What an Extraordinary Night is an essay written by Virginia Woolf in Mrs Dalloway. It is composed of 7 paragraph, the writer uses the third person narrator and the use of repetition renders Virginia Woolf’s novel poetical because it is similar poetry.

In the first paragraph the narrator focuses the attention on the way Clarissa reacts in front of the news about Septimus’s suicide. This way of narration is to give reality to the novel. At the beginning Clarissa is annoyed because she thinks that Septimus’s death can damage the party. But first reaction of Clarissa about the suicide is to image Septimus in front of window and she thinks about life and death. Her physical reaction is that: her body flames, her dress burns, she sees the grown rising to world, the body falling, she feels the rusty spikes on her body and then she sees the blackness.

In the second paragraph the writer focuses the attention on Clarissa’s reflection about death. Clarissa thinks that death is defiance, an attempt to communicate and suicide represents the impossibility of reaching a centre. At the same time the writer explains that the party goes on and people continues to arrive.

In the third paragraph is expressed Clarissa’s idea about Sir William Bradshaw, Septimus’s psychiatrist. There is a reflection about life.

In the fourth paragraph the writer analyse the sense of life, the real problems to confront every day.

There is a comparison between Richard and Clarissa. The narrator underlines the fragility of Richard.

In fifth paragraph is pointed out the double face of nature and life; people want the success and vain things and in real life this creates profund darkness to explain the distance with outside world.

In the sixth paragraph the narrator illustres the memories of Clarissa, when she was happy. The narrator points out that times of happiness are short and fast.

In the last paragraph Clarissa doesn’t have pity to Septimus. The narrator shows the the time goes on and people doesn’t stop and there are some compromises to life quiet. There is the image of old woman in the bed.