Mrs Dalloway PDF

Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com Mrs Dalloway When Written: 1922-24 INTR INTRODUCTION ODUCTION...

Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com Mrs Dalloway When Written: 1922-24 INTR INTRODUCTION ODUCTION Where Written: London and Sussex BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF VIRGINIA WOOLF When Published: 1925 Virginia Woolf was born into a literate, wealthy family in Literary Period: Modernism London, the second to last among several siblings and half- Genre: Modernist Fiction siblings. Her mother and half-sister died in her youth, leading to Setting: London, England Woolf’s first nervous breakdown. Woolf was educated and Climax: Clarissa learns of Septimus’s suicide extremely well-read, but she was never given the university Antagonist: Dr. Holmes, Sir William Bradshaw opportunities her brothers were. Her father’s death and her subsequent sexual abuse by her half-brothers contributed to Point of View: Third person omniscient, free indirect Woolf’s mental illness. She became friends with several notable discourse intellectuals including John Maynard Keyes, Clive Bell, and Leonard Woolf, and this social circle was soon known as the EXTRA CREDIT Bloomsbury Group. Woolf married Leonard Woolf in 1912, but Other Mrs. Dalloways. Characters named “Mrs. Dalloway” also she also had an influential affair with the writer Vita Sackville- appear in Woolf’s first novel The Voyage Out and in five of her West. Woolf was a prolific writer, producing essays, lectures, stories, though they don’t all seem to be the same woman. stories, and novels until the year of her death. Her works helped shape modernist literature, psychology, and feminism, The Hours. One of Woolf’s original titles for the novel was “The and she is considered one of the greatest lyrical writers of the Hours,” and Michael Cunningham wrote a Pulitzer Prize- English language. Woolf committed suicide at age 59. winning novel with this title in 1998. This book, which concerns three women whose lives are affected by Mrs. Dalloway, was HISTORICAL CONTEXT then made into an Oscar-winning movie of the same name. Mrs Dalloway takes place in June of 1923. World War I ended in 1918, and though the United Kingdom was technically victorious in the war, hundreds of thousands of soldiers died PL PLO OT SUMMARY fighting and the country suffered huge financial losses. In 1922 All the action of Mrs. Dalloway takes place in London during one much of Ireland seceded from the United Kingdom, and many day and night in mid-June, 1923. Clarissa Dalloway is an of Britain’s colonies would reach independence in the decades upper-class housewife married to Richard, a politician in the following, including India, where Peter Walsh returns from. Mrs Conservative Party. Clarissa is throwing a party that night, and Dalloway critiques the conservatism and traditionalism of the in the morning she walks about London on her way to get upper classes at the time, while also portraying the tragedy of flowers. She enjoys the small sensations of daily life and often the “lost generation” following World War I, like Septimus as a muses on her late teenage years at Bourton, her family’s victim of PTSD. country home. She passes a car bearing an unknown but important personage, and an airplane sky writing an RELATED LITERARY WORKS advertisement. A work that parallels and possibly influenced Mrs Dalloway was Clarissa returns home and is visited by Peter Walsh, an old James Joyce’s Ulysses, which was another famous modernist friend from Bourton who has been in India for years. Peter was text that follows several characters’ streams of consciousness once passionately in love with Clarissa, but she rejected his over the course of one day. Woolf was studying classical Greek offer of marriage. Peter and Clarissa have always been very works like the Odyssey while she composed Mrs Dalloway, and close but also very critical of each other, and their brief meeting she especially saw Antigone as an important work of feminine is laden with shared memories. Peter leaves when Clarissa’s protest. Woolf’s most famous female predecessors in English daughter Elizabeth enters, and he walks to Regent’s Park, literature were Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, and George thinking about Clarissa’s refusal of his marriage offer. He Eliot. follows a young woman, idealizing her from afar. The point of view shifts to Septimus Warren Smith, a veteran KEY FACTS of World War I who is suffering from shell shock. Septimus and his Italian wife, Lucrezia, wait in Regent’s Park. Septimus Full Title: Mrs Dalloway ©2020 LitCharts LLC v.007 www.LitCharts.com Page 1  Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com imagines that he is a kind of prophet and has hallucinations of his dead soldier friend Evans. Septimus was once an aspiring CHARA CHARACTERS CTERS poet, but after the war he became numb and unable to feel. He believes his lack of emotion is a crime for which the world has MAJOR CHARACTERS condemned him to death, and he is often suicidal. Lucrezia has Clarissa Dallowa Dallowayy – The novel’s eponymous protagonist, a been taking Septimus to Dr. Holmes, who is convinced that middle-aged, upper-class lady throwing a party. Clarissa is Septimus has nothing wrong with him and is “in a funk.” That married to the conservative politician Richard Dalloway but is afternoon the Smiths visit Sir William Bradshaw, a famous deeply affected by her past love for Sally Seton and her doctor who subscribes to a worldview of “proportion” and is a rejection of Peter Walsh, and she often dwells on the past. psychological bully to his patients. Sir William plans to send Clarissa is sociable and loves life, especially the small moments Septimus to a mental institution in the country. and sensations of the everyday. At the same time she is constantly aware of death and feels that there is a great danger Richard Dalloway has lunch with Lady Bruton, a descendant of in living even one day. Clarissa considers the privacy of the soul famous generals, and Hugh Whitbread, a shallow but charming the heart of life, but she also loves communicating with others aristocrat. The men help Lady Burton write a letter about and throwing parties, bringing people together, which she emigration. After lunch Richard gets roses for Clarissa and considers to be her great gift. Though she is intelligent and was plans to tell her he loves her, but when he sees her finds he once radical, she has grown conventional in middle age, and cannot say it out loud. Clarissa considers the privacy of the soul others sometimes think her frivolous. and the gulf that exists between even a husband and a wife. Richard leaves and Elizabeth emerges with Doris Kilman, her Septimus W Warren arren Smith – A World War I veteran in his thirties, history tutor. Doris Kilman is poor, unattractive, and bitter, and Septimus suffers from shell shock, or PTSD. He was once an has been trying to convert Elizabeth to Christianity. Miss aspiring poet, but after enlisting in the war for idealistic Kilman and Clarissa hate each other and are jealous of the reasons and the death of his close friend and officer Evans, other’s influence on Elizabeth. Miss Kilman and Elizabeth go Septimus became unable to feel emotion. He married Lucrezia shopping and then Elizabeth leaves, leaving Miss Kilman to while stationed in Milan. Septimus feels condemned by human wallow in hatred and self-pity. nature and is often suicidal and thinks that he has been condemned by the world to die for his failure to feel. In his Septimus grows suddenly lucid while Lucrezia is making a hat. more intense hallucinations he imagines himself surrounded by The couple designs the hat and jokes together, sharing a flames, or as a prophet with a divine message. Though the two moment of happiness. Then Dr. Holmes arrives to visit characters never meet, Clarissa and Septimus act as doubles in Septimus. Lucrezia tries to stop him, but Holmes pushes past the novel. her. Septimus thinks of Holmes as a monster condemning him to death, and Septimus jumps out the window, killing himself as Peter WWalsh alsh – Clarissa’s closest friend who was once an act of defiance. passionately in love with her. They are intellectually very similar, but always critical of each other. Clarissa rejected Peter hears the ambulance go by and marvels at it as a symbol Peter’s proposal of marriage, which has haunted him all his life. of English civilization. He lingers at his hotel and then goes to He lived in India for years and often has romantic problems Clarissa’s party, where most of the novel’s upper-class with women. Peter is critical of everyone, indulges in long characters eventually assemble. Clarissa acts as a “perfect fantasies and musings, and constantly plays with his hostess” but is worried the party will fail, and she is aware of pocketknife. Peter’s silent criticism. Sally Seton, a woman Clarissa had loved passionately as a teen at Bourton, arrives unexpectedly. The once-radical Sally has married a rich man and settled down. The MINOR