WHAT A MORNING!

 

COMPREHENSION

 

1)    Where is Mrs Dalloway going?

She is walking through the streets in Westminster.

 

2)    What is her mood?

She is upset because she has a bad feeling.

 

3)    The passage mixes two different time dimensions. Which are they?                      

          What sound evokes the past in Clarissa’s mind?

     At the beginning she has a memory of when she lived in  

     Bourton. But her thought is suddenly interrupted and she realizes

     she's in London.

     A little squeak of the hinges evokes the past in Clarissa’s mind.  

 

4)    Who do you think is Peter Walsh? What does Clarissa say of him?

     In my opinion he’s her lover when she still lived in Bourton.

     Clarissa remembers him for his eyes, his pocket-knife, his smile and his

     grumpiness.

 

5)    What does Scrope Purvis think of Clarissa?

She thinks her like a touch of the bird about her, of the jay, blue-green, light, vivacious, though she was over fifty, and grown very white since her illness.

 

6)    What are Clarissa’s thoughts while walking through the streets in

Westminster?

     While she is walking she thinks of when she lived in Bourton.

 

INTERPRETATION

 

1)    What kind of narrator is used?

The narrator is in 3^rd person, omniscient and reliable.

 

2)    Critics have often used the term “poetic prose” with reference to Woolf’s

     style which features an abundance of repetitions, alliterations and lists.

     Find at least one or two examples of each.

      Alliterations: children on a beach/ June or July/ brass bands/

          Repetitions: What a lark! What a plunge/ was that it?-"I prefer men to

        cauliflowers"-was that it?/

       Lists: How fresh, how calm, stiller than this of course, the air was in the  

        early morning; like the flap of a wave; the kiss of a wave; chill and sharp  

        and yet (for a girl of eighteen as she then was) solemn, feeling as she

        did, standing there at the open window, that something awful was about

        to happen; looking at the flowers, at the trees with the smoke winding

        off them and the rooks rising, falling/ his eyes, his pocket-knife, his

        smile, his grumpiness/ a touch of the bird about her, of the jay, blue-

        green, light, vivacious, though she was over fifty, and grown very white

        since her illness. There she perched, never seeing him, waiting to cross,

        very upright/ In people's eyes, in the swing, tramp, and trudge; in the

        bellow and the up-roar; the carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans,

        sand-wich men shuffling and swinging; brass bands; barrel organs; in

        the triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of some

        aeroplane overhead was what she loved/