Sparknotes Summaries Mrs Dalloway
AS English | Mrs Dalloway | SparkNotes Summaries |
Thomas Hadden
11/16/2011
|
Key Facts
Full title · Mrs. Dalloway
Author · Virginia Woolf
Type of work · Novel
Genre · Modernist; formalist; feminist
Language · English
Time and place written · Woolf began Mrs. Dalloway in Sussex in 1922 and completed the novel in London in 1924.
Date of first publication · May 14, 1925
Publisher · Hogarth Press, the publishing house created by Leonard and Virginia Woolf in 1917
Narrator · Anonymous. The omniscient narrator is a commenting voice who knows everything about the characters. This voice appears occasionally among the subjective thoughts of characters. The critique of Sir William Bradshaw’s reverence of proportion and conversion is the narrator’s most sustained appearance. point of view · Point of view changes constantly, often shifting from one character’s stream of consciousness (subjective interior thoughts) to another’s within a single paragraph. Woolf most often uses free indirect discourse, a literary technique that describes the interior thoughts of characters using third-person singular pronouns (he and she). This technique ensures that transitions between the thoughts of a large number of characters are subtle and smooth.
Tone · the narrator is against the oppression of the human soul and for the celebration of diversity, as are the book’s major characters. Sometimes the mood is humorous, but an underlying sadness is always present.
Tense · though mainly in the immediate past, Peter’s dream of the solitary traveller is in the present tense.
Setting (time) · A day in mid-June, 1923. There are many flashbacks to a summer at Bourton in the early 1890s, when Clarissa was eighteen.
Setting (place) · London, England. The novel takes place largely in the affluent neighbourhood of Westminster, where the Dalloways live.
Protagonist · Clarissa Dalloway
Major conflict · Clarissa and other characters try to preserve their souls and
Thomas Hadden
11/16/2011
|
Key Facts
Full title · Mrs. Dalloway
Author · Virginia Woolf
Type of work · Novel
Genre · Modernist; formalist; feminist
Language · English
Time and place written · Woolf began Mrs. Dalloway in Sussex in 1922 and completed the novel in London in 1924.
Date of first publication · May 14, 1925
Publisher · Hogarth Press, the publishing house created by Leonard and Virginia Woolf in 1917
Narrator · Anonymous. The omniscient narrator is a commenting voice who knows everything about the characters. This voice appears occasionally among the subjective thoughts of characters. The critique of Sir William Bradshaw’s reverence of proportion and conversion is the narrator’s most sustained appearance. point of view · Point of view changes constantly, often shifting from one character’s stream of consciousness (subjective interior thoughts) to another’s within a single paragraph. Woolf most often uses free indirect discourse, a literary technique that describes the interior thoughts of characters using third-person singular pronouns (he and she). This technique ensures that transitions between the thoughts of a large number of characters are subtle and smooth.
Tone · the narrator is against the oppression of the human soul and for the celebration of diversity, as are the book’s major characters. Sometimes the mood is humorous, but an underlying sadness is always present.
Tense · though mainly in the immediate past, Peter’s dream of the solitary traveller is in the present tense.
Setting (time) · A day in mid-June, 1923. There are many flashbacks to a summer at Bourton in the early 1890s, when Clarissa was eighteen.
Setting (place) · London, England. The novel takes place largely in the affluent neighbourhood of Westminster, where the Dalloways live.
Protagonist · Clarissa Dalloway
Major conflict · Clarissa and other characters try to preserve their souls and