What an extraordinary night!

"What an extraordinary night!" is an extract of the text of "Mrs Dalloway" written by Virginia Woolf in 1925. It is composed of eight sequences, which have the function to analyse Clarissa's feelings.

In the first sequence the narrator focuses the attention on Clarissa's reaction to death, after that the Bradshaws have told her of Septimus's suicide. She imagines him throwing himself from a window and this makes her reflect on life and death. She experiences it physically: with her body, her dresses (feel like bourning) her body burns, she sees the ground rising towards the falling body, she also hears his brain and then she feels only blackness. (style which reminds the language of poetry: use of repetitions, onomatopoeias).

In the second sequence the narrator describes people who continue to arrive to the party (reported speech). In the sequences the interior monologue shows what happens to the party, while the 3^rd person narrator shows what Clarissa thinks.

In the third and fourth sequences in Clarissa rises the idea of what would have happened if Septimus had gone to Sir Bradshaw, and she starts to make considerations about him: she thinks he is a great doctor, polite with women but capable of atrocities.

In the fifth sequence Clarissa thinks about Sir Bradshaw as something which crouches like a bird reading "The Times". Then she understands there is a parallelism between her life and Septimus's life: she tries to go on and continue to face life, but on the opposite side Septimus decided to commit suicide because he did not find a sense for living.

In the sixth sequence Clarissa "describes" her disaster, her disgrace ( alliterative use of "dis"): her punishment is to see people around her disappearing while she is forced "to stand here in her evening dress" (line 43). In her disgrace she looks for the two sides of her  life and she wanted success. à A characteristic of modern novel is to speak about problems of life, the same Clarissa and Septimus have to face.

In the seventh sequence Clarissa's thoughts are turned to Bourton, a place where she lived when she was young, where "they were all talking, looking at the sky, or seeing it between people's shoulders at dinner" (line 52, 53). Reminding this, she walks to the window.

In the eight sequence the narrator describes her parting the curtains and looking out of the window: she looks in the opposite room the old lady staring straight at her, and at the same time she notices the sky is not as she has imagined it. She turns again the eyes towards the old lady, she looks her going to bed and she asks herself if she could see her.

Finally she thinks again to the young man who had killed himself, but she does not  pity him. She looks again to the opposite room but the old lady has put out her light.

Then she decided she must go back to the party.