ANALYSIS OF “WHAT AN EXTRAORDINARY NIGHT!” EXTRACT FROM MRS. DALLOWAY

    In this extract, Clarissa Dalloway’s party has begun: it is proceeding well until the arrival of the Bradshaws. They tell the guests at the party that Septimus, a patient of Mr. Bradshaw, committed suicide. This is a pretext for the following reflection of Clarissa about life and death. She  interprets his suicide as an attempt to communicate something. She feels sympathy for she has been in the same situation, and pushed herself on instead of committing suicide. She hypothesizes that maybe he was forced to commit suicide by the brutal psychoanalysis treatment of Dr. Bradshaw. Septimus' suicide has allowed Clarissa to see the beauty of life; his death means her rebirth. To emphasize her rebirth, the woman across the way acknowledges Mrs. Dalloway, surprising her because she has finally made a connection, even if little.
    The narrator is a third-person narrator coinciding with Clarissa’s point of view. Interior monologue is used to express her reflections and thoughts, a narrative technique widely used by Modernist authors. The language used is similar to poetry’s one: alliterations, onomatopoeias, exclamations and repetitions are used frequently and they convey Mrs. Dalloway’s feelings. There are also two quotations from William Shakespeare: intertextual references will later become a constant in Postmodern texts.
    Clarissa and her reaction to Septimus’ suicide are just pretexts to reflect on the themes of life and death. The two characters, Clarissa and Septimus, make different choices: the first keeps living but is always conscious of death’s inevitability, the latter chooses to cease an unbearable life. Indeed, suicide is a sign of this. Reflections on this topic are expressions of the inner self, a feature of Modernist literature.

Carlo Mauri

Daniele Sorrenti