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Situational Irony
Explanation and Analysis—The Prime Minister:
When the Prime Minister arrives at Clarissa Dalloway's party, he's not nearly as impressive as one might expect him to be. Given how much importance everyone seems to imbue him with, it's ironic that he himself doesn't seem very important at all:
One couldn't laugh at him. He looked so ordinary. You might have stood him behind a counter and bought biscuits — poor chap, all rigged up in gold lace.
This description of the Prime Minister is mockingly disdainful, as the narrator suggests that he looks like he belongs "behind a counter" selling people biscuits. And yet, he's also decked out in "gold lace," which further emphasizes the irony at play: he's technically important and is even dressed in fancy clothes, but he still seems quite drab and ordinary.
And yet, the novel uses this moment to satirize the superficial nature of British high society. When the Prime Minister arrives, nobody makes much of a fuss. "Nobody looked at him," the narrator notes, adding that everyone simply goes on with their conversations. But it's also the case that everyone at the party does register the Prime Minister's presence:
They just went on talking, yet it was perfectly plain that they all knew, felt to the marrow of their bones, this majesty passing; this symbol of what they all stood for, English society.
Even though the Prime Minister is, in reality, an extremely underwhelming figure, everyone at Clarissa's party is in awe of him. In this way, the novel satirizes the ridiculous, elitist obsession that so many of the characters have with "English society" and the respect it supposedly commands. The Prime Minister himself ironically falls short of their expectations, but this doesn't stop them from getting excited about the mere idea of being in proximity to the kind of patriotic power he represents.
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