Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

"There are still flowers to buy. Clarissa feigns (thought she loves doing errands like this)" (9)

Michael Cunningham introduces his character, Clarissa the same way that Virginia Woolf presents Clarissa in Mrs. Dalloway. The two chapters are both about Clarissa buying flowers for their party. Cunningham makes this blatant in order to show that he is directly inspired by Mrs. Dalloway. He uses one of Woolf's character's and Woolf herself in his novel. The third main charcater, Mrs. Brown, is added in not only to accentuate the point, but to add to the originality of the novel.