Mrs Dalloway
by Virginia Woolf
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Mrs Dalloway: Unreliable Narrator 1 key example

Key Examples in Mrs Dalloway

Section 2
Explanation and Analysis—The Sparrows:

In this example of stream of consciousness, the third-person narrator blends so completely with Septimus—who's not thinking clearly—that it's as if the passage is delivered by an unreliable narrator:

A sparrow perched on the railing opposite chirped Septimus, Septimus, four or five times over and went on, drawing its notes out, to sing freshly and piercingly in Greek words how there is no crime and, joined by another sparrow, they sang in voices prolonged and piercing in Greek words, from trees in the meadow of life beyond a river where the dead walk, how there is no death [...].