ABSTRACT Title of Document: BRITISH MODERNIST ... - DRUM

next at Middlesex Hospital, which he identifies not as the location of his physical
body, but as “evidently my spiritual home” (116). The latter is a direct quotation of
Frobisher’s thoughts, while the former is given in free indirect discourse. Connections
to the physical world intrude on the narrative at the same time that focalization
returns to the narrative.
This mingling of the spiritual and the physical continues in the second of three
locations in Frobisher’s spiritual journey: Middlesex Hospital. Here, not only is the
physical world blended with the spiritual world of Frobisher’s vision, but past,
present, and future are blended, leading Frobisher to view this place as Hell, because
“Hell is repetition” (116). As Frobisher notes, this is the hospital where he first
received “treatment for a non-existent renal stone” (117) and the place where his wife
will give birth to their child. He also identifies it as “my spiritual home” (116), but
soon finds that it is also the current home to his physical body. Moreover, he initially
cannot see his own body: “It was shut off from my physical vision by a group of
doctors” (117). The implication is that he identifies the body through his spiritual
vision. The notion is that in this realm, both of these visions meet. When he finally
sees his body, as in Luna, he finds that he does not have the reaction he would expect
to a normal, physical vision: “For the first time, I observed the expulsion of blood
without feeling in the least nauseated or faint” (117). Finally, Frobisher is both
present and absent, seemingly noticed by a familiar nurse, who gestures for him to be
quiet, but ignored completely when he insists on protesting that “the patient is dead”
(117). As the narrator notes of his examination of his own body, “My detachment was
extraordinary” (117). The mingling of physical and spiritual realms has once again
214