Based on the events of a single day, a Wednesday in June 1923, Mrs. Dalloway is a unique book as its narrative skillfully interweaves unconnected storylines to take place on this fateful day. The story opens with Clarissa running an errand to buy flowers. Reactions of different people can be noticed when unexpected events keep occurring throughout the day. For example, a plane writing in the sky and a car emitting an explosive noise. Peter, her old partner, shows up not long after she gets home. During their conversation, it becomes evident that the two are still very much in love with one another. In a vulnerable exchange, Peter asks Clarissa if she's happy. Elizabeth, Clarissa's daughter, cuts them off before Clarissa can respond. The narrative then shifts to a World War I veteran, Septimus Warren Smith, who is suffering from PTSD. In order to meet Sir William Bradshaw, a psychiatrist, he is waiting with his wife, Lucrezia. Another perspective switch takes place and this time we get to experience Richard's narrative, who is going through an internal struggle with respect to his relationship with his wife Clarissa. The change in narratives keeps the reader on edge and leads to a conclusion which manages to bring everything together.
Based on the events of a single day, a Wednesday in June 1923, Mrs. Dalloway is a unique book as its narrative skillfully interweaves unconnected storylines to take place on this fateful day. The story opens with Clarissa running an errand to buy flowers. Reactions of different people can be noticed when unexpected events keep occurring throughout the day. For example, a plane writing in the sky and a car emitting an explosive noise. Peter, her old partner, shows up not long after she gets home. During their conversation, it becomes evident that the two are still very much in love with one another. In a vulnerable exchange, Peter asks Clarissa if she's happy. Elizabeth, Clarissa's daughter, cuts them off before Clarissa can respond. The narrative then shifts to a World War I veteran, Septimus Warren Smith, who is suffering from PTSD. In order to meet Sir William Bradshaw, a psychiatrist, he is waiting with his wife, Lucrezia. Another perspective switch takes place and this time we get to experience Richard's narrative, who is going through an internal struggle with respect to his relationship with his wife Clarissa. The change in narratives keeps the reader on edge and leads to a conclusion which manages to bring everything together.
Über den Autor
Virginia Woolf was a luminous novelist, a prolific essayist and book reviewer, and a diarist. With her husband Leonard, Woolf established and ran the Hogarth Press which published works by influential modernist writers. In their first five years, they published Katherine Mansfield, T. S. Eliot, E. M. Forster, Clive Bell, Roger Fry and Sigmund Freud. Woolf's haunting writing, her succinct insights into feminist, artistic, historical, political issues, and her revolutionary experiments with points of view and stream-of-consciousness altered the course of literature.
