From 1922 to 1924 Virginia Woolf wrote Mrs Dalloway (originally called the hours), a novel which focuses on the many shifting moods, the actions, thought and memories of Clarissa Dalloway, who is getting everything ready for her party in the evening.
The Hours is a 1998 novel written by Michael Cunningham. The book concerns three generations of women affected by the Virginia Woolf novel. Michael Cunningham choose as title the original title of Mrs. Dalloway.
In the extract from Mrs. Dalloway, "What a Morning!", Mrs. Dalloway is firstly presented by her status: she is married (Mrs.).
The beginning is in medias res.
Mrs. Dalloway likes flowers, she lives in a house with some servants and the center of discussion is the house.
The narrator tells the reader Mrs. Dalloway names Clarissa.
The narrator says about social status, daily occupation, social family background. Further more tells she can pay people to come and work of her and she likes nature.
The narrator is a third omniscient narrator. Virginia Woolf adopted free indirect style.
The narrator sounds eclipsed but is saying thoughts. The reader fells to be in the character mind.
The use of conditional creates in the reader a sense of distance.
In the extract from The Hours there is the same situation. The reader perceives Clarissa trying to organize what she has still to do: buy the flowers.
There is a narrator who knows everything about Clarissa, even her feelings. So the narrator is omniscient. The narrator gives judgments about character.
The filter of narrator is more evident, the comments are showed by parenthesis.
In this novel Sally correspond Lucy, there are no servants and everything is more banal, infact Sally is cleaning the bathroom. There is no hierarchy master - servants: splashing of authority. This is a postmodern novel.
The use of simple present creates in the reader an effect of immediacy, even if the narration is much filtered.