CHARACTERS Prime Minister visits briefly but his appearance is anticlimactic. Richard Dallowa Dallowayy – Clarissa’s husband, a Conservative Sir William Bradshaw arrives late, and his wife tells Clarissa politician in Parliament. Richard is a relatively simple, about Septimus’s suicide. Clarissa goes off alone to consider uninteresting man, but he is kind, philanthropic, and loves his the sudden arrival of death at her party, and she feels a kinship wife and daughter. with Septimus. She admires the purity of his soul and considers Hugh Whitbread – Clarissa’s old friend from Bourton, the her own often shallow existence. She sees Septimus’s suicide as epitome of English charm, tradition, and conservative values. an act of communication. Peter and Sally reminisce, waiting for He is vain, pompous, and always well-dressed. Clarissa and Clarissa to join them. Clarissa finally appears and Peter is filled Lady Bruton think him kind, but Peter and Sally hate him and with ecstasy and terror. what he stands for. Lucrezia Smith (Rezia) – Septimus’s twenty-four-year-old wife, an Italian woman who left Milan to marry Septimus. She is a ©2020 LitCharts LLC v.007 www.LitCharts.com Page 2  Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com skilled hatmaker and usually a playful, loving woman, but grows independent woman but had her will subsumed into her unhappy and lonely as Septimus’s mental illness increases. husband’s fifteen years before. Sally Seton – A woman whom Clarissa loved passionately as a The Prime Minister – The head of the British Cabinet. In the teen at Bourton. Sally was once radical and bombastic, and she novel the Prime Minister acts as a symbol of outdated and Clarissa shared a kiss that Clarissa considers the highlight tradition and conservatism. He briefly visits Clarissa’s party. of her life. Sally ends up marrying a rich man and having five Daisy Simmons – Peter’s lover in India, a twenty-four-year-old boys. woman who is married to an Army Major. Elizabeth Dallowa Dallowayy – Clarissa’s seventeen-year-old daughter, a Lady Be Bexborough xborough – A woman Clarissa idolizes. She is dark and quiet girl who prefers the country and dogs to London and imposing, and once opened a bazaar. parties. She has an exotic beauty that is beginning to attract attention. She respects both her mother and Miss Kilman, but Miss Pym – The owner of the flower shop. Clarissa did her an recognizes their differences. unknown favor in the past. Doris Kilman – Elizabeth’s history tutor, a poor, unattractive Maisie Johnson – A young woman visiting London from woman who always wears a mackintosh. Miss Kilman is bitter Edinburgh, who finds the big city strange. and self-pitying, constantly feeling that she has been robbed of The old woman across the wa wayy – Clarissa’s neighbor. Clarissa happiness. She is very religious and tries to convert Elizabeth to watches the old woman in the privacy of her own room and is Christianity. Miss Kilman hates Clarissa but loves Elizabeth comforted about the independence of the soul. possessively. The old woman singing – An old woman begging for change Sir William Br Bradsha adshaw w – A famous London psychiatrist. Sir and singing a song about love and death. William subscribes to the worldview of “proportion,” and he Milly Brush – Lady Bruton’s assistant, a charmless woman who bullies his patients into converting to his views, all while hates Hugh but likes Richard. ingratiating himself to everyone else. He recommends that Mrs. Filmer – The Smiths’ neighbor, Rezia’s only friend in Septimus be separated from Rezia and sent to an institution. London. Lady Bruton – An elderly upper-class lady who is descended Miss Isabel P Pole ole – A poet and Shakespeare teacher whom from a famous general. She is friends with Richard Dalloway, Septimus loved before the war. who admires her strength and respectability. Lady Bruton is traditional, conservative, and devoted to the idea of emigration Mrs. Dempster – An older woman who regrets her youth. to Canada. Elise Mitchell – A little girl who runs into Lucrezia’s legs. Dr Dr.. Holmes – A general practitioner who treats Septimus. Sylvia – Clarissa’s sister, who was killed by a falling tree. Holmes claims that Septimus is perfectly healthy, just “in a Edith – Ellie Henderson’s unexplained companion, possibly her funk”, and needs to get a hobby. Septimus comes to despise partner. Holmes and thinks of him as the embodiment of repulsive human nature. Mr Mr.. Brewer – Septimus’s boss before World War I, at the firm of “Sibleys and Arrowsmiths, auctioneers, valuers, land and Aunt Helena – Clarissa’s aunt who has one glass eye, a relic of estate agents.” He thought that Septimus had potential to rise an older, stricter English society. Aunt Helena was a botanist in his field if he could keep his health. and likes to talk about Burma and orchids. She finds Sally’s youthful behavior appalling, especially Sally’s penchant for Mrs. P Peters eters – The married daughter of Septimus and Lucrezia's cutting off the heads of flowers. neighbor, Mrs. Filmer. Ellie Henderson – Clarissa’s poor, dull cousin. Ellie is socially Sir Harry – A failed painter who attends Clarissa's party. awkward and shy, but she enjoys watching the influential Mrs. Hilberry – An old woman who attends Clarissa's party, people at Clarissa’s party. She has a companion named Edith. and moves Clarissa to tears by commenting that Clarissa looks Evans – Septimus’s friend and officer in World War I. The two like her mother. became very close, possibly even falling in love, but then Evans Homeless woman – An old homeless woman who Richard sees was killed. Septimus subsequently loses the ability to feel, and while walking in the park. She laughs at him. She makes him eventually starts hallucinating Evans’s presence. think of "the problem of vagrancy" but he doesn't have much Lucy – One of the Dalloway servants who idolizes Clarissa. interest in her as an individual. Ev Evelyn elyn Whitbread – Hugh’s wife, a wealthy lady who is Old man – An old man who Septimus sees moments before perpetually ill. throwing himself out of his window, to his death. Lady Br Bradsha adshaw w – Sir William’s wife. She was once an ©2020 LitCharts LLC v.007 www.LitCharts.com Page 3  Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com was technically victorious in the War, but hundreds of THEMES thousands of soldiers died and the country suffered huge financial losses. Mrs. Dalloway then shows how the English In LitCharts literature guides, each theme gets its own color- upper class tried to cling to old, outmoded traditions and coded icon. These icons make it easy to track where the themes pretend that nothing had changed. This is tragically exhibited occur most prominently throughout the work. If you don't have through Septimus, as society ignores his PTSD. Septimus a color printer, you can still use the icons to track themes in fought for his country, but now the country is trying to pretend black and white. that the horrors of war left no lasting traces on its soldiers. PRIVACY, LONELINESS, AND The empty tradition and conservatism of the aristocracy is also shown in the characters of Lady Bruton, Aunt Helena, and COMMUNICATION Hugh Whitbread, who have traditional values and manners but Throughout Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf gives us are hopelessly removed from modern life. Richard works for glimpses into the minds of her characters while at the Conservative Party, which is portrayed as outdated, stuffy, the same time showing their outward communication with and soon to be replaced by the Labor Party. All the characters other people. This framework leads to a complex series of are still preoccupied with social class, as when Clarissa snobbily relations, and her characters deal with the privacy, loneliness, avoids inviting her poor cousin Elsie to her party. Even the poor and communication of these relationships in different ways. Doris Kilman is endlessly bitter towards Clarissa for her wealth Peter Walsh is notably introverted, and gets swept up in his and charm. The futility of classism and outdated conservatism personal fantasies. Even Clarissa, who loves parties, deeply then culminates in the figure of the Prime Minister. He is first experiences her own incommunicable thoughts and the mentioned as Peter’s critique of Clarissa (that she will marry a independence of her existence. She enjoys mingling with other prime minister and so become a useless appendage to a role people, but thinks that the true heart of life lies in the fact that rather than the partner to a man) and then his “greatness” is the old woman across the way has her own room, and Clarissa discussed by people in the street, but when the Prime Minister has hers. actually appears in person he is ordinary and almost laughable. The inherent privacy of the soul is not always positive, though, The Prime Minister belongs to the old order of Empire, and it often appears as loneliness. Septimus is the greatest repression, and classism, which Woolf shows must be example of this. No one understands his