Mrs Dalloway is a novel that features two main characters and two different worldviews. On the one hand, there is Clarissa Dalloway, who being labelled as Mrs, symbolises her marital and social confinement. On the other, the readers meet Septimus Warren Smith, who is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. The lack of conventionally linear narrative and the stream of consciousness embedded in the text represents the author's take on the complexities of human existence and the ambiguity of reality. While Septimus appears mad as the war memories are haunting him, Clarissa is assumingly sane, with her existential troubles being centred around the midlife crisis - both, however, share an astute sensibility about societal maladies of post-war Britain. Even though the two characters never meet, they are inextricably connected. The story takes a twist when Clarissa in her quintessential midlife meets her first love, Peter Walsh and Septimus madness takes a dramatic manifestation. Will Clarissa take any steps for the sake of her first love, or will she stay devoted to the societal pressure and her status as a statesman's wife? What will become of Septimus' madness?

The novel was developed from Woolf's earlier short story entitled 'Mrs Dalloway in Bond Street'. It takes you to the industrialised society, the hustle and bustle of London to represent the surface, the wrapper of modern society. The internal side is represented by ambiguous dark desires and fears of the characters. The passion and dramatic events in this whole novel take place over the course of a single day and the novel has been compared to poetry for being packed with meaning and intensity. How can a day change your whole life, how can a life built for years, crumble in the blink of an eye? This text is an exciting journey in itself with stylistic symbiosis, making it a true modernist classic.

《达洛维夫人》是一部具有两个主要人物和两种不同世界观的小说。其中一个主人公是克拉丽莎·达洛维，她被称为达洛维夫人，象征着她在婚姻和社会上的禁锢。另一则是患有创伤后应激障碍的塞普蒂默斯·史密斯。缺乏传统的线性叙事和嵌入文本的意识流代表了作者对人类存在的复杂性和现实的模糊性的看法。塞普蒂默斯似乎疯了，他备受炮弹休克症的折磨，而克拉丽萨则被认为是理智的，她的生存烦恼集中在中年危机上，然而，两人都对战后英国的社会弊病有着敏锐的感觉。尽管这两个人物从未见过面，但他们却有着千丝万缕的联系。当克拉丽莎在她典型的中年生活中遇到她的初恋情人彼得·沃尔什时，故事出现了转折，塞普蒂默斯的疯狂表现得很戏剧化。克拉丽莎会为了初恋而采取措施，还是会迫于社会压力和作为政治家妻子的身份而继续奉献？塞普蒂默斯的疯狂会变成什么样？

这部小说是由伍尔夫早期的短篇小说《邦德街的达洛维夫人》发展而来。它将读者带到了工业化社会，伦敦的喧嚣代表了现代社会的表面和包装。内在的一面则由人物模糊的黑暗欲望和恐惧所代表。整部小说中的激情和戏剧性事件发生在一天之内，这部小说被比作诗歌，因为它充满了意义和强度。一天如何能改变你的整个生活，多年建立的生活如何能在瞬间崩溃？这部文本本身就是一次激动人心的旅程，与风格共生，使其成为真正的现代主义经典。