Septimus and Shell Shock

Septimus came home from the war unable to feel. His friend Evans died beside him, yet he could not grieve, and that numbness frightens him more than the original horror. Dr Holmes insists nothing is wrong; Sir William Bradshaw prescribes enforced rest. Both treat a mind shattered by mechanized warfare as a personal weakness. His suicide is at once an escape and an indictment of every system that failed him.