Post-Traumatic Stress discarded so that England can survive in the modern era. Disorder (PTSD) and inner turmoil. Woolf shows the loneliness of the soul in nearly every interaction between characters, as TIME she contrasts people’s rich inner dialogues with their often Mrs. Dalloway takes place over the course of one mundane, failed attempts at communication with each other. day, and in its very framework Woolf emphasizes Richard tries to say “I love you” to Clarissa, but is unable to do the passage of time. There are no real chapter so and gives her flowers instead. Clarissa even sees Septimus’s breaks, and the most notable divider of the narrative is the suicide as an act of communication, but by its very nature chiming of Big Ben as the day progresses. All the novel’s action Septimus can receive no response from the world. The is so compressed (and usually composed of thoughts and important reunion pointed to by the entire book – the meeting memories) that a few minutes can fill many pages. The chiming between Clarissa, Peter, and Sally – only takes place beyond the of Big Ben is a reminder of the inevitable march of time, and fits page, just after the novel ends. With all this privacy, loneliness, with Clarissa’s fear of death and the danger of living even one and failed communication Woolf shows how difficult it is to day. make meaningful connections in the modern world. Something as seemingly-frivolous as Clarissa’s party then takes on a The circular presence of the past is also deeply intertwined deeper, more important meaning, as it as an effort by Clarissa with the forward ticking of the clock. Clarissa, Peter, Richard, to try to draw people together. and Sally interact very little in the present, but Clarissa and Peter relive in great depth their youth at Bourton, so their past relations add weight and complexity to their present SOCIAL CRITICISM interactions. Septimus is even more ruthlessly pursued by the Though Mrs. Dalloway’s action concerns only one past, as he actually sees visions of Evans, his dead soldier day and mostly follows a lady throwing a party, friend. One of Woolf’s original titles for the book was “The Woolf manages to thread her novel with criticism Hours,” so she clearly finds the idea of time important, and by of English society and post-War conservatism. In Woolf’s time simultaneously emphasizing the chiming of the hours and the the British Empire was the strongest in the world, with colonies ubiquity of past memories, she ends up showing the fluidity of all across the globe (including Canada, India, and Australia), but time, which can be both linear and circular at once. after World War I England’s power began to crumble. England ©2020 LitCharts LLC v.007 www.LitCharts.com Page 4  Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com PSYCHOLOGY AND PERCEPTION SYMBOLS The novel mostly consists of inner dialogue and stream of consciousness (a modernist technique Symbols appear in teal text throughout the Summary and that Woolf helped pioneer), so the inner workings Analysis sections of this LitChart. of the characters’ minds are very important to the work. Woolf herself suffered from mental illness (and ultimately committed suicide), and certain aspects of her own psychological struggles FLOWERS appear in the book, particularly through Septimus. Woolf had a The first line of the book is Clarissa Dalloway distrust of doctors regarding psychology, which she shows saying she will “buy the flowers herself,” and she clearly in Dr. Holms and Sir William Bradshaw. Septimus is a soon enters a flower shop and marvels at the variety. Flowers tragic example of just how much harm doctors can do when are a traditional symbol of love and femininity, but for Clarissa they prefer conversion to understanding, refusing to truly they also represent the joy and beauty that can be found in examine another’s mental state. everyday life. Woolf also uses the symbol in a more satirical In Septimus Woolf shows the inner workings of PTSD and sense as well, as Elizabeth is compared to a flower by would-be mental illness, but in her other characters she also gives a suitors and Richard brings Clarissa roses instead of saying “I brilliant, sensitive treatment of how the mind understands love you.” Sally, the most rebellious female figure of the book external sensations and time. Long, poetic passages capture the (when she was young), cut the heads off of flowers instead of perception of images, sounds, memories, and stream of cutting their stems, and Aunt Helena found this “wicked.” This consciousness all at once. The science of psychology was still shows how Sally deals differently with femininity (flowers) than young in Woolf’s time, but in her intricate, penetrating is traditional to the older generation (Aunt Helena). In her very character development she shows her own knowledge of the act of kissing Clarissa, one could say that Sally picks a flower. brain, creating personalities that exhibit the inner workings of all kinds of minds. THE PRIME MINISTER Mrs. Dalloway began as two different short stories, DEATH and one of them was called “The Prime Minister.” In Though much of the novel’s action consists of the novel the Prime Minister acts as a symbol of England’s preparations for a seemingly frivolous party, death traditional values and social hierarchy, which have begun to is a constant undercurrent to the characters’ decline as a result of World War I. When Peter Walsh wanted thoughts and actions. The obvious example of this is Septimus, to insult Clarissa and suggest she would give up her ideals to who suffers from mental illness and ends up killing himself. In become a “perfect hostess,” he said that she will marry a prime his inner dialogue Septimus sees himself as a godlike figure who minister. Lady Bruton, on the other hand, uses “Prime Minister” has gone from “life to death,” and his situation as a former as a compliment to Hugh Whitbread, another figure of English soldier shows how the death and violence of World War I have tradition. The car that is possibly bearing the prime minister is a corrupted his mind. Peter Walsh fears growing old and dying, spectacle in the street, but then people turn away from it to and so tries to pretend he is young and invincible by living in look at the airplane advertisement. At Clarissa’s party the fantasies and pursuing younger women. Clarissa is also Prime Minister’s arrival is greatly anticipated, but when he preoccupied with death even as she goes about the business of actually shows up he is a disappointment. Throughout the novel enjoying life, making small talk, and throwing parties. From the people cling to their ideas of “greatness” in English society, start she feels the danger of living even one day, and repeatedly while the reality becomes more and more sobering and quotes from Shakespeare’s play Cymbeline Cymbeline, a passage about the pathetic. comfort of death: “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun / Nor the furious winter’s rages.” In the parallel characters of Septimus and Clarissa, Woolf shows two ways of dealing with the terror BIG BEN of living one day – Clarissa affirms life by throwing a party, Big Ben is a famous clock tower and London while Septimus offers his suicide as an act of defiance and monument, but it also serves as an interesting communication. These two characters never meet, but when symbol of time and tradition in the book. The clock tower is part Clarissa hears about Septimus’s suicide she feels that she of the Palace of Westminster, and so in one way it acts as a understands him. symbol of English tradition and conservatism, the attempt to pretend that the War and modern life haven’t changed anything. But by its very nature Big Ben is also a clock, and so it dispassionately marks the endless progression of time, which waits for no one. The striking of the clock is the main divider in ©2020 LitCharts LLC v.007 www.LitCharts.com Page 5  Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com the narrative of Mrs. Dalloway, and interrupts characters’ thoughts and actions with “leaden circles dissolving in the air.” a different way, as an underlying reminder of how Time is an important theme of the novel (Woolf’s original title "irrevocable" the passing of time is, as each strike for the book was “The Hours”), as Clarissa and Septimus both "dissolves" such that the hour cannot be taken back or feel the danger of living even one day, and all the characters relived, except in memory. experience vibrant memories of the past. The striking of Big Ben is then a continuous reminder of ever-present time, which is both linear (the progression of hours) and circular (the How he scolded her! How they argued! She would marry a constant presence of the past). Prime Minister and stand at the top of a staircase; the perfect hostess he called her (she had cried over it in her bedroom), she had the makings of the perfect hostess, he said. QUO QUOTES TES Note: all page numbers for the quotes below refer to the Related Characters: Clarissa Dalloway, Peter Walsh Harcourt edition of Mrs. Dalloway