Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf is a novel concerned with time. Time is used as a marker throughout the story as Big Ben chimes the hour. It is also bent and contorted to the novels will, as characters are consumed by memories of the past. Big Ben is particularly used to great symbolic importance. Returning home Mrs. Dalloway observes her neighbor out the window and remarks, “Big Ben struck the half-hour. How extraordinary it was, strange, yes, touching, to see the old lady…move away from the window, as if she were attached to that sound, that string…Down, down, into the midst of ordinary things the finger fell making the moment solemn” (127). Continue reading “Big Ben Chimes the Hour: Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia​ Woolf” →