MCorte - The Modern Age - Comparison between Wolff's and Cunningham's prologue

In this text I'm going to make a comparison between two prologues: one from Virginia Wolff's Mrs Dalloway, another from Michael Cunningham's The Hours. They both describe the beginning of the day of a character, Clarissa Dalloway,: she gets out her house to go buying some flowers for a party.
In the prologue from Mrs Dalloway, the main character is described by a third person narrator, apparently omniscient and for this the reader knows the situations and what is going to happen. The reader knows her daily occupation and her social background: she is called Mrs Dalloway indicating her married state as more important than her name. The narration uses a free and indirect style: in fact the narrator use technique of reported speech to narrate actions of the characters. In this prologue the narrator describes situations using conditional form, that is the reported speech of the future time: it is a time for planned actions or instinctive decisions but not certain. The narrator sounds eclipsed but some textual clues reveal her presence to drive the reader in the reading(for, then). All the same the reader feels to be in the characters' mind.
In the prologue from The Hours the reader instead perceives what Clarissa has still to do. The narrator is omniscient too, in fact the reader can know everything about Clarissa. It is more evident the presence of the narrator that gives judgement about characters and their actions(in this extract he uses intervals to insert his opinion or degree). Everything is much more banal in the character's situation because this is not the social context of the first prologue: there is no authority(Clarissa has no servants but she lives together with a woman) and also no dignity(she is described while she is cleaning the bathroom). In this prologue the narrator describes situations using simple present and this makes the reader nearer to the situations and the characters; moreover the simple present gives concreteness and reality. Concluding the Cunningham's prologue is more nearer to the reader both the time used and the social context, similar to everyday life.