published in 1990. (speaker) Section 1 Quotes Related Themes: For having lived in Westminster – how many years now? Related Symbols: over twenty, – one feels even in the midst of the traffic, or waking at night, Clarissa was positive, a particular hush, or Page Number: 7 solemnity; an indescribable pause; a suspense (but that might be her heart, affected, they said, by influenza) before Big Ben Explanation and Analysis strikes. There! Out it boomed. First a warning, musical; then Clarissa is recalling her early relationship with Peter Walsh, the hour, irrevocable. The leaden circles dissolved in the air. who once asked her to marry him, but also grew frustrated with her and critiqued her with words that Clarissa recalls Related Characters: Clarissa Dalloway (speaker) in this passage. Marrying a Prime Minister is, in Peter's consideration, a grave insult: he associates such leaders Related Themes: with the stuffy, antiquated past of the English empire, a past that can only be embarrassing to continue to prop up. Related Symbols: "Perfect hostess" is also an accusatory insult, suggesting a lack of depth and a contentment with superficial things in Page Number: 4 life. Ironically, Clarissa is remembering these words as she rushes around London, doing all she can to be an ideal Explanation and Analysis hostess for her party that evening (which the Prime Early in the novel, Big Ben strikes for the first time: it will Minister will attend). But her recollections also underline occupy a central place in the novel even as its precise just how little Peter was able to express how he really felt meaning and implications vary. The sound enters as a for Clarissa without descending into frustrated insults, even concrete measure in the midst of Clarissa's somewhat if they had a real social basis. vague and disjointed thoughts. Time seems rather open and free in the beginning of this passage, even as Clarissa has the sense that she is waiting for something as she perceives She had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of the city around her. Big Ben's strikes divide this wide-open being out, out far out to sea and alone; she always had the time, giving Clarissa a way to situate her perceptions within feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day. a certain order. Not that she thought herself clever, or much out of the In a certain way, then, Big Ben's marking of time is a way for ordinary. Clarissa to order her own perceptions and her own psychological reality. But it also, of course, can be heard Related Characters: Clarissa Dalloway (speaker) throughout the city - indeed, its strikes record the passing of time in the most public, regulated ways possible. Big Ben Related Themes: will thus serve as a way to unite the various plot strands of the novel through a guiding motif. But it will also join them in ©2020 LitCharts LLC v.007 www.LitCharts.com Page 6  Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com Page Number: 8 At the same time, however, Clarissa seems to acknowledge that there is often just as much pain as joy in the act of Explanation and Analysis intense psychological perception. In this sense, death would Throughout Mrs. Dalloway, the humdrum errands and daily be a relief, a refuge from the inevitable, exhausting need to realities of London life, taxi cabs and all, will contrast but observe and perceive everything around her. These two also coexist with deep metaphysical questions, as well as the views are not reconciled: instead, they both coexist, or constant, looming reality of death. The danger of living rather Clarissa moves from one to another and back again "even one day" serves to justify the span of the novel - just as thoughts of death continue to occupy her. one day - as containing within it themes both great and small. Within all the minutia of daily existence, the novel suggests, death is never far off - which can make daily life Section 2 Quotes momentous even while suggesting that death is part of the “Look, look, Septimus!” she cried. For Dr. Holmes had told fabric of insignificant daily realities. her to make her husband (who had nothing whatever seriously At the same time, there is a suggestion that Clarissa's own the matter with him but was a little out of sorts) take an deep thoughts do not necessarily stem from her interest in things outside himself. extraordinary mind or profound ideas. These lines imply So, thought Septimus, looking up, they are signalling to me. Not that thoughts of life as dangerous or death as ever-present indeed in actual words; that is, he could not read the language are the proper terrain of a scholar or philosopher - but here, yet; but it was plain enough, this beauty, this exquisite beauty… Clarissa's own preoccupation with these questions suggests Tears ran down his cheeks. once again that they can be and are part of ordinary life. It is It was toffee; they were advertising toffee, a nursemaid told the disconnect between the wide range of her thoughts and Rezia. their seeming distance from what she says and how she acts that contributes to her sense of being alone and "out to Related Characters: Lucrezia Smith (Rezia), Septimus sea": she treasures this privacy, but it can easily turn Warren Smith (speaker), Dr. Holmes towards loneliness as well. Related Themes: But every one remembered; what she loved was this, here, Page Number: 21 now, in front of her; the fat lady in the cab. Did it matter Explanation and Analysis then, she asked herself, walking towards Bond Street, did it An airplane has spelled out an advertisement for "TOFFEE" matter that she must inevitably cease completely; all this must in sky writing, and Lucrezia Smith is drawing Septimus's go on without her; did she resent it; or did it not become attention to it. The first part of this passage satirically consoling to believe that death ended absolutely? underlines the shocking (to a modern audience) disregard that many at the time - even doctors - showed towards Related Characters: Clarissa Dalloway (speaker) people suffering from PTSD, a severe condition rather than a mere sign that Septimus was "out of sorts." Still, Lucrezia's Related Themes: cry to her husband does touch Septimus, even if in an entirely different way - one that he cannot communicate to Page Number: 9 Lucrezia. Explanation and Analysis Immediately after Septimus's sense of beauty and near- As Clarissa moves throughout London's streets, she pays mystical communication, however, we learn what exactly close attention to the sights and sounds around her. In many the airplane is communicating: rather than a powerful, ways, Clarissa seems to treasure these details and treasure symbolic message, it is simply a profit-driven stunt, part of a the life that she sees pulsing within them. Life, for her, is modern world where material progress and wealth are precious even or especially when it includes "the fat lady in ruthlessly pursued. The juxtaposition of the advertisement the cab," and everything else around her. Death, then, is to for toffee and Septimus's silent meditation is not just ironic, be feared because it means the end of this possibility of then, but also a sign of the tragic difficulty of real, profound close, acute perception - as well as the fact that everything communication that also, at least in this novel, is a part of will continue without her there to perceive it. modern life. ©2020 LitCharts LLC v.007 www.LitCharts.com Page 7  Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com Section 3 Quotes which she sensed true communion and connection to But she could remember going cold with excitement, and another. One of those moments is described, here, in the doing her hair in a kind of ecstasy… and going downstairs, and memory of her kiss with Sally. "Alone" she may have been, feeling as she crossed the hall “if it were now to die ‘twere now but in this case, paradoxically, solitude and the to be most happy.” That was the feeling – Othello’s feeling, and disappearance of others only enabled greater connection she felt it, she was convinced, as strongly as Shakespeare meant between the two women. Othello to feel it, all because she was coming down to dinner in The novel also uses this passage to explore the strange a white frock to meet Sally Seton! workings of time: a moment can fill up more space than many empty hours, and can evenbe as powerful as years. Related Characters: Clarissa Dalloway (speaker), Sally The way time passes - or the way it seems to pass - can Seton depend more on an individual's perception than on time as measured by clocks, and that one can return to past Related Themes: moments in memory reinforces a suggestion of perceived time as cyclical rather than linear. Page Number: 34-35 Explanation and Analysis Section 6 Quotes Clarissa is remembering the summer she spent at Bourton when she was younger, and when she was passionately in It was awful, he cried, awful, awful! love with Sally Seton - a feeling that is quite different from Still, the sun was hot. Still, one got over things. Still, life had a her relationship to her