Analysis of the extract from “Mrs Dalloway”, from “Words That Speak”, page 216

The extract describes Mrs Dalloway walking through Hyde Park to reach her house: the reader knows her moods and feelings, a self-analysis of her personality, some memories and considerations.

The theme dealt is that of memory. Starting from a particular mood she feels, Mrs Dalloway thinks to some considerations on herself, analysing positive and negative aspects of her personality: she considers herself not particularly intelligent or cultivated and she isn’t able to attribute rationally judges and categories to people and even to herself. On the contrary, the quality she notices in her own personality is the acute instinct.

After that, there is a reflection on the passing of time, suggested from observing the things around her: the taxi cabs, people walking, the street she’s walking on. Her feeling towards death in not a negative one, death doesn’t frighten her: she thinks memory has the power to keep people alive. The consideration is extended to her and to people who were part of her life, such as the friends of her youth and namely Peter Walsh. At the end o the extract a quotation is given to the reader: it is taken from Shakespeare “Cymbeline” and refers to the fears of the human being and to appearance. Clarissa Dalloway links it to her reflection on death and to her fears about the passing of time.

The narrative technique used is which of the interior monologue. The third person narrator expresses through the shift of the point of view Mrs Dalloway’s interiority, using free indirect style. The opposition between interiority and exteriority is highlighted by the matching of brief sentences which remind to verse.