Single Day and Interior Consciousness

Mrs. Dalloway by Woolf, Virginia

Discussion Participants:

Clarissa Dalloway, Peter Walsh, Richard Dalloway, Professor Pennypacker, Dr. Eleanor Wright

Penn6

Considering Woolf's use of interior monologue to depict the events of a single day, how does this narrative technique shape our understanding of the characters' present realities versus their enduring pasts, and what effect does this have on your own perception of time within the novel?

Peter Walsh

Well, I must concur that the way Virginia handles time is...unsettling, to say the least. It's not a straight march forward, is it? More like being caught in a revolving door, constantly flung back to moments you thought were long gone, especially those damned afternoons at Bourton. It makes one question whether we ever truly escape the clutches of our former selves, eh?

Clarissa Dalloway

Oh, the past is ever so present, isn't it? It swirls around us like the scent of flowers on a summer day. Virginia's method allows the past to bleed into the present, coloring our understanding of who we are, who we once were, and who we might have been. Time becomes less linear, more like a pool where memories surface and ripple.

Richard Dalloway

Indeed, as Peter noted, the past does have a habit of intruding. It's not a straightforward march, as he says, but more a series of echoes that resonate within the present, shaping our decisions even now.

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