husband, Richard. Here she recalls way of adding day to day. descending the stairs in a white dress to meet Sally. Like elsewhere, Clarissa draws on her knowledge of Related Characters: Peter Walsh (speaker) Shakespeare in assigning meaning to the events of her life and to her memories. The citation from Othello underlines Related Themes: just how vividly Clarissa perceived everything around her that summer - a time during which she felt a kind of Page Number: 64 communion that she's struggled to find since then. In addition, the citation reflects how closely joy and death are Explanation and Analysis connected, for her, in that death seems to lie on just the Peter is thinking about his long-ago rejection by Clarissa: other side of acute joy. her sublime memory of her kiss with Sally at Bourton now has another layer with the addition of Peter's separate, painful perception of that time. Peter shuttles between feeling acutely the real pain of that moment, and consoling Then came the most exquisite moment of her whole life himself by keeping his senses alert to what is around him passing a stone urn with flowers in it. Sally stopped; picked here, in the present. In a way, he believes, time does ease a flower; kissed her on the lips. The whole world might have pain merely by the fact of adding new experiences and turned upside down! The others disappeared; there she was memories atop old ones. He has had an entire life since alone with Sally. Clarissa rejected him, after all. But at the same time, the last few sentences of this passage seem not to be entirely Related Characters: Clarissa Dalloway, Sally Seton honest. Coming as they do directly after his exclamation at the "awful" event, they suggest that time does not heal all Related Themes: wounds, that present perception and the reality of past experiences do not cancel each other out, but rather coexist Related Symbols: and mingle with each other. Page Number: 35 Explanation and Analysis As she pursues her set tasks through the streets of London, where she remains largely anonymous and alone, Mrs. Dalloway returns in her thoughts to moments in her past at ©2020 LitCharts LLC v.007 www.LitCharts.com Page 8  Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com Her emotions were all on the surface. Beneath, she was very shrewd – a far better judge of character than Sally, for Peter's thoughts continue to focus on Clarissa, and here his instance, and with it all, purely feminine; with that analysis of her extends to her social self, the way she is extraordinary gift, that woman’s gift, of making a world of her constructed by and through those around her. Peter's own wherever she happened to be. She came into a room; she judgment seems in many ways to be quite critical of stood, as he had often seen her, in a doorway with lots of people Clarissa, although we have to balance his tone with the round her. But it was Clarissa one remembered. Not that she knowledge that he was once, and may well still be, in love was striking; not beautiful at all; there was nothing picturesque with her and simultaneously frustrated with himself for about her; she never said anything specially clever; there she loving her. Peter also doesn't seem entirely clear on was, however; there she was. whether Clarissa's true self comes to the fore when she is around others, or whether she is artificial and in some way not truly herself around other people. In the same way, this Related Characters: Peter Walsh (speaker), Clarissa passage is ambivalent regarding whether the parties given Dalloway, Sally Seton by Clarissa are actually superficial and meaningless, or are true possibilities for communication among different Related Themes: people: this is an ambivalence that will run throughout the Page Number: 75-76 book. Explanation and Analysis Peter's thoughts continue to circle back to Clarissa, casting Section 7 Quotes doubt on the notion that, as he claims, he doesn't love her Septimus was one of the first to volunteer. He went to anymore. Here he thinks in particular about Clarissa's social France to save an England which consisted almost entirely of presence, the way she creates a "world" around herself Shakespeare’s plays and Miss Isabel Pole in a green dress wherever she moves and stands. She doesn't necessarily walking in a square. communicate taste, beauty, or genius, and yet there is a kind of allure in her very presence, as well as a way she imprints Related Characters: Septimus Warren Smith, Miss Isabel herself on the memories of others so as to last beyond this Pole physical presence. The end of this passage recalls Clarissa's own assurances, Related Themes: earlier in the novel, that there is nothing exceptional about her. But by reiterating "there she was" - a phrase that will Page Number: 86 return at the end of the novel - Peter remarks upon the mystery of human relationships outside mere Explanation and Analysis communication, in which co-presence either makes up for In this part of the novel, we learn some of the backstory of or takes the place of communicated truth. Septimus Smith, who before the war was an idealistic young man in love with Miss Isabel Pole, a teacher and Shakespeare scholar. This passage suggests that Septimus had very little idea of why he went to war or what England She enjoyed practically everything… She had a sense of was fighting for. His notion of "England" was composed of comedy that was really exquisite, but she needed people, the small amount of experiences he had, and these two always people, to bring it out, with the inevitable result that she examples are meant to underline the limits and partial frittered her time away, lunching, dining, giving these incessant nature of these experiences. But the passage also implies parties of hers, talking nonsense, saying things she didn’t mean, that it was not Septimus's fault to have gone to war for such blunting the edge of her mind, losing her discrimination. reasons: instead, a whole country went to war for various reasons, many of which were just as random or partial - and Related Characters: Peter Walsh (speaker), Clarissa suffered a great deal as a result. Dalloway Related Themes: Page Number: 78 Explanation and Analysis ©2020 LitCharts LLC v.007 www.LitCharts.com Page 9  Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com “So you’re in a funk,” he said agreeably, sitting down by his patient’s side. He had actually talked of killing himself to unwillingness to listen and his insistence that Septimus his wife, quite a girl, a foreigner, wasn’t she? Didn’t that give her conform to expected social categories and modes of being. a very odd idea of English husbands? Didn’t one owe perhaps a Now, everything that Rezia perceives around her is filtered duty to one’s wife? Wouldn’t it be better to do something through this specific element of her consciousness. The instead of lying in bed? For he had forty years’ experience "clocks of Harley street," in one sense, are the same for behind him; and Septimus could take Dr. Holmes’s word for it – everyone - their chiming and striking divides the day equally there was nothing whatever the matter with him. in a standardized way, according to the modern social definition of time. At the same time, though, this passage reminds us that the "mound of time" can feel entirely Related Characters: Dr. Holmes (speaker), Septimus differently and mean very different things for different Warren Smith, Lucrezia Smith (Rezia) people. It may be "half past one" for everyone on Oxford Street, but for Rezia the equal divisions of clocks are at one Related Themes: with the submission and authority that she feels suffocated Page Number: 92 by, as a result of the consultation with Sir William. In such a way, time is shown to be not standardized at all, instead Explanation and Analysis dependent on individual perception and affected by Septimus is recalling his conversations with Dr. Holmes individual consciousness. after Rezia sent for him, growing upset and angry at Septimus's coldness and inability to feel after the war. Here, Dr. Holmes shows himself to be the epitome of the clueless, And Richard Dalloway strolled off as usual to have a look conventional Englishman stuck in the Victorian past. He at the General’s portrait, because he meant, whenever he may have 40 years of experience as a doctor, but he is had a moment of leisure, to write a history of Lady Bruton’s cheerfully unaware of the massive crisis caused by World family. War I, and seems entirely uninterested in taking Septimus's And Millicent Bruton was very proud of her family. But they PTSD seriously. Perception, this passage says, is not could wait, they could wait, she said, looking at the picture; necessarily a matter of trial and error, time and experience, meaning that her family, of military men, administrators, such that someone who has lived longer would be better admirals, had been men of action, who had done their duty; and able to see things as they are. Instead, this book Richard’s first duty was to his country… understands the Great War as a violent tear in history that