Mrs. Dalloway 1

“The candle was halt burnt down and she had read deep in Baron Marbot’s Memoirs (31).”

The Memoirs of Baron de Marbot is a memoir from the Napoleonic era. It recounts Baron de Marbot’s life which was full of battle, power, and secret missions. Although nobody would say that this is an uninteresting read, it’s not full of meaning as other books. For example, Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, which Clarissa Dalloway quotes on page 9, is full of meaning about life and behavior and the human mind. Perhaps this is why Virginia Woolf chose Baron Marbot’s Memoirs as the book for Mrs. Dalloway to be reading. This Memoir is all surface excitement, not deeply meaningful like a play by Shakespeare or possibly the other things that Mrs. Dalloway read when she was young and thoughtful. Perhaps Woolf is trying to say something about Clarissa--she’s become uninterested in real things and has begun to only care about surface excitement like her parties and dresses. 

"The Memoirs of Baron De Marbot." Amazon.com. Web. 20 May 2012. <http://www.amazon.com/The-Memoirs-Baron-De-Marbot/dp/1417908556>.

"The Memoirs of Baron De Marbot." Napoleonic Literature. Web. 20 May 2012. <http://napoleonic-literature.com/Index-Marbot.htm>.