Abstract

Virginia Woolf entangles time and topography in Mrs. Dalloway to reveal that her characters inhabit a relative London. Marking the Great War as the historical event dividing an old world order from the new, she creates characters who spend the day reminiscing about their youth before the war or who still suffer the lingering effects of mechanized combat. While they navigate an increasingly complex and commercialized environment, she locates them at specific landmarks as Big Ben and St. Margaret’s chime the hour, creating a dynamic, interactive setting aligned with her characters’ thoughts. Woolf styles a narrative that unfolds from a diversity of viewpoints, contrasting a Victorian period that adhered to the ideas of the Enlightenment with a modern period in which individuals experience a relationship between space and time in accord with Albert Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity.

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