod) said that Clarissa could feel things before she could fully react to and process them. I’m sure that Virginia Woolf was a lot like Clarissa in that aspect, which is why this free direct discourse probably came easy to her. She took on the characters so well because she could feel what they feel and describe it to a tee. I found the narration confusing at first, but after the discussion, it makes complete sense. I also really liked the bird metaphors we spoke about, and I find a lot of Woolf in these metaphors. I think she was a woman who constantly felt like she was going to float away with the wind (and wishes she could fly away), hence the curtains that critics argue was the time of Septimus’s death. Woolf most certainly represents the structure of feeling by using free and direct discourse because she shows it from several angles and does so through things like the bird metaphors and also characters that are settled and characters that are floating. Elizabeth seems like she knows who she is, and Richard, too. So they represent settled characters. However, Clarissa and Septimus are floating characters because everything moves them in a way they can’t control. Interesting enough, Woolf herself was both. Her soul could easily fly off the handle, but in her suicide, she sank.