Lara's English Class Blog

  Virginia Woolf’s technique of using every character’s perspective gives us a chance to create a complete sense of each character throughout Mrs. Dalloway. While in most other books (that at least I’ve read) we only mainly view the world through one character’s perspective, in Mrs. Dalloway Woolf is able to create a better overall picture of the characters through her switch of perspective. In The Mezzanine , for example, the only perspective we’re introduced to is Howie’s and we remain with him for the duration of the book. While this doesn’t make The Mezzanine an incomplete or inferior book, we never truly get a sense of how other people view Howie or think about him -- we can only infer what they might think. In Mrs. Dalloway we not only get to listen to the thoughts and emotions of a character (for example Clarissa) but we also get to see how everyone around views her from the outside.  When the reader is introduced to a character’s thoughts it immediately gives them a...

In The Mezzanine Nicholson Baker introduces the reader to the same, ordinary world we live in yet illustrates it from a completely new detailed perspective. Throughout their day most people don’t give much thought to their interactions beyond a minimal practical analysis yet Baker goes a step further scrutinizing every small detail, even of the most seemingly insignificant items and experiences. He goes beyond just the simple description of his life finding every encounter to be fascinating. In this regard, Baker reconstructs the world around us and gives the reader a new perspective to explore. On the surface there is nothing intrinsically special about a stapler or a sandwich with sliced olives yet Baker is able to introduce a whole new set of thoughts related to those items. His perspective is not only exceptionally detailed but vividly artistic as well. He is able to talk about the most random objects around him for pages without losing the reader’s interest. Baker’s ability to ...