St. Margaret's

"Ah, said St. Margaret's, like a hostess who comes into her drawing-room on the very stroke of the hour and finds her guest there already. I am not late. No, it is precisely half- past eleven" (Woolf, 49).

St. Margaret's is a church found next to Westminster Abbey in London, England. Virginia Woolf uses this allusion to serve two purposes. She uses personification so that it is treated more like a character and less like an object. This helps to show that the characters are obsessed with time. Secondly, this novel takes place in one day of Clarissa's life, and the constant reminders of time helps readers to remember this and to start thinking about the importance it holds to the greater meaning of this book.

Links:

http://www.touruk.co.uk/london_churches/stmargaretswestminster_church1.htm

Big Ben

"The sound of Big Ben striking the half-hour struck out between them with extraordinary Vigour, as if a young man..." (Woolf, 48).

Big Ben is the clock tower in London, England. The reference to time pushes Clarissa and Peter apart. They have spent most of their lives apart, and although they once loved each other, they have both changed. Not only does this reference the separation of these two characters, but it also hints that time plays a very important part in this novel.

Links:

http://www.destination360.com/europe/uk/big-ben.php

Othello

"' if it were now to die 'twere now to be most happy.' That was her feeling- Othello's' feeling, and she felt it, she was convinced, as strongly as Shakespeare meant Othello to feel it, all because she was coming down to dinner in a white frock to meet Sally Seton" (Woolf, 35).

Othello was written by William Shakespeare in the early seventeenth century. It tells of Othello, who wooed himself a wife. He did this by telling her of his adventures in war. Clarissa felt as though she had to woo Sally, much as Othello did his wife. Not only does this help support Clarissa's love for women, but it also strengthens the bond between Clarissa and Septimus.

Links:

http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/othello/summary.html

Love

" But this question of love (she thought, putting her coat away), this falling in love with women. Take Seton; her relation in the old days with Sally Seton. had not that, after all, been love?" (Woolf, 32).

Some scholars who have explored the novel have decided that Clarissa is a Lesbian. She always struggled with her relationships with men, and found love in her old best friend. Although this may be pointing to her love for women, it may also just be that she was exceptionally close to Sally, and loves her as a dear friend, not a romantic lover.

"Memoirs"

" Narrower and narrower would her bed be. The candle was half burnt down and she had read deep in Baron Marbot's Memoirs" (Woolf, 31).

Baron Marbot's Memoirs tells of a soldier in the Napoleon war. Mrs. Dalloway was set in a time period directly following WW1. Clarissa read this book to not only explore her mortality, but to better connect her to Septimus Smith, the other character who tells this story. Septimus Smith is ill because of the war that he recently fought in, and by Clarissa studying war, the two characters are put at a parallel.

Links:
http://www.amazon.com/Memoirs-Baron-Marbot-Lieutenant-General-Napoleonic/dp/1853670146

Grasshoppper's

" but with a roughness in her voices like a grasshopper's, which rasped his spine deliciously and sent running up his brain waves of sound which, concussing, broke" (Woolf, 22).

Virginia Woolf not only uses similes to enrich her text, but also to help remind the reader of the setting. In the novel, the characters are at a park, but are watching an aeroplane advertisement. By using a simile like a grasshopper, she helps remind the reader that they are in nature. (Edit) Nature will endure all time, while these characters are only present for a millisecond of eternity.

Flowers

"There were flowers: delphiniums, sweet peas, bunches of lilac, and carnations, masses of carnations. There were roses; there were irises... but she looked older, this year, turning her head from side to side among the irises and roses and nodding tufts of lilac with her eyes half closed" (Woolf, 13)

In this novel, and in many other works, flowers have two significant pieces of symbolism. The first is that flowers symbolize women. This happens because the actual flower on the plant is the plants female reproductive organ. Flowers are an important element in this novel because women are obsessed with their beauty and youth.

The second important symbolism of flowers is that their beauty is quick to fade. It is only a short time in their lives that they are considered beautiful. In some sense, human life is the same, and our short time on earth fades quickly once we're gone. Clarissa has many flashbacks to her youth, and begins to understand that she has wasted her short life.