Flashcards for Mrs. Dalloway

Clarissa Dalloway

Clarissa Dalloway is the heart of the novel, a fifty-two-year-old hostess in Westminster.

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Dr. Holmes

Dr. Holmes is a minor yet significant antagonist in Mrs Dalloway, acting as one of the two institutional forces that close in on Septimus Warren Smith.

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Elizabeth Dalloway

Elizabeth Dalloway is the seventeen-year-old daughter of Clarissa and Richard, a quietly captivating presence who moves through the novel representing youthful potential and the beginnings of self-identity.

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Lucrezia (Rezia) Smith

Lucrezia ("Rezia") Smith is the young Italian wife of the shell-shocked veteran Septimus Warren Smith, and she stands out as one of the novel's most touching supporting characters.

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Miss Kilman

Miss Doris Kilman is the history tutor for Elizabeth Dalloway and a passionate religious convert, serving in the novel as Clarissa's most visceral antagonist and illustrating the destructive nature of resentment.

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Peter Walsh

Peter Walsh plays a crucial role in Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway, as an old friend and former lover of Clarissa who returns to London from India on the same June day as her party.

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Richard Dalloway

Richard Dalloway is a Conservative Member of Parliament and Clarissa's husband in Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway (1925).

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Sally Seton

Sally Seton is a radiant presence from Clarissa Dalloway's past who reemerges, almost like a myth, at the novel's pivotal party.

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Septimus Warren Smith

Septimus Warren Smith is a World War I veteran and one of the two main characters in the novel, serving as a spiritual counterpart to Clarissa Dalloway even though they never meet.

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Sir William Bradshaw

Sir William Bradshaw is a notable psychiatrist on Harley Street, and his brief but significant appearance in Mrs Dalloway makes him one of the novel's most unsettling characters.

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“What a lark! What a plunge!”

These lines are some of the very first in Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway (1925), appearing in the novel's famous opening scene as Clarissa Dalloway steps outside her London home on a June morning to buy flowers for her evening party.

Clarissa Dalloway (interior monologue) · Opening section (the novel is unpaginated by chapters)

“He made her feel the beauty; made her feel the fun. But it was Clarissa one remembered.”

This line comes from Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway (1925) and is part of the novel's stream-of-consciousness style, which explores the social world surrounding Clarissa Dalloway.

Narrator (free indirect discourse)

“Proportion, divine proportion, Sir William's goddess.”

This sharp phrase comes from Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and is spoken by the novel's third-person narrator, who channels the thoughts of Septimus Warren Smith during his meeting with psychiatrist Sir William Bradshaw.

Narrator (free indirect discourse, Septimus Warren Smith's perspective)

“Fear no more the heat o' the sun / Nor the furious winter's rages.”

This fragment from Shakespeare's Cymbeline (IV.ii) is quietly echoed — and deeply felt — by both Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Warren Smith at different points in Virginia Woolf's stream-of-consciousness novel Mrs Dalloway (1925).

Clarissa Dalloway / Septimus Warren Smith (interior monologue) · No chapter divisions; appears in the opening section and recurs across the narrative

“She had the oddest sense of being herself invisible; unseen; unknown; there being no more marrying, no more having of children now, but only this astonishing and rather solemn progress with the rest of them, up Bond Street.”

This passage is from Clarissa Dalloway, the novel's main character, as she strolls through London on the morning of her party.

Clarissa Dalloway (free indirect discourse) · Opening section (the novel is unpaginated by chapters)

“Did it matter then, she asked herself, walking towards Bond Street, did it matter that she must inevitably cease completely; all this must go on without her; did she resent it; or did it not become consoling to believe that death ended absolutely?”

This passage features Clarissa Dalloway, the main character of Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway (1925), as she strolls toward Bond Street on a pivotal day in the story.

Clarissa Dalloway (narrative free indirect discourse) · Part 1 (the novel is unpaginated by chapter; early morning section)

“She always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day.”

