2. Mrs. Dalloway: (pg 4)

2. Mrs. Dalloway: (pg 4) “There! Out it boomed. First a warning…The leaden circles dissolved in the air.”:
Woolf draws attention to time using noisy imagery and dramatic details of Big Ben marking time. Big Ben issues a warning; time moves forward and what is in the past cannot be changed. Time becomes an important detail in the book as the events unfold in a one day period; the characters reflect about time in the past, moments in the present, and what the future will bring. The impact of time on the characters was an important part of the development of Mrs. Dalloway for Woolf. She wrote in her diary about a book she was developing called The Hours which had a character named Septimus Warren.

Hussey, Mark. Preface. Virginia Woolf. Mrs. Dalloway. By Virginia Woolf. 2005 by Harcourt Incorporated. 27 September 2009.