Night and Day
Virginia Woolf
Contains spoilers for the entire book.
Discussion topics
Topic 01 of 08
Katharine at home
What kind of life does Katharine Hilbery lead in the house in Cheyne Walk, and why does she find it so hard to escape?
Keep the conversation going
- Why does she keep her love of mathematics and the stars a secret?
- How does the shadow of her grandfather, the great poet, fall across her days?
There is no single right answer. Bring your own reading.
Discussion topics
What kind of life does Katharine Hilbery lead in the house in Cheyne Walk, and why does she find it so hard to escape?
Keep the conversation going
- Why does she keep her love of mathematics and the stars a secret?
- How does the shadow of her grandfather, the great poet, fall across her days?
What did you make of Ralph Denham on his first visit to the Hilberys, resentful and awkward and already half in love?
Keep the conversation going
- How does his crowded family home in Highgate compare with Katharine's?
- Why does he spend so much of the novel loving a Katharine he has largely imagined?
What does Mary Datchet's work at the suffrage office give her that marriage might not?
Keep the conversation going
- How did you respond to her decision not to tell Ralph she loves him, and later to refuse him?
- Is Mary the novel's loneliest character or its freest?
Why does Katharine agree to marry William Rodney when she does not love him?
Keep the conversation going
- What does Rodney want from a wife, and does he see Katharine at all?
- How does his growing attachment to Cassandra Otway change the story's sympathies?
What do you think the title means for a novel in which the characters live such divided inner and outer lives?
Keep the conversation going
- Where does Katharine seem most herself: in company, or alone with her thoughts?
- Why do the lovers so often meet walking the London streets at night?
How does Mr Hilbery's anger at the tangle of engagements show what the family really expects of its daughters?
Keep the conversation going
- What did you make of Mrs Hilbery's trip to Shakespeare's tomb and the way she settles everything on her return?
- Is Mrs Hilbery wiser than she first seems?
Why are Katharine and Ralph both so afraid that love is only an illusion?
Keep the conversation going
- Do they reach an understanding by the end, or simply agree to keep looking?
- How does the novel compare with other courtship stories you know?
What does the closing walk to Mary's lighted window suggest about the different ways of living the novel has set out?
Keep the conversation going
- Why do you think Woolf ends with the lovers looking up at Mary rather than with a wedding?
- Which of the novel's women would you most want to be, and why?
There is no single right answer. Bring your own reading.