Mrs Dalloway: Character Mind Map & Summary
Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway: every important character, Clarissa and her double Septimus, Big Ben and time, famous lines, a quick summary and the exam facts.
The Character Mind Map
Tap any name to open the details.
Clarissa Dalloway
A society hostess in her fifties, wife of the Conservative MP Richard Dalloway. She spends one June day in London preparing for her evening party, buying flowers and remembering her youth at Bourton, when she turned down Peter Walsh and loved Sally Seton. Recovering from illness, she thinks about age and death. At her party she hears of a young man’s suicide and feels strangely close to him.
Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.Ending: “For there she was.”
🌹 Clarissa’s Past
Bourton memoriesPeter WalshHer old suitor, back from India
Role: Clarissa refused to marry him thirty years ago. Emotional and critical, he still loves her and calls on her the morning of the party. He always plays with his pocket-knife.
It is Clarissa, he said. For there she was.
Sally SetonClarissa’s wild girlhood friend
Role: Daring and free at Bourton. Her kiss was “the most exquisite moment” of Clarissa’s life. Now Lady Rosseter, with five sons, she comes uninvited to the party.
🏛️ Clarissa’s Family
Westminster lifeRichard DallowayHer husband, a Conservative MP
Role: Kind and steady; he buys her roses and wants to say “I love you”, but cannot. He gives her the independence she values.
Elizabeth DallowayTheir 17-year-old daughter
Role: Quiet and beautiful; she escapes on a bus up the Strand, thinking of a career.
Doris KilmanElizabeth’s history tutor
Role: Poor, bitter and religious. She and Clarissa hate each other.
Hugh WhitbreadAn old friend, a courtier
Role: Polished and empty; Peter and Sally despise him.
🕊️ The Double
War & madnessSeptimus Warren SmithA shell-shocked war veteran
Role: A clerk and lover of Shakespeare who volunteered for the war. Since it ended he cannot feel; he hears birds sing in Greek and sees his dead friend. To escape his doctors he jumps from a window.
I’ll give it you!
Lucrezia (Rezia)Septimus’s young Italian wife
Role: A hat-maker, lonely in London; she loves him and tries to help him.
EvansSeptimus’s officer, killed in war
Role: Killed just before the Armistice; Septimus felt nothing at the time, and now sees him.
⚕️ The Doctors
Power over the mindSir William BradshawA famous nerve specialist
Role: Worships “Proportion” and her sister “Conversion“; he plans to send Septimus to a home. At the party his wife mentions the suicide.
Dr HolmesThe family doctor
Role: Says nothing is wrong. His arrival makes Septimus jump.
Memory Hook: Clarissa & Septimus
Woolf said Septimus was meant to be Clarissa’s double. They never meet.
Famous Lines
Often quoted in exams.
Quick Summary
The plot in five lines.
Stage 1Morning
- Clarissa walks through London to buy flowers.
- A car with a royal personage and an aeroplane writing in the sky are seen by everyone, including Septimus and Rezia.
Stage 2Peter’s Visit
- Peter Walsh calls unexpectedly; old feelings rise. He walks to Regent’s Park and remembers Bourton.
Stage 3Septimus
- At noon Sir William Bradshaw orders Septimus to a rest home.
- Richard lunches with Lady Bruton and buys Clarissa roses; Elizabeth goes out with Miss Kilman.
Stage 4The Death
- In the evening, when Dr Holmes arrives, Septimus throws himself from the window onto the railings.
Stage 5The Party
- Clarissa’s party; Sally reappears.
- Lady Bradshaw mentions the suicide; Clarissa withdraws, thinks of the young man, and returns to her guests.
Must-Know Exam Facts
Quick points for UGC NET, SET and PGT.
Publication
Published in 1925 by the Hogarth Press. Working title: “The Hours“.
Technique
Stream of consciousness and free indirect discourse. Woolf’s “tunnelling” method: digging “beautiful caves” behind her characters, which connect in the present.
Time
One day in June 1923. Big Ben marks clock time while memory moves freely: time on the clock versus time in the mind.
Origins
Grew from Woolf’s short story “Mrs Dalloway in Bond Street”. The Dalloways first appear in The Voyage Out.
Later Works
Michael Cunningham’s novel The Hours (1998, Pulitzer Prize) retells it; film 2002.
Key Themes
Time and memory, death and life, post-war trauma, social class and the treatment of mental illness.
100+ Key Works of English Literature
All the character mind maps in one printed book.
© Limitless Literature · www.limitlessliterature.com
