Keyword Guide · book-summary
This Mrs Dalloway summary explains the novel’s plot, ideas, and structure in a clear, student-friendly way. It’s designed to help you prepare for class discussions, quizzes, and literary analysis essays.
Mrs Dalloway is a modernist novel by Virginia Woolf set over a single day in post–World War I London. The story follows Clarissa Dalloway as she prepares for an evening party. Instead of a traditional plot, the novel focuses on thoughts, memories, and shifting perspectives.
As Clarissa moves through the city, her present experiences trigger memories of her youth, friendships, and past choices. At the same time, the novel follows Septimus Warren Smith, a war veteran struggling with psychological trauma. Their separate stories run in parallel and connect indirectly by the end of the day.
Clarissa Dalloway is reflective, socially skilled, and concerned with how life is shaped by time and choice. Septimus Warren Smith represents the lasting impact of war and society’s failure to understand mental illness. Other characters, including Clarissa’s husband Richard and old friend Peter Walsh, highlight different views on love, duty, and freedom.
Important themes include time, memory, social class, mental health, and the search for meaning. Woolf uses a stream-of-consciousness style, moving fluidly between characters’ thoughts. For essays, focus on how inner life matters as much as external events.
The novel explores how individuals experience time, memory, and identity through their inner thoughts during one ordinary day.
Septimus shows the psychological cost of war and contrasts with Clarissa, deepening the novel’s themes about life and death.
The style can be challenging at first, but focusing on characters’ thoughts rather than the plot makes it easier to understand.
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