Mrs Dalloway Quotes

"The leaden circles dissolved in the air"

• The sound enters as a concrete measure in Clarissa's mind 
• Time is open and free 
• Big Bens marking of time is a way for Clarissa to order her own perceptions and her own phychological reality
• "Dissolved" - the hr cannot be taken back or relived except in memory

"The perfect hostess"

• Insult that suggests a lack of depth and a contentment with superficial things in life
• ironically Clarissa remembers this before preparing to be a hostess for her party

"She always had the feeling that it was very dangerous that it was very dangerous to live even one day"

• Death is ever present in Clarissa's mind

"But it was plain enough, this beauty, this exquisite beauty... Tears ran down his cheeks. It was toffee; they were advertising toffee"

• It is a profit-driven stunt, part of a modern world where material progress and wealth are pursued
• Juxtapostion of the advertisment for toffee and Septimus's silent meditation is not just ironic, but also a sign of the tragic difficulty of real, profound communication that also, at least in this novel, is part of human life

"and the feeling as she crossed the hall 'if it were now to die twere now to be most happy'. That was the feeling - Othello's feeling"

• The citation from Othello underlines just how vividly Clarissa perceived everything around her that summer
• When she felt a kind of communion that she's struggled to find since then
• Also the citation reflects how closely joy and death are connected, for her, in that death seems to lie just on the other side of acute joy

"Then came the most exquisite momet of her whole life... kissed her on the lips. The whole world might have turned upside down! The others disappeared; there she was alone with Sally"

• "Alone" - Paradoxically, solitude and the disappearance of the others only enabled greater connection
• a moment can fil up more space than many empty hours
• Time passes, it is cyclical as it depends on an individuals perception rather than a clock

"It was like running one's face against a granite wall in the darkness"

• She feels trapped
• Peter is something that entraps her/ stops her

"Oh this horror" 

• Allusion to Kertz, Heart of darkness - "The horror. The horror" - the end of his life, reflecting back on evil he has done.

"It was awful, he cried, awful, awful! Still the sun was hot. Still one got over things. Still his life had a way of adding day to day"

• Peter had a painful perception of the past
• he believes adding new experiences and memories eases the pain
• Present perception and the reality of the past do not cancel out but coexist

"her emotions were all on the surface... But it was Clarissa one remembered. Not that she was striking; not beautiful at all; there was nothing picturesque about her... however there she was"

• Thoughts are always on Clarissa
• allure in her presence 
• nothing exceptional, but "there she was" end of the novel as well - Peter remarks upon the mystery of human relationships outside mere communication, in which co-presence either makes up for or takes place of communicated truth

"but she needed people, always people, to bring it out"

• This is Peter suggesting Clarissa is superficial - however with other people there is sometimes her true self i.e. true communication

"He went to France to save an England which consisted almost entirely of Shakespeare's plays and Miss Isabel Pole in a green dress"

• Idealistic - little idea of what he was fighting for 
  
• Also highlights that a whole country went to war for various reasons - not one reason

"So your in a funk"

• Unaware of how serious PTSD is
  
• The Great War was a violent tear in history that has changed the very ways of experiencing the world, even while many people continued to refuse to understand

"Shredding and slicing, dividing and subdividing, the clocks of Harley Street nibbled at the June day"

• Divide the day equally in a standardised way - however it means different things to everyone
  
• Time is affected by individual consciousness - Rezia feels suffocated

"There is a dignity in people; a solitude; even between huband and wife a gulf; and that one must respect"

• Richard is unable to say "i love you" but still feels Clarissa understood
• She doesnt, she wonders if this lack of communication is positive

"How unbelievable death was! That it must end; and no-one in the whole world would know how she had loved it all..."

• Takes joy in small daily realities of her life
• Understands the finality of death

"But he would wait till the very last moment. He did not want to die. Life was good. The sun was hot... 'I'll give it to you' he cried."

• Septimus does it on his own terms - his mind is scattered and lucid at the same time
• Call back to the Cymbeline  - metaphysical connection with Clarissa
• He has leapt out his prison

"She was at her worst - effusive, insincere. It was a great mistake to have come here."

• Peter sees this as superficial hypocrisy, even as he's attracted to these very abilities
• Realises how difficult it would be to break through Clarissa's insincerity and truly communicate with her

"Nobody looked at him... this majesty passing; this symbol of what they stood for, English society."

• PM walks in - a small, plump unassuming-looking man
• Unworthy - represents a bygone age as Lab were on the rise as the Cons were falling 

"Lord, lord, the snobbery of the English... How they loved dressing up in gold lace and doing homage"

• Peter's isolation - allows him to see all the hypocrisy in the way everyone acts around the PM - They are all trying to be casual but they are actuallly over-excited by their mere proximity to this important figure

"Death was defiance. Death was an attempt to communicate... There was an embrace in death"

• Connects with Septimus - compares her own life - frivolous, superficial compared with the profound and meaningful act of communication that Septimus embraced
• Septimus has communicated but cannot receive

"But that young man had killed himself. Somehow it was her disaster - her disgrace"

• After thinking it was a moment of powerful communication, she sees it as a tragedy - and one that she herself is responsible for

"... and the words came to her, Fear no more the heat of the sun... she felt somehow very like him - the young man who had killed himself"

• Cymbeline - a common connection between Septiums and Clarissa
• Through his death, it has created a kind of communion with Clarissa

"Oh! Thought Clarissa, in the middle of my party, here's death, she thought" - Section 9.

• Not entirely surprised as death is always on her mind
• Clarissa notices and remarks on the strangeness of trying to live everyday life with the looming reality of death, and without an overarching meaning.
• Virginia Woolf had originally wrote for Clarissa to die at the end of the novel

"What is this terror? What is this ecstacy? What is it that fills me with extraordinary excitement? It is Clarissa he said. For there she was." - Section 10.

• Peter has a renewed commitment to being honest whilst at the party - trying to communicate
• Determines his feelings for Clarissa
• Woolf leaves the resolution off stage - we never see true communication between Peter, Clarissa and Sally

"Here he was walking across London to say to Clarissa in so many words that he loved her" - Section 7.

• Still can't say those words when he sees her