"I dig out beautiful caves behind my characters:
I think that gives exactly what I want;
humanity, humor, depth. The idea is that
the caves shall connect and each come to daylight
at the present moment."

"Most of life is so dull that there is nothing
to be said about it, and the books and talks that would describe it as interesting are obliged to exaggerate, in the hope of justifying their own existence. Inside its cocoon of work or social obligation, the human spirit slumbers for the most part, registering the distinction between pleasure and pain, but not nearly as alert as we pretend. There are periods in the most thrilling day during which nothing happens, and though we continue to exclaim, “I do enjoy myself," or , “I am horrified,” we are insincere."

Background

• Published May 14, 1925
• Post-World War I, after London was devastated and when memories still reeled
• A combination of two short stories, "Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street" and the unfinished "The Prime Minister"
• Time Magazine named it one of their "100 Best English-Language novels from 1923 to 2005"

Character Descriptions

• See Discussion Forum below
• WARNING: SPOILERS! If you don't want to ruin the drama and tension of the novel, then don't visit this forum until after you're almost done reading it.

Narration

• Omniscient narrator helps achieve unity and cohesion amongst the various characters and their thoughts, a quality that Mrs. Dalloway herself lacks
• Mrs. Dalloway is caught up in a narrative stream of consciousness, in which the reader momentarily enters her and other characters' consciousnesses, sometimes through short apostrophes and sometimes through longer interior monologues
  

Resources

• Maps of the characters' walks through London (and other resources)
• Woodward, Mary. "Virginia Woolf's Examination of Perspective, Isolation, and Unity in Mrs. Dalloway." The Pulse. Fall 2008.
  <http://www.baylor.edu/pulse/index.php?id=46056>.

"A match burning in a crocus; an inner meaning almost expressed" (32)

1) phallic, vaginal, clitoridian:
In a phallocentric culture, there is no equivalent for the word "phallic", because the female sexual organs are not idealized, but rather rejected. The phallus is a symbol for male domination, there is officially no female domination. Even in Freud's psychoanalysis, the phallic stage applies for man and woman:

"The phallic stage is the third of Freud's psychosexual stages, when awareness of and manipulation of the genitals is supposed to be a primary source of pleasure. In this stage the child deals with the Oedipus complex, if male, or the Electra complex, if female."

In modern sexology, words such as "vaginal" or "clitoridian" have been used to describe the center of the female orgasm. However,

"Freud believed that it was natural for female children in this stage to focus on the clitoris as their primary organ for sexual pleasure. He believed that upon reaching adulthood and sexual maturity, a female's primary sexual focus shifts to the vagina. There is considerable criticism regarding this theory, as it portrays adult women who continue to enjoy and/or orgasm from clitoral stimulation as having not reached full sexual maturity."

Source and further information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phallic_stage

2) vaginal and yonic:
"In cultural terms, phallocentrism is used to describe a male-centered doctrine or behavior, and sometimes refers to patriarchy, while gynocentrism is used to describe female-centered doctrine or behavior, and sometimes refers to matriarchy. Furthermore, the term yonic has often been used to describe something as vaginal and is considered the counterpart to the term phallic."

Source and further information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phallic

3) yoni:
"The word yoni (Sanskrit योिन yoni) is the Sanskrit word for "Divine Passage" ,"Place of birth","Womb"(m ore as nature as a womb and cradle of all creations) or "sacred Temple" (cf. lila).Yoni also refers to the Lotus-headed nude goddess who displays her vulva. The Ayurveda, or Science of Life, described yoni as a part of the female anatomy. Here the term was meant as a designation of respect for women who gave birth, thus contributing to the continuation of the community. It is from here that the grave misinterpretation of yoni by some Western historians and philosophers to mean vulva or vagina in all contexts, arose. The word also has a wider meaning in both profane and spiritual contexts, covering a range of meanings of "place of birth, source, origin, spring, fountain, place of rest, repository, receptacle, seat, abode, home, lair, nest, stable" (Monier-Williams) The yoni is also considered to be symbolic of Shakti or other goddesses of a similar nature. Because of its polysemy, Yoni is perhaps the most misused and misunderstood Sanskrit word."
"The term yoni is also the basis for the Western-used adjective yonic, which is the counterpart to the term phallic."

Source and further information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yonic

4) lingam:
"The Lingam (also, Linga, Shiva linga Sanskrit लिङ्गं liṅgaṃ, meaning "mark," or "sign,") is a symbol for the worship of the Hindu god Shiva. While its origins are debated, the use of this symbol for worship is an ancient tradition in India extending back to the early Indus Valley civilization."
"The Sanskrit term लिङ्गं liṅgaṃ, transliterated as linga has many meanings, generally as a mark, sign, or characteristic. It has a number of specific uses in Sanskrit that are derived from this general meaning. Vaman Shivram Apte's dictionary gives seventeen definitions of the term, including these examples:

The image of a god
A symptom or mark of disease
A spot or stain
A means of proof, a proof, evidence
The effect or product which evolves from a primary cause
The concept of grammatical gender
The phallus"

Source and further information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingam