Mrs. Dalloway door Virginia Woolf

A. General questions

1. What is the title/subtitle of the book?
Mrs Dalloway
2. What is the name/pseudonym of the author?
Virginia Woolf
3. When was the book published?
first published on May 14TH 1925

B. Question about the content

1. What is the book about?
a. What is the main subject or theme?
There are several subjects of the book. I think the most important is communication and privacy. Clarissa, Peter and Septimus have trouble with finding the right balance between communication and privacy. Clarissa e.g.: struggles to clear the road for communication; she has these parties to draw people together.
What is the book really about?
The way Clarissa and other characters try to preserve their souls and try to communicate in an oppressive and fragmentary post-World War I England.
What is the writer’s message?
That we our self create the great pressure of society that everyone feels. If we all put less pressure on people and just accepted people the way they are, that the world would be a better place (very optimistic).
b. Point out the main events and name two of the most important, e.g.: accidents, deaths, falling in love, quarrels, fights, and meetings. Briefly describe why you think they are important, e.g.: what is their influence in the characters.
On of the most important was the suicide of Septimus. I think this is important because, Septimus was a kind of double of Clarissa. He killed himself because he did not wanted to succumb to the society he detests. Clarissa and Septimus both are afraid of oppression.
Another important event was when Clarissa sees Septimus’s death as a desperate, but legitimate, act of communication. She accepts responsibility for his death, though other characters are equally or more fully to blame. Which suggests that everyone is in some way complicit in the oppression of others.
c. Give an example of a representative fragment of the book and explain why you chose it. You have to quote!
”All the same, that one day should follow another; Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday; that one should wake up in the morning; see the sky; walk in the park; meet Hugh Whitbread; then suddenly in came Peter; then these roses; it was enough. After that, how unbelievable death was! – that it must end; and no one in the world would have known how she had loved it all; how, every instant …”
I chose this fragment because it clearly shows Clarissa’s thoughts run through her mind and how she, strangely enough, like life.

2. Where does the action take place?
a. In which country?
The action takes place in England.
b. In a town or in the countryside or at sea?
It takes place in London, in the affluent neighbourhood Westminster.

3. In what setting does the action take place?
a. A poor or rich environment? (Give an example)
The action takes place in a rich environment. The Dalloway’s are wealthy, have servants and live in the affluent neighbourhood Westminster in London.
b. Educated background or not? (Give an example)
Yes, Richard is educated, he is a politician and went to university. Clarissa comes from a wealthy family and has had good schooling. Most of the people around them are educated.
c. Religious or not? (give an example)
I am not sure if the Dalloway family is religious. But Elizabeth has a history teacher whom she is a friend with, this Miss Kilman. She is a devoted Christian.

4. In you opinion has it a historical background?
a. Is it fact or fiction
I think it is fact, I’m not certain these exact people existed, but this easily could be the story of a lady in post war Britain.
b. Is it a metaphor?
I don’t think the story is a metaphor. You cannot find a resemblance with the story to something, which is real.

5. The characters.
a. Who is (are) the principal character(s)?
b. Describe what they are like. Support you answer by quoting from the text. Give the following facts: name, age, occupation, activities, characteristics, looks, relationships, character, and changes/development.
Clarissa Dalloway, she is the main character in the story. Clarissa is a woman around fifty years old. She cares a great deal about what people think of her, but she is also self-reflective. She often wonders if happiness is truly possible. She feels both a great joy and a great dread about her life, which manifest in her struggle to create a balance between privacy and the need to communicate with others. Clarissa reflects upon the crucial summer when she chose to marry Richard instead of Peter. Though she is happy, she is not entirely certain about her choice.
Septimus Warren Smith, is a World War I veteran suffering from shell shock, married to and Italian woman name Lucrezia. Although Septimus is insane, he views English society in the same way as Clarissa does, and he also struggles to find the balance between privacy and the need to communicate with others. He is pale, has a hawk-like posture, and wears a shabby overcoat. Before the war he was a young, idealistic, aspiring poet. After the war he regards human nature as evil and believes he is guilty of not being able to feel. He commits suicide.
Peter Walsh, is a close friend of Clarissa who is desperately in love with her. Clarissa rejected his wedding proposal when she was eighteen. He moved to India. He had not been in London for five years. He is highly critical of others and is conflicted about nearly anything in his life. He wears horn-rimmed glasses and a bow tie and used to be a socialist
Sally Seton, was a close friend of Clarissa and Peter in their youth. Sally was a wild, handsome “ragamuffin” who smoked cigars and would say anything. She and Clarissa were sexually attracted to each other as teenagers. Now Sally lives in Manchester and is married, and has five boys. Her marries name is Lady Rosseter.

Richard Dalloway, is Clarissa’s husband. A member of parliament in the Conservative government. He plans to write a history of the great English military family, the Brutons. He is a sportsman and likes being in the country. He is a loving father and husband. While devoted to reform, he appreciates English tradition. He has failed to make it into Cabinet.
c. Who is (are) the most important minor character(s)
d. Briefly describe their role in the book.
Lucrezia Smith (Rezia), Septimus’s wife. A twenty-four-year-old hat-maker from Milan. Loves Septimus but is forced to bear the burden of his mental illness alone. Normally a lively and playful young woman, she has grown thin with worry.
Elizabeth Dalloway, Clarissa and Richard’s only child. Gentle, considerate, and kind off passive seventeen year old. Has dark beauty that is beginning to attract attention. Not a fan of parties or clothes. Spends a great deal of time with her history teacher, the religious Miss Kilman.
Doris Kilman, is Elizabeth’s history teacher. She is over forty and wears a unattractive mackintosh coast because she does not dress to please. She is poor, with a forehead like an egg; she is bitter and dislikes Clarissa intensely but adores Elizabeth.