has changed the very ways of experiencing the world, even Related Characters: Richard Dalloway, Lady Bruton while many people continued to refuse to understand that things had changed so drastically. Related Themes: Page Number: 111 Shredding and slicing, dividing and subdividing, the clocks Explanation and Analysis of Harley Street nibbled at the June day, counselled submission, upheld authority, and pointed out in chorus the As Richard is leaving the luncheon, he lingers over the supreme advantages of a sense of proportion, until the mound portrait of Lady Bruton's ancestor. According to the way of time was so far diminished that a commercial clock, this passage understands portraits, they are firmly located suspended above a shop in Oxford Street, announced… that it in the past: they record and celebrate past events so as to fix was half-past one. them in memory. Although the general and other members of Lady Burton's family were once "men of action," they are so no longer - they "had done" their duty and now are no Related Themes: longer relevant to the action that is going on now. Lady Bruton seems perfectly complacent with this reality, but the Page Number: 102 novel as a whole is more critical of what she and her family represent - making clear that a new reality needs to replace Explanation and Analysis the old one, which is now only relegated to dusty portraits Rezia is thinking about how frustrating the consultation in wealthy apartments. with Sir William has been, how annoyed she became at his ©2020 LitCharts LLC v.007 www.LitCharts.com Page 10  Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com Really it was a miracle thinking of the war, and thousands of poor chaps, with all their lives before them, shovelled powerful symbolism for the crowds, the "little crowd" who together, already half forgotten; it was a miracle. Here he was lack the ability - like his own - of artistic discernment. walking across London to say to Clarissa in so many words that At the same time, though, Richard aligns with this very he loved her. crowd in admitting that he too enjoys what the palace stands for. The past to Richard is not something Related Characters: Richard Dalloway (speaker), Clarissa overwhelming, painful, or even very complicated: rather Dalloway than recurring in cyclical ways or moving at disjointed speeds, time to him is important for the traditions that it Related Themes: held, and for the ways these traditions carry forward to the present. In other words, Richard believes in straightforward Page Number: 115 continuity, in a stream of time in which there are no breaks or interruptions and in which everyone can find his or her Explanation and Analysis proper place rather easily. Richard has bought a bouquet of flowers to give to Clarissa, as he thinks - too rarely, he chides himself - of how he loves her. In this passage it occurs to him in particular that he is And there is a dignity in people; a solitude; even between lucky since so many other young men, with their whole lives husband and wife a gulf; and that one must respect, ahead of them, had these futures destroyed when they died thought Clarissa, watching him open the door; for one would in the war, and are no longer able to enjoy love and not part with it oneself, or take it, against his will, from one’s companionship like he is. Of course, it is ironic, then, that husband, without losing one’s independence, one’s self-respect Richard's luck occurs to him randomly and rarely, rather – something, after all, priceless. than being a natural part of his daily life. Richard does acknowledge the tragedy of the war, but it only crosses his mind occasionally, and remains relevant to him largely as a Related Characters: Clarissa Dalloway (speaker), Richard contrast to his own good fortune. Dalloway Related Themes: As for Buckingham Palace (like an old prima donna facing Page Number: 120 the audience all in white) you can’t deny it a certain dignity, he considered, nor despise what does, after all, stand to millions Explanation and Analysis of people (a little crowd was waiting at the gate to see the King Richard has just returned home and has given Clarissa the drive out) for a symbol, absurd though it is; a child with a box of flowers, although he was unable to say "I love you" - and yet bricks could have done better, he thought… but he liked being he believed that Clarissa somehow understood. Here, we're ruled by the descendant of Horsa; he liked continuity; and the reminded that such romantic, unspoken communication is sense of handing on the traditions of the past. largely an exception: Clarissa didn't, after all, understand what her husband meant. Yet at the same time, Clarissa Related Characters: Richard Dalloway (speaker) seems to accept the "gulf" at the heart of even the intimate relationship between husband and wife. She even wonders Related Themes: if there's something positive in this lack of communication, since it suggests that there is something dignified and Page Number: 117 powerful about each person's precious, unbreakable solitude. Explanation and Analysis Clarissa, after all, prizes her own independence and revels Richard is fully comfortable in his position as a member of in being able to be alone in her thoughts. Nonetheless, it's London's upper class, but he does possess enough self- never entirely clear in the novel to what extent Clarissa awareness to be able to think about it critically and from a truly believes what she seems to think here, whether she's distance. Buckingham Palace, he thinks, is valuable mainly as convincing herself that she does, or whether her real a symbol - he acknowledges that it may even be silly when perception is entirely different than what we would expect judged objectively. Richard shows a certain condescension from the prose. This inability to see into characters' in thinking that the value of Buckingham Palace is in its ©2020 LitCharts LLC v.007 www.LitCharts.com Page 11  Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com All the same, that one day should follow another; consciousness fully is typical in the book, and it underlines Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday; that one should the interest throughout the narrative about the complexity wake up in the morning; see the sky; walk in the park; meet of communication, as well as the complexity of perception Hugh Whitbread; then suddenly in came Peter; then these itself. roses; it was enough. After that, how unbelievable death was! – that it must end; and no one in the whole world would know how she had loved it all… But to go deeper, beneath what people said (and these judgements, how superficial, how fragmentary they are!) in Related Characters: Clarissa Dalloway (speaker), Peter her own mind now, what did it mean to her, this thing she called Walsh life? Oh, it was very queer. Here was So-and-so in South Kensington; some one up in Bayswater; and somebody else, Related Themes: say, in Mayfair. And she felt quite continuously a sense of their existence; and she felt what a waste; and she felt what a pity; Related Symbols: and she felt if only they could be brought together; so she did it. And it was an offering; to combine, to create; but to whom? Page Number: 122 Explanation and Analysis Related Characters: Clarissa Dalloway (speaker) In her head, Clarissa runs over all the sensations and small Related Themes: happenings of the day thus far. She simultaneously marvels at the rich particularities of daily life and wonders at how Page Number: 122 easily they are all cut off. Here, we see a major difference between Clarissa and Septimus: although they are both Explanation and Analysis preoccupied with death, Clarissa takes much greater joy in After Richard has left her, Clarissa thinks about the strange the small daily realities of her life. The events she disconnect between the concrete realities and necessities mentioned are not important objectively - indeed, they're of her socialite role and the monumental but amorphous perhaps not important to anyone other than herself, as she "life" that she finds so mysterious. There must, she think, be acknowledges when she realizes that no one will be able, something "beneath" and behind what people say to each after her death, to witness and report how much she loved other. Usually, this communication doesn't happen, and the this life. But Clarissa is able to treasure them regardless. important things are left unsaid. Clarissa's thoughts here also linger on the strange nature of Paradoxically, however, Clarissa seems to hope that she can the passing of time. Indeed, one of the reasons she feels that get at this "beneath" by bringing different people from her love of life will remain unremarked-upon is that she different kinds of lives together. The danger is that their cannot manage to assign meaning to or profoundly conversation will remain superficial, and yet there seems to conceptualize the way she experiences time as cut through be no other way of fostering true communication, so that with daily events. Clarissa usually is able to