The main causes that brought about Modernism, a cultural movement that developed in the first decades of XX century, had due to the lost of faith in the traditional values that had represented points of reference for men's life in XIX century. Firstable religion enters in toa terrible crisis due to Darwin's theory, according to which men did not come from God. The lack of a religious porpuse could not be replaced and therefore men felt isolated and weak. The position was also reinforced by the collapse of faith in progress, that had only created division inside social classes. Only capitalist could be the self made man. Not well being was possible inside society which now looked totally different to people's expectation. That is why new cultural forms were experimented and poets and writers come from different countries to adopt new tecniques able to express the lack of hope for the future.

Mrs Dalloway
What an extraordinary night is an extract taken by "Mrs Dalloway" by V.W, and provides an example of modernist fiction. The extract\novel was published in 1925, immediatly after WW I. The extract is about Clarissa's party and it belongs to the last part of the novel.
At the same time while guests were arriving, Sir W B, that was a psychiatrist arrived with his wife and brought with him Semptimus Warren's suicide. Septimus was an insane man, who was Sir W.B.'s patient. Semptimus, more over, was a disturbed character, but he did not ever meet Clarissa along the novel.

SEQUENCES:

1) to introduce the reader to the news about Septimus'death
2) to convay the ideas of Clarissa about death.
3) To convay Clarissa's thoughts about psychiatrist and Sir W.B., that was connected to the idea of power.
4) To convay Clarissa's theories about life and death at the same time. Clarissa was different to Semptimus, because she could manage go on living. They are both afraid of living but S. is unable to keep a balance.