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Work #281 · Mid (the first major modernist novel of Woolf's maturity)

Mrs Dalloway

Virginia Woolf
1925 · English
Modernist novel · British modernism / stream-of-consciousness fiction

A single day in post-war London — Woolf's 1925 modernist masterpiece, the stream of consciousness shaping the form

Attribute Fingerprint

Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.

Attribute Mrs Dalloway (Mid (the first major modernist novel of Woolf's maturity))
Time · Extent Infinite
Time · Ontological Status Relational
Time · Grain Continuous
Time · Freedom Non-Deterministic
Time · Traversability Linear
Time · Dimensionality One
Time · Direction Uni-directional
Space · Extent Infinite
Space · Ontological Status Substantival
Space · Curvature Flat
Space · Dimensionality Three
Space · Locality Local
Matter · Extent Infinite
Matter · Ontological Status Substantival
Matter · Conservation Conserved
Matter · Dimensionality Three
Matter · Locality Local
Observer · Time Instance Multiple
Observer · Space Instance Multiple
Observer · Knowledge Extent Partial
Observer · Knowledge Retainment Total
Observer · Physicality Embodied
Observer · Agency Both
Observer · Number Plural
Observer · Metaphysical Agency None
Observer · Moral Authority Experience
Observer · Theological Method
Energy · Extent Infinite
Energy · Ontological Status Substantival
Energy · Conservation Conserved
Energy · Dispersibility Irreversible
Information · Ontological Status Substantival
Information · Cosmic Conservation Conserved
Information · Personal Conservation Conserved
Information · Granularity Continuous

Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence

What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.

Time

Mrs Dalloway

The compressed time of a single day, structured by the striking of Big Ben.

Space

Mrs Dalloway

The geographic space of post-war London, particularly Westminster and Regent's Park.

Matter

Mrs Dalloway

The embodied lives of the multiple characters; the physical city of London.

Observer

Mrs Dalloway

The multiple stream-of-consciousness observers — Clarissa, Septimus, Peter, others. No metaphysical framework imposed.

Energy

Mrs Dalloway

The psychological energies of memory, anticipation, social performance, hidden despair.

Information

Mrs Dalloway

The richly textured consciousness of each character preserved through the stream-of-consciousness narrative.

Internal Tensions

Where each work's argument pulls against itself.

Mrs Dalloway

Mrs Dalloway's reception has been continuously expanding — as a modernist masterpiece, as a feminist text, as a meditation on shell shock and post-war recovery, as a study in sexuality (the novel's treatment of Clarissa's relation to Sally Seton). The Septimus-Clarissa structural pairing has been continuously analysed. Woolf's 1941 suicide inflects subsequent readings of Septimus's suicide.