As Mrs. Dalloway prepares to host a dinner party, her thoughts wander from memories of the past to interrogations about the present and lead her to assess the choices she has made in her life and love. Her reflections, and those of her friends and family, interweave with her account of the distress, on that same day, of the shell-schocked veteran Septimus Warren Smith, whose trauma and hallucinations end in tragedy. The two Londoners may inhabit the same city, but their experiences and circumstances are worlds apart.