Mrs. Dalloway Study Questions
Discussion questions:
1. In the novel “Mrs. Dalloway” both Clarissa and Septimus repeat a line from Shakespeare, what is the line and what is its importance to the characters?
2. In “Mrs. Dalloway” Septimus is created as Clarissa’s double, why do you think Woolf did this?
3. How are Clarissa and Septimus alike and how are they different?
4. Woolf uses Clarissa to convey her idea of social class and women’s wole within it; how does she achieve this?
5. WWI is a major part throughout the story. What ways did Woolf show this?
6. At the end of the novel Clarissa is informed of Septimus’ death. How does she feel about this and why is it important?
7. Who are Sally Seton and Peter Walsh and how does their appearance in the novel help with the plot?
8. Woolf uses a lot of flash backs to move the plot along. Do these flash backs help or hurt the novel?
9. From Woolf’s use of flash backs can you infer what the characters were like before?
10. What was the point of view in the novel? Why do you think Woolf chose this?
Excerpt: (pg. 11-14)
She would not say of any one in the world now that they were this or were that. 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. She had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day. Not that she thought herself clever, or much out of the ordinary. How she had got through life on the few twigs of knowledge Fräulein Daniels gave them she could not think. She knew nothing; no language, no history; she scarcely read a book now, except memoirs in bed; and yet to her it was absolutely absorbing; all this; the cabs passing; and she would not say of Peter, she would not say of herself, I am this, I am that.
Her only gift was knowing people almost by instinct, she thought, walking on. If you put her in a room
1. In the novel “Mrs. Dalloway” both Clarissa and Septimus repeat a line from Shakespeare, what is the line and what is its importance to the characters?
2. In “Mrs. Dalloway” Septimus is created as Clarissa’s double, why do you think Woolf did this?
3. How are Clarissa and Septimus alike and how are they different?
4. Woolf uses Clarissa to convey her idea of social class and women’s wole within it; how does she achieve this?
5. WWI is a major part throughout the story. What ways did Woolf show this?
6. At the end of the novel Clarissa is informed of Septimus’ death. How does she feel about this and why is it important?
7. Who are Sally Seton and Peter Walsh and how does their appearance in the novel help with the plot?
8. Woolf uses a lot of flash backs to move the plot along. Do these flash backs help or hurt the novel?
9. From Woolf’s use of flash backs can you infer what the characters were like before?
10. What was the point of view in the novel? Why do you think Woolf chose this?
Excerpt: (pg. 11-14)
She would not say of any one in the world now that they were this or were that. 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. She had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day. Not that she thought herself clever, or much out of the ordinary. How she had got through life on the few twigs of knowledge Fräulein Daniels gave them she could not think. She knew nothing; no language, no history; she scarcely read a book now, except memoirs in bed; and yet to her it was absolutely absorbing; all this; the cabs passing; and she would not say of Peter, she would not say of herself, I am this, I am that.
Her only gift was knowing people almost by instinct, she thought, walking on. If you put her in a room