So back in 2013, I was at CSUF and took a graduate course for my last semester because I knew I wanted to get a higher degree in the field of literature but didn’t really know what to expect. The class was going to be with one of my favorite professors so I couldn’t pass it up, and it was going to be on my favorite era of literature; Modernism. For those of you unfamiliar, it’s probably one of the first types of literature that was meta in nature. It was often used to make the reader question things and kinda ran in this Socratic method of putting characters in positions of uncertainty by way of their own questioning. Like they’d be living a normal life in a normal town but then they’d question what it is to be normal and how once they start this line of questioning things get a little wonky. It’s something I’ve been attracted to since I was a kid, maybe because I’ve had a quite unorthodox upbringing or maybe because I just love the curious nature of modernism. Either way, I was required to read two novels for this course (we read many more but these are the two I write about): Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and James Joyce’s Ulysses. I was fortunate enough to read Ulysses in another class before this and was happy to revisit it so quickly thereafter so I could really sink my teeth into it. The paper is all about mental health and how these two novels symbolize that through water. Not only in the imagery and plot devices, but also in the language that’s used. Modernism has often been described as having a fluid dynamic, one where thoughts and inner monologues flow out like a river; “stream of consciousness” is a term that was probably used for the first time when discussing this type of writing. Joyce and Woolf are two of the most beloved writers of their era and it’s important to note they both suffered from mental health issues that would determine their life and lifestyle. It’s possible that without those issues they might have never written these novels, and that’s important. I think in today’s age we like to categorize ourselves for our own sanity and sometimes it can be a cathartic thing to know that you suffer from depression or anxiety, like on a biological level. But I think it’s all fluid, everyone on earth who lives in a modern society suffers from mental health. We are animals that are confined to our devices and spaces corralled into careers and stuffed into temperate vehicles for transport, our race is to be racing. It’s not normal and we’re all suffering at all times. I think these books helped me understand that, which in-turn helped me come to grips with a lot of life and trauma. I remember I had this lil breakdown at school and had to go to the mental health clinic. On my way, I heard a bird caw above a tree I walked under that felt like it was telling me directly that I was doing the right thing. That might seem like a stupid thing, or like some thing I made up but it really was there. I never told anyone, I just kept it with me and it let me know I was on the right path. I’ll never forget reading Mrs. Dalloway after and noticing all the avian references and analogies.