- Woolf attended a few courses at King’s College and took private Greek lessons. She also had access to her father’s library.

- When her father died, she moved to Bloomsbury and started her literary life and career.

- She brought to surface that if writers could write what they want “there would be no plot, no comedy, no tragedy”. In addition, she defined life as a “semi-transparent envelope surrounding us”.

- Virginia Woolf rejected the traditional perception of the story as a series of events, focusing her attention on the impression those event made on the characters. She also rejected the omniscient narrator, shifting the point of view inside the characters’ minds.

- In spite of the stream of consciousness used by Joyce, Woolf never lets her characters’ thoughts flow without control: she maintains a logical organisation. Considering the language used, while Joyce was interested in language experimentation, Woolf used a poetic, allusive and emotional language.

- The novel is set in a small area of London and it takes place on a single day in June 1923.

- Clocks reminds the reader of:
1. The temporal grid that organises the narrative
2. The passing of time
3. The flowing of life into death

- Clarissa Dalloway is a London society lady of fifty-one. She is characterised by opposing feelings: her need of independence and her class-consciousness. Therefore, she tries to become the ideal human being but she imposes restrictions on her spontaneous feelings.

- Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus are similar since they both depend on their partners for stability and their response to experience is given in physical terms.

- In the first section, the focus is on Mrs Dalloway, who is buying flowers at Mulberry. In the second section, there is the arrival of a mysterious motor car. In the third section Septimus Warren Smith is presented. In the fourth section, it is presented Septimus’ wife Lucrezia. In the fifth and last section, the narrator presents the two spouses’ relationship trough an episode happened last autumn.

- The scene take place in a short time around six and seven. As it regards the setting, the scene is set in a small area that consists of the flower shop and the roads around it.

- The main event is the arrival of a mysterious motor car opposite Mulberry’s shop window. People react in different ways: Miss Pym apologies for the noise after she has gone to the window together with Mrs Dalloway; Passers-by stop and stare; Edgar J Watkiss makes some hypothesis on whose motor car is it; Septimus Warren Smith looks at the motor car and thinks that he is blocking the way.

- The car has a dove-grey upholstery and blinds with a curious pattern like a tree and it is connoted by the great sound he made when it arrived (“a pistol shot in the street outside”). People suppose it might be the Prince of Wales, or the Queen or the Prime Minister in the motor car.

- Septimus. Age: thirty; Apparence: pale-faced, beak-nose, hazel eyes, wearing brown shoes and a shabby overcoat. Lucrezia. Age: twenty-four; Nationality: Italian; Apparence: little woman, large eyes, sallow pointed face.

- Virginia Woolf uses a third person narrator who seems to switch from a point of view to another. In that way, the narrator manages to link the inner world of the characters to the outer world.

- Mostly in the first section and in the presentation of the mysterious motor car, the narrator focuses her attention on the sensory experience: she underlines the value of the visual experience.