Eng426 20th century english literature

Poetic language: There is the use of appendage sentences, short, crisp and rhythmic language which can be seen on almost all the pages of Mrs. Dalloway. Woolf tampers with the traditional sentence structure and uses commas, exclamation marks, parenthesis, inverted commas, hyphens, semicolons, and other punctuation marks in abundance throughout the novel. The language of the novel is also poetic and full of symbolisms. For instance in narrating Septimus’ perception of the world, the repetition of ‘human nature’ as being open to him, condemning him to death, shows Septimus as acknowledging his mental process in his encounter with his doctors. The repetition of Clarissa’s and Septimus’ ‘feeling nothing’ and Clarissa’s repeated thought that she ‘had failed him’ shows how disconnected they are with the people around them.
Autobiographical narrative: As an extension of the position of modernists that it is important to write fiction that is more true to daily life, primary feelings, desires and experiences, and also because no knowledge or information can be accepted at face value, modernists borrow largely from their own lives and the experiences that they have undergone. Woolf herself was sick for a period of time though longer than that of Clarissa. She had attempted suicide before writing Mrs Dalloway and though she did not fight in the War like Septimus, she had relatives who died during the War. Virginia Woolf also had her own Sally Seton: “the writing of Mrs. Dalloway coincided with the erotically charged build-up to Woolf’s affair with Vita Sackville-West, and the relationship between Clarissa and Sally reflects the growing excitement Virginia felt in Vita’s company” (Mrs. Dalloway: Introduction).
Open ended: nothing is settled, nothing is final. Leaving stories open-ended is seen to be more representative of “reality” as opposed to "closed" endings, in which matters are resolved. Mrs. Dalloway does not end like the traditional novels where a conflict is resolved or a reader can convincingly say that the novel ends on a clear note. Mrs. Dalloway ends with Peter Walsh’s thought of where Clarissa is. This leaves the reader wondering what will happen to Clarissa at the end of the party and if she will also commit suicide or not.
Symbolism: Modernist writers infused objects, people, places and events with significant meanings. One important symbol in the novel is Big Ben. Although the novel does not have chapters, the narrative is divided into units as Big Ben strikes the hours. Clock time divides the narrative. Big Ben plays a significant role throughout the novel and the ways it affects Londoners.
The aeroplane’s sky writing and different characters’ attempts to decipher the letters in their own individual ways are also symbolic of the fact that there is no absolute knowledge and that truth is subjective and not objective. The fact that the story spans a single day emphasises the importance of every single moment; so much can happen in a single moment that will change all that has happened over the years.

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