Virginia Woolf’s fourth novel, Mrs Dalloway, marks an important stage in her development as a writer. In this novel she finally departs from the form of the traditional English novel, establishing herself as a writer of genius. Her stream of consciousness style, in a lyrical and haunting language, made this novel, from its publication in 1925, one of her most popular novels. The action is restricted to the events of one day in central London, where Clarissa Dalloway, the wife of Richard Dalloway M.P. and a fashionable London hostess, is to give an important party. Her character is gradually revealed through her thoughts on that day and through her memories of the past, rendered by interior monologue and stream of consciousness. So are the other people who have touched her life: her one-time suitor Peter Walsh, lately returned from India after five years’ absence, her childhood friend Sally Seton, her daughter Elizabeth and spinster tutor Miss Kilman, a political hostess, Lady Bruton. A complementary character is Septimus Waren Smith, a shell-shock victim who has retreated into a private world and ends the day by committing suicide. Through her thoughts on that day and through her memories of the past, her character is gradually revealed. And so are the other personalities who have touched on her life. Their loves and hates, their tragedies and comedies, all are vividly, intimately – and uniquely – brought to life.
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