Mrs. Dalloway- extract 1

Exercises pag. 216\217

1

A) Verbs that introduce Mrs Dalloway's actions and thoughts:
To reach, to look, to feel, to watch, to think, to read, to walk, to remember, to love, to ask, to survive, to look. Most of the verbs are used in the simple past tense.

B) The interior monologue is the most used technique in this extract but you can see the presence of the narrator for example in the first line, where the free indirect speech is used.

2

A) Clarissa does not consider herself intelligent and she does not appreciate her inner contrasts. Clarissa considers these aspects of her personality negative. On the contrary, she does not want to give judgements and she wants to be positive.

B)She seems to remember with pleasure the events of the past. She says also that she is happy in the present, but we can understand from his inner monologue that she has got contradictory feelings.

C)She feels young but from certain aspects old, she wants to analyse everything but at the same time she is outside of the things and the world.

D)According to the quotation, men should not fear death. It seems that Clarissa wants to convince herself of the same idea.

3

A) Examples of narrative techniques used in the text:

1. FREE INDIRECT THOUGHT: "She would not say that...."
2. THIRD PERSON NARRATION FROM INSIDE THE CHARACTER'S POINT OF VIEW : "She felt very young and at the same time aged"
3. FREE DIRECT THOUGHT : "What was she trying to recover?"
4. DIRECT QUESTIONS WITH VERB TENSE IN INDIRECT FORM: "Did it matter then she asked herself...did it matter that .."

B)Examples of Similes and Repetitions:

Simile: "She sliced LIKE a knife trough everything" ; "If you put her in a room with someone, up went her back LIKE a cat's"; "being laid out LIKE a mist between the people she knew best".

Repetition: "out, out, far out", "very, very", "no language, no history", "she would not say of Peter, she would not say of herself, I am this, I am that".

The narrator adopts frequently an anaphoric use of the language.