This line comes from Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway (1925) and is seen through Clarissa Dalloway as she reflects on her inner life and the uncertainty of existence.

Clarissa Dalloway (narrative free indirect discourse) · Opening section (the novel is unpaginated by chapters)

“She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged. She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on.”

This passage comes from Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway (1925) and uses free indirect discourse to convey Clarissa Dalloway's thoughts as she gets ready for her party on a June morning in post-WWI London.

Clarissa Dalloway (free indirect discourse) · Opening section (the novel is unpaginated by chapters)

“Somehow it was her disaster — her disgrace. It was her punishment to see sink and disappear here a man, there a woman, in this profound darkness.”

This passage comes from Clarissa Dalloway, the main character in the novel, as she privately reflects on the news of Septimus Warren Smith's suicide during her party near the end of the story.

Clarissa Dalloway (free indirect discourse / interior monologue) · Final section (the party)

“Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.”

This is the famous opening line of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway (1925), presented through a third-person narrator using free indirect discourse to reflect Clarissa Dalloway's thoughts.

Narrator (free indirect discourse / Clarissa Dalloway) · Opening line

“In people's eyes, in the swing, tramp, and trudge; in the bellow and the uproar; the carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans, sandwich men shuffling and swinging; brass bands; barrel organs; in the triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; London; this moment of June.”

This lyrical passage appears near the beginning of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and is narrated in close third-person, reflecting Clarissa Dalloway's thoughts as she steps out into Westminster on a June morning to buy flowers for her party.

Narrator (free indirect discourse / Clarissa Dalloway) · Opening section (the novel is unpaginated by chapters)

Big Ben and the Clocks

In Mrs Dalloway, Big Ben and the clocks of London represent the unyielding, impersonal flow of public time — the time dictated by society, duty, and mortality — contrasting with the fluid, personal experience of memory and consciousness.

Flowers

In Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway, flowers reflect the conflict between the beauty of life and its fleeting nature, as well as Clarissa Dalloway's vibrant spirit and social identity.

The Aeroplane

In Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway, the aeroplane skywriting over London captures the complex and contradictory nature of modernity and mass culture.

The Motorcar

In Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf uses the mysterious motorcar to symbolize the impersonal and oppressive nature of authority — the faceless power of the British Establishment.

The Old Woman in the Window

In Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, the old woman Clarissa sees through the window of her Bloomsbury house, representing the unavoidable solitude at the heart of every individual.

The Party

In Mrs Dalloway, Clarissa's party highlights the struggle between putting on a social façade and being true to oneself.

Free Verse

Woolf's sentences break away from the regular rhythm of conventional prose, expanding and contracting like a breath.

Imagery

Sensory imagery drives the novel's emotional core with a clarity that abstract statements simply can’t match.

Motif

Several recurring motifs weave the novel's single day into a cohesive reflection.

Symbolism

Objects and figures in the novel carry significant meaning that builds throughout the day.

Juxtaposition

Woolf shapes the entire novel around the contrast between Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Warren Smith — two characters who never cross paths yet whose thoughts and feelings echo and clash throughout the story.

Extended Metaphor

Clarissa's idea of the self — that she is 'part of people she had never met' and spread throughout the rooms and streets of London — serves as a central metaphor that shapes the entire structure of the novel.

Allusion

The novel's key structural reference is to Shakespeare's Cymbeline, particularly the dirge 'Fear no more the heat o' the sun.'

Pathetic Fallacy

The June weather in London isn’t just a neutral backdrop; it actively shapes the emotional landscape of the novel.

Irony

Woolf uses irony effectively in her portrayal of the medical establishment.

Elegy

Though set over a single day in London, Mrs. Dalloway is filled with a sense of loss—for youth, for those who died in the Great War, for paths not taken.

Conceit

Woolf develops a thoughtful idea around the notion that a party is a gift — particularly, that Clarissa's talent for bringing people together is her unique art, her contribution to life.