Mrs Dalloway Time Quotes Page 1
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| Quote #1 What a lark! What a plunge! For so it had always seemed to her, when, with a little squeak of the hinges, which she could hear now, she had burst open the French windows and plunged at Bourton into the open air. (1.2) |
In this moment, the mere sound of a squeaky hinge transports Clarissa back in time. It makes her recall her youth at Bourton, her family’s country home.
| Quote #2 For having lived in Westminster – how many years now? over twenty, – one feels even in the midst of the traffic, or waking at night, Clarissa was positive, a particular hush, or solemnity; an indescribable pause; a suspense (but that might be her heart, affected, they said, by influenza) before Big Ben strikes. There! Out it boomed. First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable. The leaden circles dissolved in the air. (1.5) |
Part of Clarissa’s everyday life is the sound of Big Ben. She has come to anticipate (and be comforted while also disturbed by) the chiming of the bells.
| Quote #3 This late age of the world's experience had bred in them all, all men and women, a well of tears. (1.16) |
Life is different than it was just a decade earlier. Everyone has been impacted by the trauma of the war.
