Textual analysis of What an Extraordinary Night! from The Hours by Virginia Woolf

In the extract, Clarissa comes to know about Septimus’ death from Sir Bradshaws during her party. Mrs. Dalloway is shocked about this news even if she had not known the suicidal. She imagines Septimus throwing himself from a window, falling down and she imagines him dying.

Afterwards, Clarissa thinks about her past happiness in Bourton, but she immediately starts to reflect about death: death is a defiance.

Hereafter she imagines the role Sir Bradshaw could have had in Septimus’ death since he is a psychoanalyst: he is able to force people to pull out their inconvenience and fears. He could have impressed Septimus, made him feel life intolerable.

Then Clarissa thinks about herself: without her husband, her too could have tried to commit suicide, but “she had escaped”. Mrs Dalloway thinks she wanted success, just like others did.

Suddenly she feels happy like she had never been. The protagonist then reflects on how things do nor last for very long time.

Afterwards, Clarissa thinks about the many times she looked at the sky and she approaches to the window. Surprisingly, she sees a woman watching her from a window and Clarissa stares at her while she was going to bed. The protagonist find fascinating watching the woman going to bed while the drawing-room was still crowded.

When the clock starts to strike the hours, Clarissa starts to think again to Septimus, but she does not pity him.

In the end, Mrs Dalloway decides to go back to the party and thinks she must find Peter and Sally.

The extract is a monologue of the main character, Clarissa Dalloway. In fact, the narrator is a first person narrator and omniscient who reports all Clarissa’s thoughts Plus, the narrator also describes what she feels  (“her body burnt”) and her moods.

An important aspect of the extract is the reflection on death: Clarissa thinks death is Septimus’ attempt to communicate his feelings, his inconvenience of not being able to understand the sense of life which led him to unhappiness and suicide.

About death, the extract also enlightens how death and life are related

Clarissa also quotes Shakespeare’s drama Othello: “If it were now to die, ‘twere now to be most happy”. It means death may come in a moment of intense happiness.

In the extract there is also another Shakespeare’s quotation, “Fear no more the heat of the sun” which points out  death’s inevitability.

Regarding the language, in the extract there are many repetitions. For example, in the first paragraph “talked” is repeated twice and it probably hint at the continuous chatting of the guesses.