The Phenomenology Of Time And Space In Mrs. Dalloway

This thesis is a discussion on literary devices of time and space Virginia Woolf has presented in Mrs. Dalloway. As we all know that Virginia Woolf is preoccupied with the portrayal of the mental reality of the characters in relation to time and space. Mrs. Dalloway, published in 1925, represents the peak of Virginia Woolf's achievement as a novelist. In Mrs. Dalloway, she makes an experiment with a new novel form, the one-day narrative technique. The temporal framework is rather flexible owing to the frequent use of flashbacks and memories. In the novel, Woolf carries the stream-of-consciousness to its highest level of achievement. Her treatment of time and space contributes much to the success of the novel, and vindicated its possibilities as a technique for the artistic portrayal of life. In the absence of plot, these strategies are adopted to give flux of the novel and to give coherence and project the theme of time and life itself in the novel.My paper is divided into four parts. Chapter One deals with Virginia Woolf's treatment of time and space, one of her most admirable techniques; And then I adopt the meaning of Big Ben in the novel and set forth my opinion that the Big Ben not only marks the objective time but also becomes the Synchronous touch point of the character's consciousness. In the third part, the juxtaposition in space has gone into my writing and the paper enters into the pondering that to juxtapose the main paralleled character in the same space indicates that the author makes time special. The party, climax in this novel is my key point in my paper, and in the party, the death of Septimus evokes Clarissa to ponder the death and life. In the final part, I summarize the whole parts above and point out it is the time and space that links the paralleled characters in the novel and reveal the theme of time and life.