Flowers

"There are still the flowers to buy. Clarissa feigns exasperation(though she loves doing errands like this), leaves Sally cleaning the bathroom, and runs out, promising to be back in half an hour"(Cunningham,9).

The meaning and symbolism of flowers in this book mirror the flowers in Mrs. Dalloway. When people think of flowers, they generally think of them as female. This is important because the connection that the flowers have to the women in this novel adds to the symbolism of the book. Although flowers may be beautiful while they are young, they soon wain and die, and human kind is no longer interested in them. When women show signs of age, society either forces them to surrender or do extensive things to try to delay aging. The women in this book all notice that they are no longer young and their lives will end, and they try to ignore it.(Edit) Cunningham adds this to his novel to add to the enduring truths and to show that this novel is connected to Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway.