Septimus Warren Smith

How the book draws them

Appearance, manner, and tone — as the book sketches them, in our words.

• Reading a public spectacle privatelyOn pages 31–37, the airplane's advertising letters seem to Septimus to carry a personal message. Trees and birds become charged with meaning. A sight shared with other Londoners reveals how far his experience has become separated from theirs.
• A reader who volunteers for warOn pages 127–131, memories of library books, poetry and Shakespeare establish the aspirations of the young clerk who enlists. Evans's death near the war's end is followed by Septimus's pride in feeling little, a numbness that later frightens him.
• Hearing the promise of separationOn pages 144–149, Sir William Bradshaw prescribes isolation in a country home. The doctor's assurance does not answer Septimus's need to be understood, and the proposed removal from Rezia makes treatment feel like a threat.
• Making a hat with ReziaOn pages 214–219, Septimus jokes about Mrs. Peters's hat and helps choose its arrangement while Rezia does the sewing. Shared craft and laughter briefly restore an ordinary companionship that the doctors' descriptions fail to capture.
• Entrusting the papersOn pages 223–225, Septimus asks for his writings to be burned. Rezia instead gathers and ties them in silk, promising to stay with him. He recognizes her strength at the moment their connection is most threatened.
• Facing Holmes’s arrivalOn pages 225–228, Holmes pushes past Rezia and approaches the room. Septimus does not want to die, but fears the doctor's intrusion and kills himself. The sequence makes the preceding failures of care central to understanding the death.