Mrs. Dalloway By Virginia Woolf Study Help Essay Questions

1. What is an interior monologue? Describe, using a specific character in Mrs. Dalloway and show how the monologue functions as a narrative and expository device.

2. While Virginia Woolf was writing this novel, she referred to it as The Hours. She changed the title, but what evidence is there of her concern with time?

3. The charge has been frequently made that "nothing happens" in Virginia Woolf's novels. How would you answer this?

4. What facets of the English social system does Virginia Woolf criticize?

5. Why does Peter Walsh object to Hugh Whitbread?

6. Describe Miss Kilman in terms of her religious feelings.

7. How, and through what characters, does Virginia Woolf weave the theme of possessiveness and possessive love?

8. In what way are Peter Walsh and Sally Seton similar? Peter and Clarissa?

9. Describe instances in which a "sane" character thinks or utters a phrase that is amplified in Septimus Smith's madness.

10. From the brief scene Virginia Woolf presents, describe Clarissa and Richard's marriage.

11. What are Clarissa Dalloway's values?

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