Mrs Dalloway Key Quotes

significance of clarissa’s decisions as a woman - relating to the motif of water (proleptic irony) - first words of the book

“what a lark! what a plunge!”

description of the battered woman’s song

“the old bubbling, burbling song, soaking through the knotted roots of infinite ages”

clarissa choosing independence - first paragraph of the novel

“mrs dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself”

motif of leaves as a metaphor for soldiers

“leaves were alive; trees were alive”

impressionist view on the sound of big ben

“the leaden circles dissolved in the air”

big ben personified as masculine

“the last tremors of the booming voice shook the air around him”

bergsonian/impressionist view of time + septimus being made out to be a romantic or a poet

“time flaps on the mast” / ”the word ‘time’ split its husk; poured its riches over him”

satirises the blind/dwindling nationalism in british society

“thrill and nerves in their thighs at the thought of royalty looking at them” / ”whether for the queen, prince, or prime minister, nobody knew”

the battered woman is the voice of…

“the voice of no age or sex”

peter’s recognition of social change in society - decline in empire, men, war done in vain etc.

“there was design, art, everywhere; a change of some sort had undoubtedly taken place”

at clarissa’s party we observe dwindling nationalistic pride through the presence of the prime minister

“he [prime minister] tried to look somebody […] nobody looked at him”

refrain from shakespeare’s ‘cymbeline’

“fear no more the heat o’ the sun,

nor the furious winter’s rages”

feeling of fear/experiencing a social death having hit menopause

“being herself invisible…”

“being herself invisible, unseen, unknown; there being no more marrying, no more having of children”

feeling like a lesser woman because of the menopause

“she could see what she lacked. it was not beauty; it was not mind. it was something central…”

change that sally had undergone after all those years according to peter when he saw her at the party

“a change had come over her! the softness of motherhood”

how rezia feels when talking to septimus

“to talk to a dead man”

how clarissa thinks (sympathetically) septimus viewed death - what drove him to kill himself

“death was defiance. death was an attempt to communicate […] there was an embrace in death”

fear/PTSD collectively as a society from the war

“oh! a pistol shot",” / “a violent explosion”

dr holmes downplaying septimus’ condition + refrain that septimus repeats

“who had nothing whatever seriously the matter with him but was a little out of sorts” / “for one must be scientific, above all scientific”

septimus’ allude to leaf metaphor about soldiers + feeling religiously disapproving of the war

“men must not cut down trees. there is a god”

septimus’s description of himself like a christ-figure/messiah for his country (war)

“the scapegoat […] the eternal sufferer” / “iron-black figure”

rezia viewing septimus like a cancer in her life

“to be rocked by this malignant torturer was her lot”

gory/biblical imagery of septimus' being martyred - an all-feeling being

“his body was macerated until only the nerve fibres were left”

war dehumanising and reducing autonomy from men due to the sheer number of war victims

“london has swallowed up millions of young men called smith”

demonises bradshaw as we find out his ignorance of septimus’ condition has been deliberate

“they were talking about this [parliamentary] bill […] about the deferred effects of shell-shock”

clarissa and septimus as foils of one another - shared emotions about dr. bradshaw without ever having had a conversation together about him

“a great doctor, yet to her obscurely evil" […] capable of some indescribable outrage” / “life made intolerable; they make life intolerable, men like that”

phallic imagery - peter asserting dominance/affirming his own masculinity using the pocketknife

“running his finger along the blade of the pocketknife” / “straightening himself and stealthily fingering his pocketknife”

shared emotions + septimus’ condition being visible to others

“a look of apprehension which makes complete strangers apprehensive too”

woolf’s own sociological philosophy whom she makes septimus a vessel for - using this refrain

“people must notice; people must see”

satirical change in focus from car to plane - shared emotions

“the sound of an aeroplane bored ominously into the ears of the crowd […] everyone looked up”

all of clarissa’s worlds colliding at once at the party

“with sally’s hand in hers, the blowing curtains, and the roses which richard had given her”

clarissa epitomises an empath + extreme confirmation of septimus and clarissa as foils

“when she was told [of septimus’ death] […] her dress flamed; her body burnt”

testament to peter’s true love of clarissa

“‘he [richard] will marry her’ he [peter] said dully, without any resentment”

feelings accumulating with age

“now that one was mature […] one did not lose the power of feeling. […] she felt more deeply, more passionately every year”

richard showing tenderness towards his daughter for the first time in the book

“richard was proud of his daughter. and he had not meant to tell her, but he could not help telling her”

peter will never fall out of love with clarissa - a beauty and a curse (last lines of the book)

“what is it that fills me with this extraordinary excitement?

it is clarissa, [peter] said.

for there she was”

soft rejection of religion

“nothing exists outside us except a state of mind; a desire for solace, for relief”