Septimus Warren Smith is the embodiment of modernity's struggle for sanity. Suffering from severe shell shock, Septimus, like the writer Virginia Woolf, becomes a prisoner of the modern medicalization of society, forced to repress his “madness” at the confines of his own mentality. Struggling to cope with the emptiness of humanity, Septimus develops a reluctance to conform to the authoritarian approaches of his doctors, "Sir William...never spoke of madness, rather he called it a sense of proportion" solidifying the society through forced conformity, refusing to acknowledge the presence of madness rather than refer to it as a choice. . Since "once you fall, human nature is upon you...Holmes and Bradshaw are one and the same", losing control of the mind and succumbing to mental illness allows life to trample on individuality, forcing the isolation, separation and weakness. Septimus's death metaphorically saves his individuality, deciding to escape the terrors of life. The echo of Shakespeare's Cymbeline's lines "Fear no more the heat of the sun / Nor the furious rages of winter" personifies Septimus's passions and desires to escape his inner prison, seeing the final end as a tantalizing consolation to the horrors of society..