The Smiths are still here in the park and, by bringing Peter to the park, Virginia Woolf provides a seemingly chance link between the two narrative threads of the novel — Clarissa’s story and Septimus’ story. Peter does not speak to the Smiths, nor they to him; in passing, they […]

Read more Summary and Analysis The Doctors

In general, this long scene is one of reflection. Like Clarissa, who has been ill and has “returned” to London, Peter also has been away; he is returning to London after five years spent in India. As Clarissa did, Peter sees London through unaccustomed eyes. He notices subtle nuances, and […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Peter In Regents Park

In contrast to the last scene of safe quietude, we now see Clarissa pitted against a flesh-and-blood person, one who loved Clarissa long ago. This, incidentally, is the first vigorous male introduced to us. Clarissa did meet Hugh Whitbread in the park, but he was a rather pallid specimen of […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Peter’s Visit

There is scarcely any real action in this scene. Yet a few commonplace acts structure the real matter of this scene — Clarissa’s thoughts about life and death. Virginia Woolf does not use these labels, of course, but they are the fundamental considerations at the core of the scene. Already […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Home Again

While Mrs. Dalloway selects flowers for the party, we leave her for awhile and consider a new character: Septimus Warren Smith. The change of focus is brief, but it is important because Clarissa is only one half of the design for Mrs. Dalloway. While she worked on this novel, Virginia […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Septimus

Mrs. Dalloway is not a novel that chronicles the years of the life of Clarissa Dalloway. In fact, Mrs. Dalloway is not a conventionally narrated novel at all. It is a collage, a mosaic portrait; it pieces together bits of Mrs. Dalloway’s past and bits of Mrs. Dalloway’s present on […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Out for Flowers

Clarissa Dalloway A delicate lady of fifty; the wife of Richard Dalloway. Richard Dalloway Quiet, gentle; holds a government post. Peter Walsh A former suitor of Clarissa; he is planning to marry the wife of a major in the Indian Army. Elizabeth Dalloway Seventeen years old; the daughter of Clarissa […]

Read more Character List

Mrs. Dalloway is a unique novel in that it takes place in a single day — a Wednesday in mid-June 1923. The novel interweaves two seemingly unconnected storylines during this day. At the beginning, Clarissa Dalloway, fiftyish and recently recovering from an illness, is preparing for a party she will […]

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