Comprehension
1. Clarissa is told of Septimus's death and imagines him throwing himself from a window
2. She reflects on life and death
3. She contrasts her easy and successful life with the death and suffering of other people
4. She imagines the meeting between Septimus and Sir William Bradshaw
5. She thinks life can be difficult, but she has the support of her husband
6. She walks to the window
7. She parts the curtains and sees an old lady looking at her
8. The sky is not as Clarissa had imagined it
9. She thinks of her happiness at Bourton and of the pleasure one derives from the activities of day-to-day life
10. She watches the old lady going to bed
11. She thinks of Septimus again but does not pity him
12. She decides to go back to her party

Interpretation
What is Clarissa's first reaction to Septimus's death?
Clarissa's first reaction is that she felt annoyed with the Bradshaws because they talked about the death of a young man at her party.

What is her view on death?
Clarissa's view on death is that death is like a defiance, an attempt to communicate and an embrace.

What is Clarissa's view of Sir Bradshaw?
Clarissa's view on Sir Bradshaw is about a great doctor, but with an obscure way of working. In Clarissa's opinion Sir Bradshaw had impressed him that life is intolerable.

What struggle characterises Clarissa's life?
In her life Clarissa was never admirable and she had wanted success. She did not feel at the right position and unfit for her role.

In the last paragraph Clarissa is at the centre of the contrast between her social life and the world outside. Then suddenly a new thought comes to her and she experiences a "moment of being". What does she suddenly realize?
She realises that she is not living the life she would like to live, she is living her false, superficial existence.

Can you link the two quotations from Shakespeare to Clarissa's moods?
"if it were now to die, ‘twere now to be most happy", Clarissa feels so happy that it would be the perfect moment to die.
"fear no more the heat of the sun", Clarissa feels sad and she realises that life goes on and that Sepitmus's death is nothing particular important.

Focus on the language. Can you explain why many sentences are "loosely constructed", with lots of repetitions and conjunctions?
The construction of Mrs. Dalloway underlines the new techniques of writing adopted in Modernism. The use of the stream of consciousness and the technique of the interior monologue characterised lots of repetitions and conjunctions.

Now I am going to analyse the structure of the extract taken from Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway:
The extract consists of seven paragraphs. In the first paragraph Clarissa is in the middle of the party and the Bradshaws starts to talk about a young man's suicide. It is Septimus's. Clarissa's  reaction is unexpected. She feels annoyed because she  does not accept to talk about death at her party because every time she hears about a dead person she feels as if it had happened to herself.
In the second paragraph she starts to think about death and this is really  significant. Following Clarissa's mind death is like an embrace or an attempt to communicate. In addition, in her opinion,  Septimus' death becomes a reason  to think back about her past.
In the third paragraph Clarissa quotes Shakespeare and the choice strengthens her mood.
The fourth paragraph is about Sir Bradshaw, a great doctor, but with an evil-like influence on his patients. Clarissa thinks he has surely influenced Septimus's suicide.
In the fifth paragraph Clarissa thinks about life and she realises that she is not living the life she would like to live, she is living a  false and superficial existence.
In the last two paragraphs she goes on thinking about her life. In addition the figure of the old woman that is going to bed is also relevant because thanks the vision of the old woman she realises that life goes on. The Big Ben is striking the hour thus underlining  that time passes and that everything goes on even after Septimus's death.

When, in the end, she reaches her friends at  the party, it means that she is ready to live with compromises, something which Septimus was unable to do.