I'm going to analyse an extract from Mrs Dalloway, a novel written in 1925 by Virginia Woolf. It is a modernist

novel.

The extract starts with the protagonist: Mrs Dalloway. "Mrs" recalls her social status, she is married.
She wants to buy the flowers herself for her party.
In the second line you can find the name of "Lucy", probably a servant in her house.
It is morning and Clarissa Dalloway finds it very fresh and good for children on a beach. Here there is a third

person narrator who speaks from Clarissa Dalloway's point of view. He is reporting what she is thinking.
After that the reader has access to the character's interior monologue: Clarissa thinks about her past, when

she was young (eighteen years old) and was in Bourton (France). That morning makes her to remember her

youth, when she was outside the window. Go on reading you can find a very sensual language which appeals to

senses (it seems as if you could perceive the waves of the sea for example). It is rendered through rethorical

devices (the language of poetry) like repetitions, anaphoric language, onomatopeic use of the language and the

use of short sentences. But in the wonderful description there is a terrible expression ("that something awful

was about to happen") which refers probably to something that may will happen.
After that there is the introduction of another character: Peter Walsh. You can know him through Clarissa's

interior monologue. The use of direct speech reproduces the exact words of Peter as if you were there and

could listen them.
In remembering the situation, she thinks about Peter Walsh: he should be back from India one of that day (June

or July). Through her interior monolgue Clarissa can move herself from her past to her present. It is a modernist

feature: there is a new concept of time. While during the Victorian period time was linear, in the modern age

time is considered simultaneous. It means that there is a mixture of past, present and future in the character's

mind. Clarissa Dalloway expresses perfectly the new concept of time.

In the lines you can see the eclipse of the narrator: it seems as if the narrator were not there, but instead he is still there!
From the phrase "for his letters were awfully dull" the reader can understand that Peter Walsh generally writes

letters to Clarissa, but also that she does not appreciate them. In the following lines you can have some

information about Peter: "his eyes, his pocket-knife, his smile, his grumpiness". They are some Peter's

characteristics that Clarissa rememberes through istantaneous images: you can know the character only through

Clarissa's point of view. So the reader is not free.
The narration returns to the present: Clarissa is walking and stops a little on the kerb. She is thinking about her

past, when she lived in Westminster. There is a lot of trafic but Clarissa is positive. She is thinking about life

making references to heaven but also to what she is seeing in front of her. She loves life (she makes also a list

where she finds it); all this is underlined in the phrase "was what she loved; life; London; this moment of June".

The construction of sentences characterized by short expressions involves the reader. It is as if you could feel the same

emotions of Clarissa.
The beautiful moment and feeling is interrupted sharply referring to the War: it was over but the character

thinks about two women (Mrs Foxcroft and Lady Boxborough) that are suffering for the deaths of their sons.

Anyway Clarissa underlines that the war was over: this is important. In saying this she thanks heaven.
After that there is a description of people she sees while she is walking on the street. Everything is rendered

through short images and short sentences. It creates a dynamic rythm in the narration and the reader is totally

involved.

Clarissa is very happy for her party. Her happiness is put in contrast with the feelings she feels when

she enters in the Park ("but how strange, on entering the Park, the silence; the mist; the hum; the slow-

swimming happy ducks..").
There is the introduction of another character: Hugh Whitbread, an old friend of Clarissa. She is happy to see him. They

talk together for a moment (direct speech).