Dalloway follows not only the eponymous middle-aged socialite as she prepares to host a party but also a young veteran named Septimus, who grapples with severe post-traumatic stress disorder.
Set on a single day in post-World War I London, Mrs. Dalloway follows not only the eponymous middle-aged socialite as she prepares to host a party but also a young veteran named Septimus, who grapples with severe post-traumatic stress disorder. Both characters are trapped in the past, with Mrs. Dalloway reminiscing on her past lovers and life choices, and Septimus hallucinating his friend Evan, who died in the war. The novel was revolutionary for Woolf’s use of stream-of-consciousness storytelling; although the story is told in the third person, we can see into the inner thoughts of each character.