The Use of Time and Big Ben in Mrs. Dalloway
Image of the Big Ben clock tower found here. (https://youtu.be/TVLYtiunWJA?si=Ga23qLzvGvIYx6cb) Throughout Mrs. Dalloway Big Ben chimes seventeen times (at least according to my count), and yet we have not had a chance to talk about it in class. I think Virginia Woolf’s choice to explicitly point out the time every so many pages, is interesting as the book feels nonlinear and somewhat timeless in its narration. The structure of the book itself plays into this feeling of timelessness as there are no chapter breaks, and it often leaps into different characters' consciousness who all experience time differently as they reminisce over the past, sit in the present, or dream of the future. I think we especially see this difference in passage of time when comparing Clarissa and Septimus. For example, in the first section, Clarissa reflects on the time she has spent in Westminster: “For having lived in Westminster – how many years now? over twenty, – one feels even in the midst of the t...