Using the physical environment as a canvas for expressing the internal state of Clarissa
Page 30 of Mrs. Dalloway is a perfect example of how Wolfe utilizes the physical environment to illustrate the internal state of her characters . There are two ways that I noticed her doing this. On top of page 30, the book reads: “[Clarissa] had shut the door and gone out and stood alone, a single figure against the appalling night , or rather, to be accurate, against the stare of this matter-of-fact June morning ; soft with the glow of rose petals for some, she knew,...feeling herself suddenly shrivelled , aged, breastless…”. Based on the stark difference between Clarissa feeling as if she's standing in an “appalling night” and what’s actually going on in the physical world (a “matter-of-fact June morning”), we learn that Clarissa’s sadness (for context, she just learned that she wasn’t invited to Lady Bruton’s lunch) is so great that it distorts the way she perceives the world around her. Therefore, the comparison between the outside world and what Clarissa actually experiences ...