remark upon the people are truly "brought together" in mutual daily happenings of her life without having to fit them into understanding, not just "brought together" physically some greater meaning, but here she does think about this around the same table. Clarissa is both sincere in wanting to lack - although only in the vague sense of calling it strange foster such connections, and doubtful of whether they and unbelievable. actually take place. By the end of the passage, she's even questioning what these connections are good for - what use it is for people to shed their natural loneliness and share what they really feel. Would she and they better understand "life" if they did so, perhaps? Clarissa doesn't seem entirely convinced. ©2020 LitCharts LLC v.007 www.LitCharts.com Page 12  Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com The cruelest things in the world, she thought, seeing them Mrs. Peters had a spiteful tongue. Mr. Peters was in Hull. clumsy, hot, domineering, hypocritical, eavesdropping, Why then rage and prophesy? Why fly scourged and jealous, infinitely cruel and unscrupulous, dressed in a outcast? Why be made to tremble and sob by the clouds? Why mackintosh coat, on the landing; love and religion. Had she ever seek truths and deliver messages when Rezia sat sticking pins tried to convert any one herself? Did she not wish everybody into the front of her dress, and Mr. Peters was in Hull? merely to be themselves? And she watched out of the window the old lady opposite climbing upstairs. Let her climb upstairs if Related Characters: Septimus Warren Smith (speaker), she wanted to; let her stop; then let her, as Clarissa had often Lucrezia Smith (Rezia) seen her, gain her bedroom, part her curtains, and disappear again into the background. Somehow one respected that – that Related Themes: old woman looking out of the window, quite unconscious that she was being watched. There was something solemn in it – but Page Number: 142 love and religion would destroy that, whatever it was, the privacy of the soul. Explanation and Analysis Rezia is sewing a hat for Mrs. Peters, and for the first time in Related Characters: Clarissa Dalloway (speaker), The old weeks, Septimus begins to awaken to the mundane reality woman across the way around him and to pay attention to his surroundings. Here, in a series of rhetorical questions, he chides himself for his Related Themes: moments of rage and grief, of desire for truth-telling and for grasping at the profound realities of life. Now, he repeats Page Number: 126 the information that Rezia gives him, about where Mr. Peters is, about what Mrs. Peters is like, and clings on to Explanation and Analysis these pieces of information as anchors grounding him in Clarissa is, first, thinking about how much she dislikes Doris daily life. Rather than consider these things as banal and Kilman and her earnest, aggressive Christianity. Then unimportant, Septimus - at least momentarily - feels that Clarissa watches an old woman in the house opposite her they are an opportunity for real communication with Rezia, own climb up the stairs, and this scene, while seemingly as well as being powerful reminders of the potential totally separate from the previous one, ultimately fits in meaning to be found in everyday life. with Clarissa's frustration (especially given that so much of the novel's scenes are inflected by the consciousness of the person who experiences, perceives, and reflects upon But he would wait till the very last moment. He did not them). In some ways, the old woman's solitude underlines want to die. Life was good. The sun hot. Only human how alone we all are in the world. beings – what did they want? Coming down the staircase While the "privacy of the soul" has previously been cast in a opposite an old man stopped and stared at him. Holmes was at negative light at times, here the aloneness of the old woman the door. “I’ll give it you!” he cried, and flung himself vigorously, is something that Clarissa finds powerful and meaningful. violently down on to Mrs. Filmer’s area railings. Her privacy is something that, at least in the confines of her room, cannot be touched, and it gives her a certain dignity Related Characters: Septimus Warren Smith (speaker), that is challenged to a greater extent in the social world. Mrs. Filmer, Dr. Holmes Nonetheless, Clarissa acknowledges how fragile such privacy and solitude are. "Love and religion," for Clarissa, Related Themes: are two things that involve other people, and so necessarily involve sacrifice and claims on one's own independence. At Page Number: 149 least in this passage, Clarissa disapproves of such claims, prizing the old woman for representing the opposite. Of Explanation and Analysis course, we should remember that Clarissa is watching the Septimus has been told he must be sent away and old woman - as are we readers - which should make us institutionalized because he has threatened suicide. Here, question to what extent true privacy and solitude are he has decided to end his life on his own terms - even possible at all. though he does not want to die. This expression seems to conflict with how Septimus has felt earlier, and yet can be understood in light of the immediately preceding moments of true, powerful reception and communication with his ©2020 LitCharts LLC v.007 www.LitCharts.com Page 13  Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com wife. (Whether those moments could have lasted is a the same time. Peter presumably responds just as politely to question the book raises, but does not answer.) Clarissa, but since we're seeing things through his This powerful passage mixes narrative development with perspective, we see just how many regrets and internal Septimus's scattered but lucid and perceptive mind. On one anxieties run through his mind as he realizes how difficult, if level, we get his thoughts on the basic human instinct for not impossible, it would be to break through Clarissa' survival, but mixed with a reference to Clarissa's oft-quoted insincerity and truly communicate with her. line from Shakespeare about "fear no more the heat o' the sun." (Here it is "Life was good. The sun hot.") This turns the quote's meaning on its head (the heat of the sun is a Nobody looked at him. They just went on talking, yet it was positive, simple aspect of living, instead of a negative, simple perfectly plain that they all knew, felt to the marrow of aspect of living), and its appearance in Septimus's mind also their bones, this majesty passing; this symbol of what they provides an almost metaphysical connection between stood for, English society. Old Lady Bruton… swam up, and they himself and Clarissa at the moment of his death. withdrew into a little room which at once became spied upon, Septimus ends his life with an unanswerable question - what guarded, and a sort of stir and rustle rippled through every one, do human beings want? - as well as with an attempt at openly: the Prime Minister! communication, throwing himself out of a window in a way Lord, lord, the snobbery of the English! thought Peter Walsh, that suggests a violent desire to transcend the boundaries standing in the corner. How they loved dressing up in gold lace of one's own confinement. Septimus's death is not just and doing homage! metaphysical, however: it also has social implications, since it is so telling that Septimus considers death better than the Related Characters: Peter Walsh (speaker), Lady Bruton institutional confinement that is the only way people at the time can imagine dealing with problems like his PTSD. But Related Themes: the last moments of Septimus's life also pay homage to the power of perception that coexists with the depths of Related Symbols: loneliness and fear. Page Number: 172 Section 9 Quotes Explanation and Analysis “How delightful to see you!” said Clarissa. She said it to The Prime Minister has arrived at Clarissa's party, and here every one. How delightful to see you! She was at her worst – we see the guests' reactions, filtered through the effusive, insincere. It was a great mistake to have come. He perspective of Peter, who looks on from afar quite should have stayed at home and read his book, thought Peter skeptically. Although the Prime Minister has been Walsh; should have gone to a music hall; he should have stayed mentioned with awe earlier in the book, here Peter sees him at home, for he knew no one. as a small, plump, unassuming-looking man, unworthy of all that attention - and indeed, representative of a bygone age. Peter is already feeling alone and isolated, so he is inclined Related Characters: Clarissa Dalloway, Peter Walsh to view everything he sees around him rather negatively. (speaker) However, his isolation also allows him to become acutely attuned to the hypocrisy that can be seen in the way Related Themes: everyone acts, trying to be casual but actually over-excited by their mere proximity to this important figure. Page Number: 167 Explanation and Analysis The narrative has moved quickly and even grotesquely from Lady Bradshaw (poor goose – one