MRS DALLOWAY by Virginia Woolf

1. Mrs Dalloway is going to buy flowers for her party in the evening.

2. The woman is joyful and calm.

3. She makes reference to the past in her mind: she thinks about when she was about 18. The memories evoke nostalgia, they conveys that she misses the past times.

4. Peter Walsh may be a man who loved her and lived in Bourton when she was young.

She reminds that one day he asked her if she was looking at the vegetables, while she was standing at the window. He may have been a Clarissa’s admirer, but she refused him. Indeed she got married with another man, in London.

5. Scrope Purvis thinks she is a charming woman, like a bird. He may compared her to a blue-green vivacious light. It conveys her harmonious and positive personality, noticed even by others.

6. Mrs Dalloway thinks about the silence and the quiet she feels while walking through the streets in Westminster. It sounds like solemnity. Then she suddenly thinks about the strikes of the Big Ben (the clock). Subsequently, she reflects on the human being and how stupid it is.

7. Narrator: 3rd person, limited: he narrates according to the character’s viewpoint. He does not coincide with the main character.

8. REPETITIONS: lines 5, 7: what a morning!, what a lark!, what a plunge!

Lines 11-12: like a flap of a wave, the kiss of a wave.

Lines 17-18: was that it? ; Peter Walsh.

SIMILIES: Line 11: like a flap of a wave. Lines 5-6: fresh as issued to children on a beach.

IMAGERY: lines 27-28: a touch of the bird about her, of the jay.

line 30: she perched (image of a bird).

LISTS: lines 15-16:the rooks rising, falling, standing and looking.

line 33: a particular hush, or solemnity, an indescribable pause, a suspense.

line 39-40: making it up, building it round one, tumbling it, creating it.

lines 43-44: in people’s eyes, in the swing, tramp, and trudge; in the bellow and the uproar. lines 45-49: the carriages, motorcars, omnibuses, vans, sandwichmen shuffling and swinging; brass bands, barrel organs.

ALLITERATIONS: line 35: before Big Ben strikes. line 48: brass bands, barrel organs.

9. How is Clarissa’s character created? Through:

• Statements by the author

• Clarissa’s thoughts and feelings

• Clarissa’s behavior

• The writer’s use of imagery and symbols

10. In the painting created by Virginia Woolf’s sister there are similarities with the novel. For instance, the character is not completely defined by the artist. The face is approximate and it has no eyes. In the novel, the narrator gives an approximate idea of the characters and the reader has to discover the unwritten features of their personality.

The colours around the woman are in contrast and emphasize the figure. The novel focuses on one particular character, even though there are other figures in the background.