Mrs. Dalloway: The Big Ben serves as a clock tower and marker of time in the novel. It acts as both a symbol of English tradition and conservatism (historical changes), and the desire to pretend that the war had not affected society and life, but also Big Ben is used to mark the incessant passage of time. “For having lived in Westminster – how many years now? over twenty, – one feels even in the midst of the traffic, or waking at night, Clarissa was positive, a particular hush, or solemnity; an indescribable pause; a suspense (but that might be her heart, affected, they said, by influenza) before Big Ben strikes. There! Out it boomed. First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable. The leaden circles dissolved in the air” (4).
