z Think back to the distinction E. M. Forster made between a story and plot:
that a story tells us what happened, but a plot tells us why. Then think
back to how a conventional plot does this: by posing a question in the
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o The structural brilliance of “The Dead” is that it does not set up
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by giving you a plotless but entertaining account of its main
character and his social situation; it then blindsides you at the
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knew existed.
o The conclusion of “The Dead” is powerful partly because
of what it says—that happiness is rare and precarious and
sometimes founded on a lie—but it’s also powerful because of
the way Joyce plays with our expectations. He gives us what
looks like an ordinary day for its main character, then surprises
both Gabriel and the reader with something extraordinary.Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway
z The use of everyday
moments to build a picture
of a world at a particular
moment in order to reveal
something profound also
lies behind Virginia Woolf’s
novel 0UV 'DOORZD. The
novel is set over a single
day in London in the early
1920s and focuses on a
52-year-old woman named
Clarissa Dalloway as she
prepares for a party at her
home that evening. Other
major characters include
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years’ service in India, and Septimus Warren Smith, a veteran of World
Wa r I w h o i s s u ff e r i n g f r o m s h e l l - s h o c k.
Virginia Woolf’s stream-of-consciousness
technique in Mrs. Dalloway requires
more concentration than following a
conventional plot, but it provides a more
vivid evocation of a particular moment in
time in the lives of the characters.© Maria Teijeiro/Digital Vision/Thinkstock.