Mrs Dalloway is a text both incredibly ambitious and incredibly contained. It details just one mid-June day in the life of the society lady Clarissa Dalloway, who is preparing a party which will be hosted in the evening. Yet it contains a whole host of revelations, following more than twenty characters throughout the novel whilst seamlessly alternating between different modes of narration and periods of time. In some ways, time, and missed opportunities, are the text’s main preoccupation. Clarissa meditates on unarticulatedUnspoken. love, alluding to a spurned former suitor and a failed SapphicRelating to sexual attraction between two women. Linked to Sappho, the 7th Century BC Greek poet who wrote about her attraction to women. love affair, as she listens to the hauntingly perpetualNever ending. chimes of Big Ben. Existential questions are writ large over this book, even as it claims to follow the prosaicWithout interest or excitement. Unromantic and unimaginative. aspects of life, and the Great War casts a long shadow.
Mrs Dalloway
Glossary
Unarticulated - Unspoken.
Sapphic - Relating to sexual attraction between two women. Linked to Sappho, the 7th Century BC Greek poet who wrote about her attraction to women.
Perpetual - Never ending.
Prosaic - Without interest or excitement. Unromantic and unimaginative.
Exacerbated - Made worse.
Pompous - Self-important and overly serious.
Pragmatic - Dealing with things sensibly and realistically, in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations.
Discrepancies - Unexpected or unexplained differences.