“What a Morning”- Analysis

The extract, taken from a novel by Virginia Woolf , is the account of “a morning” spent by the main character, Mrs Dalloway. From the title the reader supposes it should be a special morning for the woman, because the headline-phrase ends with an exclamation mark that gives the idea of a something unusual and striking. It is a fresh and calm morning, and Clarissa has to buy flowers. The particular condition of weather recalls her one girlhood summer in Bourton, the place where she had lived when she was young. She sees herself at eighteen, standing at the window, feeling as if something awful might happen. Past and present continue to interact in the whole extract: Clarissa remembers her old friend Peter Walsh, her neighbor Scrope Purvis passes in the nearness, she stops at the Big Ben strikes thinking how humankind is deeply attached to life. The setting, i.e. the city of London, is clearly identified by the reader through indirect hints (urban elements and their noises) and direct clues (names of streets, quarters and famous buildings such as Westminster, Victoria Street and Big Ben). The time is also gradually disclosed: at the beginning the fresh air suggests a warm season, and at the end there’s a confirmation of this thesis, with the precise statement it’s June. Language is functional to Mrs Dalloway’s characterization: it privileges the device of interior monologue (listing thoughts and scenes appeared to Clarissa’s eyes) and makes use of unusual and complex syntax. Ms. Woolf, for example, refers to the rush and movement of London by means of “running” sentences, hypotaxis and lists, representing Clarissa’s ability to enjoy life. The account implies largely the expedients of simile and of onomatopoeias to strengthen imaginary feature of language reproducing, for examples, the images and sounds of the big city.

Through this kind of language the reader is directed into subjective mental world of the character and but he’s asked to imagine all this character doesn’t explain, every implicit element.