The Modern Narrative features and the Connection Modes of Mrs Dalloway

霍铃玲

【Abstract】Mrs Dalloway， a stream of consciousness novel， which was written by Virginia Woolf in 1925 was one of her representative works. It described one day of Mrs Dalloway， the wife of a conservative MP. She prepared a grand party. In the process of her buying flowers， meeting again with her former boyfriend Peter and some of her old friends， she recalled her past continually. The plot of this novel was not very complicated， but its narrative techniques were quite different from the traditional novels. Woolf created this novel with the focalization of non-focalization and internal focalization. Moreover， she reached her goal of hiding the narrator by using the free indirect speech.

【Key words】Mrs Dalloway; Modern Narrative Features; Plots Setting

1. The main idea and the background of Mrs Dalloway

On a June morning in the early 20th century， Clarissa Dalloway， the glittering wife of a Member of Parliament， was preparing for a grand party that evening. As she walked through London， buying flowers， observing life， her thoughts were in the past， and she remembered the time when she was as young as her own daughter Elizabeth; her romance with Peter Walsh， now recently returned from India; and the friends of her youth. Under such background， Woolf made a big change boldly. In the traditional novels， they were mainly about materialism and Woolf used spiritualism instead. Not only that， the leading characters were changed also. As usual， the authors preferred to describe the people with higher class. However， some isolating common individuals took place of them in Mrs Dalloway. Woolf chose two lines， the wife of Member of Parliament Clarissa， a veteran of the World War I Septimus.

2. The point of view in Mrs Dalloway

A French structuralism narratologist Genette proposed a theory about focalization narration. He claims that there are three types of angle of vision： non-focalization， internal focalization and external focalization. Before 20th century， the non-focalization appeared and then in the very early of 20th century the internal focalization was come forward.

The internal focalization is that the leading characters are narrating， including the psychology of them. It always begins with the words which are used to describe mental activities and is followed by their own words. Woolf opened the characters consciousness at some crucial moments through the stimulation from some external things. Take the bell of the Big Ben for example， every time the Big Ben rang， Mrs Dalloway would recall her past or Septimus Smith would remember the pain of the World War. It was not only a symbol of London， but also a representative of British capitalist society. Weather you hate it or not， it could not be ignored. And for different characters，it had different meanings. Thus， the Big Ben became a medium for the author to transfer ones consciousness to another. Naturally， the mental activities and some words of the characters themselves can be seen without the narrator.

3. The free indirect speech used in Mrs Dalloway

Female discourse and free indirect speech are the outstanding style and rhetoric device favored by feminist writers， which also form the important methods of interpreting the internal world. By using the third-person point of view and free indirect discourse， the characters conscious activities and ever-changing inner world are explored to show the true human nature. We can see in this novel， there were few words like “she said”， “she thought” etc. When the plane with the slogan appeared above London， about ten different people came out at the same time， and their different inner reactions shown to us without direct speech.

4. emotional pattern of narration put to use in Mrs Dalloway

Xu Dai thought that all the system which have a certain structure will guide to some functions. Thus he ranked functional patterns as one of the basic patterns in narration. The emotional pattern emphasizes the artistic conception and atmosphere. The plot and the characters would be retained but they would be retreated to the back line. The description of the characters does not aim to build their personalities or stress the plot， it is designed to express some life experience. In a word， the emotional patterns is a narrative pattern with pioneer spirit， if the novelists can not deal with it well， the story will become very bland.

5. Conclusion

Mrs Dalloway is the classical work of Woolf in which she used modern narrative features and modes of connections. She is good at using multi-focus to create stream of consciousness novel. Moreover， by using the two modes of connection， she made the fractional information related to each other naturally.

References：

[1]伍建华.《达洛卫夫人》现代叙事艺术特征之阐释.

[2]廖宇蓉，廖婷.现代小说叙事模式探索.

[3]赵秀丽.评《达洛卫夫人》的叙事连接艺术.