6. Is the principal character also the hero? Explain, give specific examples.
Yes, she struggles constantly to get the right balance between her personal life and the outside world. Her world consists of being the perfect wife, the shallow surfaces of high society, but she tries to find deeper meanings below the surface. She desires privacy and seldom shares her feelings with someone. In the end she accepts that the life she has is all she’ll get.

7. Do you like him/her or not? Explain, give specific examples.
No, I do not like her. I don’t like people who are so shallow. She might feel the pressure of the society but is it necessary to exactly do what society wants from you?

8. What is the climax of the work? Explain, give specific examples.
I think the climax of the work is when after her party, Clarissa goes to a small room to think about Septimus’s suicide. She identifies with him and is glad he did it, believing that he preserved his soul.

9. Does the title give a clue or indicate anything about the contents?
The title; Mrs Dalloway, only tell us whom the book is about, it does not tell us anything further about the contents.

C. Questions about the form:

1. To what kind of literature does it belong?
It belongs to type a. A novel.

2. What is its construction? Be specific and give examples.
a. Does it consist of separate parts or is it one continuous whole?
It consists of one continuous whole. The story keeps going on, while the point of view changes from character to character.
b. What else could you say about its construction?
Free indirect discourse is used. This is a literary technique that described the thoughts of the characters using; he and she, singular pronouns in the third-person.

3. In which form has the book been written?
The book has been written from the point a view of the writer as the omniscient narrator. The narrator knows everything about the characters and he appears occasionally among the thoughts of the characters.

4. Does the book contain long descriptions, which are important for the plot, or might they be omitted in your opinion? Explain.
The book certainly contains long descriptions! E.g.: “Indeed it was – Sir William Bradshaw’s motor car; low, powerful, grey with plain initials interlocked on the panel, as if the pomps of heraldry were incongruous, this man being the ghostly helper, the priest of science; and, as the motor car was grey, so, to match its sober suavity, grey furs, silver grey rugs were heaped in it, to keep her ladyship warm while she waited” (P.95). This for me is too long. That the car was grey was also repeated many times. Repetition was a common factor in the book. The long descriptions in my opinion may be omitted. If there had been said; the grey powerful motor car of Sir William Bradshaw; it would have been fine with me.

5. Does the author use certain stylistics forms to heighten tension? E.g.: short sentences, striking dialogues, etc. Give an example.
Yes, the dialogue between Peter and Sally on the last pages heightens tension, which is where Peter and Sally talk about Clarissa and about their lives. This reaches a climax when Sally says to Peter that she was positive that “Clarissa had cared for him more that she had ever cared for Richard” (p.195).

6. Is the work
a. Realistic? Explain.
b. Romantic? Explain.
c. Or do you think it belongs to another category? Explain.
The work is dramatic is suppose. The death of Septimus is a dramatic event. And although there are happy moments in the book, there is always an underlying sadness present.

7. What is the dominating factor of the book? Explain.
a. The description of the characters?
b. The description of the setting?
c. The description of the events and their relations?
The description of the events and their relations is the most dominating factor in the book. Everything that happens has to do with the oppression of the society.

D. Questions about the author

1. When and where did (does) the author live?
Virginia Woolf was born in 1882 and has lived in London all her life.

2. Did he/she write other books? Give some titles.
The Voyage Out (1915)
Night and Day (1919)
Jacob’s Room (1922)
A Room of One’s Own (1929)
She has written more books but I didn’t think it was necessary to mention them all.

3. Does the author belong to a certain period in literature? Which? Explain.
The author lived through the first world war,
Modernist; formalist; feminist

4. Does the author attack/defend a specific point of view in this book? Explain.
The author show that she is against the oppression of the human soul and for the celebration of diversity. The book’s major characters share this point of view. There are two major oppressors in the book; Miss Kilman and Sir William Bradshaw. Miss Kilman dreams of chopping down Clarissa in the name of religion, and Sir William Bradshaw would like to subdue all those who challenge his conception of the world.

5. What is the aim of the writer in this book? Be specific and give examples.
To make people more aware about the pressure of society.

E. Questions about the personal opinion of the reader:

1. What has struck you in particular?
The time it took me to read this book! The book was much more difficult to read than I had expected it to be. What struck me as well was the way people thought in England after world war one. Before reading this book I believed that the English thought much more simplistic, but it turned out that in those days people already were thinking about life and the pressure of society. For example, Septimus wonders about the flaws a society and fears that people have no capacity for honesty or kindness. That people don’t really communicate anymore.

2. How did you like the book?
I didn’t like reading the book. The language was a bit difficult but not a problem. I found the story not interesting and had a hard time reading the book. It is not that feminism and post war doesn’t interest me, but the way the book is build up and the way the story is told simply annoys me. Is it so hard to just say what you think and not repeat yourself a million of times?! As you can see, there was a lot of repetition in the book, which I think could be omitted. Overall, writing this report made me look differently towards the book and made me think about the deeper meaning. I don’t dislike the book but I wouldn’t personally recommend it to anyone.

F. Quotations

1. Write down a few (short!) quotations you can memorize and use on your test.
- “There she was” said by Peter Walsh.
- “How delightful to see you!” said by Clarissa Dalloway.
- “Tell me, are you happy Clarissa?” said by Peter Walsh

2. Explain why you have chosen these quotations.
“There she was”, this is what peter said when he woke up at Regent’s Park and thinks about Clarissa.
”How delightful to see you”, this is what Clarissa said many times to people, it is a line that Peter simply despises. He thinks the line, when said by Clarissa is effusive and insincere.

”Tell me, are you happy Clarissa?” this is what Peter asks Clarissa when he speaks with her after many years. This question shows that Peter can see through Clarissa and can see who she really is.