Mrs. Dalloway is a novel written by Virginia Woolf. Released in 1925, it tells of a single day in the life of its titular protagonist.
Characters[]
- Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway - the titular Mrs. Dalloway, a somewhat old socialite who is working on a party and is a closeted lesbian. Based on Kitty Lushington.
- Septimus Warren Smith - a shellshocked World War I veteran
- Sally Sutton - a former lover of Clarissa's
- Elizabeth Dalloway - Clarissa's daughter
- Richard Dalloway - Clarissa's husband
- Peter Walsh - one of Clarissa's old friends
- Hugh Whitbread - one of Clarissa's friends
- Lucrezia "Rezia" Warren Smith - Septimus' wife
- Miss Doris Kilman - Elizabeth's schoolmistress
- Sir William Bradshaw - Septimus' physician
rest to be added
Publisher's summary[]
"Moments like this are buds on the tree of life. Flowers of darkness they are."
In this vivid portrait of a single day in a woman's life, Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway is preoccupied with the last-minute details of preparation for a party while in her mind she is something much more than a perfect society hostess. As she readies her house for friends and neighbors, she is flooded with remembrances of the past - the passionate loves of her carefree youth, her practical choice of husband, and the approach and retreat of war. And, met with the realities of the present, Clarissa reexamines the choices that brought her there, hesitantly looking ahead to the unfamiliar work of growing old.
From the introspective Clarissa, to the lover who never fully recovered from her rejection, to a war-ravaged stranger in the park, the characters and scope of Mrs. Dalloway reshape our sense of ordinary life, making it one of the most "moving, revolutionary artworks of the twentieth century" (Michael Cunningham).
See also[]
| Title | Author | Release date | Significance |
|---|---|---|---|
| To the Lighthouse | Virginia Woolf | 1927 | A novel by the same author with similar themes |
| Ulysses | James Joyce | 1922 | A modernist novel which recounts a singular day |
| The Crying of Lot 49 | Thomas Pynchon | 1966 | A novel with a similar protagonist |
Sources[]
- Wikipedia
- Goodreads