didn’t dislike her) Septimus's death to the banal small talk to be found at murmured how, “just as we were starting, my husband was Clarissa's upper-class dinner party. Here, the passage is called up on the telephone, a very sad case. A young man (that filtered through Peter's mind. Peter has long criticized is what Sir William is telling Mr. Dalloway) had killed himself. He Clarissa's social attitudes and what he sees as superficial had been in the army.” Oh! thought Clarissa, in the middle of my hypocrisy, even as he's attracted to these very abilities at party, here’s death, she thought. ©2020 LitCharts LLC v.007 www.LitCharts.com Page 14  Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com Related Characters: Lady Bradshaw, Clarissa Dalloway Explanation and Analysis (speaker) Here, at the climax of the novel, Clarissa withdraws from Related Themes: the party and is able to see the connections to her double - the character through whom, though they never met, Page Number: 183 similar possibilities and limitations of perception and solitude are explored throughout the book. Here Clarissa Explanation and Analysis contrasts her own frivolous, superficial life with the Lady Bradshaw and her husband, Sir William, have just profound and meaningful act of communication that arrived late to the party, and Lady Bradshaw explains to Septimus embraced - even if, paradoxically, this great Clarissa why this is the case. We see once more how the moment of his life is what ended it. While Clarissa throws narrative strains involving Clarissa and Septimus intersect things away every day - a shilling into the Serpentine, for in brief, glancing ways. Here, however, Clarissa will be more instance - she has never thought to fling away her life, even deeply affected than in previous scenes, even if initially she if she does treat it as something unimportant and seems to be simply surprised more than moved or expendable. distraught. Clarissa is fully in her social-hostess mode, and it Clarissa attempts to locate a center of life, of existence, takes her a moment to adapt to the news - and yet she is though it is only vague for her - a "thing" that can be also not entirely surprised, given that death seems to "defaced" or "obscured," or in Septimus's case "preserved" - intrude in the way she thinks about daily life every day. That but which ultimately moves away and "evades" all people. is, once again Clarissa notices and remarks upon the And once again, Clarissa considers the paradox of solitude strangeness of trying to live one's everyday life with the and communication in death. On the one hand, Septimus's looming reality of death, and without an overarching death is a kind of communication, but on the other it meaning. definitively cuts one off from everyone else. He has perhaps The way Lady Bradshaw describes Septimus's death also communicated something powerful to the world, but he can underlines the British upper-class cluelessness regarding now receive no answering communication in return. Still, the true state of veterans suffering from PTSD. "He had Clarissa considers even this act of isolation as a potentially been in the army" is a straightforward reason that Lady powerful one, creating a kind of "closeness" if only because Bradshaw gives for Septimus's suicide, suggesting an it becomes mutually clear how impossible true awareness that one led to another, and yet this causal communication is. connection is neat and pat, allowing other characters to avoid responsibility or full awareness for Septimus's complex mental situation. But that young man had killed himself. Somehow it was her disaster – her disgrace. She had once thrown a shilling into the Serpentine, never Related Characters: Clarissa Dalloway (speaker), Septimus anything more. But he had flung it away… A thing there Warren Smith was that mattered; a thing, wreathed about with chatter, defaced, obscured in her own life, let drop every day in Related Themes: corruption, lies, chatter. This he had preserved. Death was defiance. Death was an attempt to communicate; people feeling Page Number: 185 the impossibility of reaching the centre which, mystically, evaded them; closeness drew apart; rapture faded, one was Explanation and Analysis alone. There was an embrace in death. Clarissa continues to think about Septimus's death in relation to her own life, and here it becomes clear that Related Characters: Clarissa Dalloway (speaker), Septimus Clarissa doesn't have any one, all-encompassing theory of Warren Smith life, one that would allow her to interpret Septimus's death in a certain way. While she has just thought about his suicide Related Themes: as an act of powerful communication and defiance, now she sees it as a tragedy - and one that she herself is responsible Page Number: 184 for. ©2020 LitCharts LLC v.007 www.LitCharts.com Page 15  Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com Clarissa has begun to pick up on a number of potential Once again the clock strikes, here reminding Clarissa of her similarities between herself and Septimus, from their duties at the party, but also serving as a reminder of the concern with death to their fascination with loneliness and inevitable passing of time. Septimus's death has also communication. Here, however, their similarities only reminded Clarissa of the "fun" and the "beauty" that she still underline their divergences, for while Septimus has has the time to experience in her own life. Rather than struggled alone and ended his life, Clarissa has become throwing away the everyday realities that have come to wrapped up in the unimportant superficialities of upper- characterize her own existence, then, Clarissa feels once class life. Even more tragically, Clarissa's realization of the again able to return to what she has just recently labeled connection between herself and Septimus comes only after superficial and unimportant, feeling a renewed interest in she has definitively lost the chance to communicate with her daily life. him in life. “I will come,” said Peter, but he sat on for a moment. What …and the words came to her, Fear no more the heat of the is this terror? what is this ecstasy? he thought to himself. sun. She must go back to them. But what an extraordinary What is it that fills me with extraordinary excitement? night! She felt somehow very like him – the young man who had It is Clarissa, he said. killed himself. She felt glad that he had done it; thrown it away. For there she was. The clock was striking. The leaden circles dissolved in the air. He made her feel the beauty; made her feel the fun. But she Related Characters: Peter Walsh (speaker), Clarissa must go back. She must assemble. She must find Sally and Peter. Dalloway And she came in from the little room. Related Themes: Related Characters: Clarissa Dalloway (speaker), Septimus Warren Smith, Sally Seton, Peter Walsh Page Number: 194 Explanation and Analysis Related Themes: Peter and Clarissa have both changed profoundly over the Related Symbols: course of what one might think is a random, insignificant dinner party. Clarissa has been deeply affected by Page Number: 186 Septimus's death, which has triggered a number of thoughts concerning her own life. Peter, meanwhile, through his Explanation and Analysis conversation with Sally, has a renewed commitment to Clarissa repeats again the phrase from being honest, to communicating as best he can rather than Shakespeare'sCymbeline, another common thread between remaining frustrated with the inevitable failure of such herself and Septimus. After a moment of darkness and communication. Now, he pays close attention to what he's despair, she once again is able to conceive of Septimus's feeling, determined to identify his feelings for Clarissa as he suicide as a powerful and even positive act of truly experiences them, rather than denying them to communication and independence - even if, given Clarissa's himself. Peter is thus committed to an integrity of shifting and contradictory opinions, we cannot be sure that perception, one that would not hide or deny what is this will be her final word on the subject. Still, in this scene experienced but would pay renewed attention to the same. she does feel a kinship with Septimus, suggesting that he At the same time, however, the book ends with this scene, has managed, through his death, to create a kind of leaving the resolution off-stage: we never know what the communion with another person. scene of true communication between Peter, Clarissa, and Sally would look like - or even if it happens at all. ©2020 LitCharts LLC v.007 www.LitCharts.com Page 16  Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com SUMMARY AND ANAL ANALYSIS YSIS The color-coded icons under each analysis entry make it easy to track where the themes occur most prominently throughout the work. Each icon corresponds to one of the themes explained in the Themes section of this LitChart. SECTION 1 It is a June morning in London, and Clarissa Dalloway, an Mrs. Dalloway is mostly written in “free indirect discourse,” a style upper-class, fifty-two-ye