Mrs Dalloway

• Comprhension

1. Where is Mrs Dalloway going?
   Mrs Dalloway is going to buy flowers for the party he will hold the evening.
2. What is her mood?
   She feels amused by the beauty of the morning that mirrors her happiness.
3. The passage mixes two different time dimensions. Which are they? What sound evokes the past in Clarissa's mind?
   The passage mixes the description of the morning of the day in which Clarissa will hold a party and the remembering of a morning when Clarissa was eighteen years old. The squeak of the hinges evokes in Clarissa's mind the past. She associates the sound to the burst opening of the windows and to the landscape she viewed outside the windows.
4. Who do you think is Peter Walsh?
   I think Peter Walsh is an old Clarissa's admirer she refused a lot of years before. However, he seems not to have forgotten her because he still writes letters addressed to Clarissa.
5. What does Scrope Purvis think of Clarissa?
   Scrope Purvis thinks she is a charming woman.
6. What are Clarissa's thoughts while walking through the streets in Westminster?
   While walking through the streets of Westminster Clarissa reflects on time. First she describes the feelings suggested by the Big Ben strikes then she wonders why people love it so. She reaches the conclusion we love time because we love life. 

• Interpretation

1. Focus on the point of view. What kind of narrator is used?
   It is used an omniscient, reliable, intrusive narrator which does not coincide with the main character even if it knows all her feelings and thoughts.
2. Focus on style. Critics have often used the term "poetic prose" with reference to Woolf's style which features an abundance of repetitions, similes, imagery, lists and alliteration. Find at least one or two examples of each.
   Repetition: "What a lark! What a plunge!" "...- was that it? -...- was that it? -..."
   Similes: "...like the flap of a wave"
   Imagery: "the kiss of a wave"
   Lists: "the carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans, sandwich men..."
   Alliteration: "Out it boomed"
3. Focus on character. How is Clarissa's character created?
   Clarissa's character is created through her thoughts, feelings and behaviour. The writer also uses symbols and imagery in order to describe her thoughts.
4. The painting below is by Virginia Woolf's sister, Vanessa Bell, an artist who was at the centre of the avant-garde Bloomsbury Group. Can you see any similarities in the way the two sisters portray characters?
   The clearest similarity it can be found is the absence of any interest in describing physically the subject. Both sisters' purpose is to describe the personality of the subject without giving any information about how she looks like.