Mabel receives an invitation to a party hosted by the Dalloways.

Mabel selects a dress design from her mother's old fashion book to use for a new outfit.

Mabel has the new dress made by seamstress Miss Milan.

Mabel arrives at the Dalloways' party and removes her cloak.

Mabel panics immediately upon seeing the other guests, convinced her dress is wrong.

Mabel greets hostess Clarissa Dalloway while struggling to conceal her anxiety.

Mabel slips away from the crowd to find a mirror and examine herself.

Rose Shaw approaches Mabel and tells her the new dress is charming.

Mabel dismisses Rose Shaw's compliment as false and finds no comfort in it.

Mabel voices her insecurity aloud, calling herself a "dingy old fly" because of her dress.

Robert Haydon tells Mabel she looks perfectly fine after she expresses her self-doubt.

Charles responds to Mabel's complaints by mocking her rather than offering a sincere compliment.

Mabel briefly resolves to become a person who never thinks about clothes or others' opinions.

Mabel tells Mrs. Dalloway she enjoyed herself, knowing every word is a lie.

Mabel puts on her aging cloak to leave and cannot stop fixating on how old it is.

Mabel Waring receives an invitation to a party hosted by the Dalloways and sets out to prepare herself by commissioning a new dress. She selects a design from her mother's fashion book and has it made by a seamstress, feeling hopeful before she arrives. The moment Mabel enters the party and removes her cloak, her confidence collapses and she cannot shake the feeling that her dress is wrong. She moves through the party, interacting with a handful of guests whose comments — genuine or mocking — all fail to ease her distress. After a brief and hollow resolution to change herself, Mabel lies to her hostess about having enjoyed the evening and leaves, her thoughts fixed on her aging cloak as she walks out the door.

The key external events driving Mabel's party experience.

Mabel worries about what she will wear to the party after receiving the Dalloways' invitation.

Mabel feels genuine pleasure and satisfaction while working with Miss Milan on the new dress.

Mabel surveys the party and immediately feels inferior compared to every other person present.

Mabel critiques her dress piece by piece — the color, the cut of the skirt, and the sleeves.

Mabel feels inferior even compared to the elegant furnishings of the Dalloways' house.

Mabel compares herself to a struggling fly and the other partygoers to beautiful dragonflies and butterflies.

Mabel recounts in detail the warmth of creating the dress with Miss Milan, from design to fitting.

Mabel feels dowdy and angry at herself for being so consumed by self-consciousness at the party.

Mrs. Holman engages Mabel at the party, but Mabel judges her as greedily seeking sympathy.

Mabel thinks back on her mother's hardships, the worn linoleum, and her low-income upbringing.

Mabel reflects on her siblings as equally inadequate, calling them "poor water-veined creatures."

Mabel criticizes herself harshly for caring so much about appearances at her age as a wife and mother.

Mabel envisions going to the library and building an identity entirely outside of her appearance.

Mabel waves goodbye to Charles and Rose as she moves toward the exit.

Mabel's mind immediately returns to the fly in the saucer the moment she finishes lying to Mrs. Dalloway.

Even before the party begins, Mabel's anxiety centers on what she will wear, and her decision to make something new is fueled by real anticipation. Once inside the Dalloways' home, she measures herself against every person and every object around her and finds herself lacking at every turn. Her exchanges with other guests — Rose, Robert, Charles, and Mrs. Holman — are filtered entirely through her insecurity, leaving her unable to connect with anyone. Her mind wanders back to her impoverished upbringing and the inadequacy she sees running through her whole family line. She imagines a future version of herself free from vanity and appearances, but the fantasy dissolves before she even reaches the door, and she exits having waved goodbye to the very guests she could never truly speak to.

The internal observations and social interactions that fill Mabel's party experience.

The satisfaction Mabel felt about the new dress vanishes the instant she compares herself to the other guests.

Mabel's reflection in the mirror confirms her worst fear — the dress was a mistake.

Mabel connects her feelings of inadequacy to a pattern of inferiority she has carried since childhood.

Mabel first introduces the image of flies crawling helplessly at the edge of a saucer.

Mabel imagines the flies with their wings stuck together, straining but completely unable to escape.

The fly metaphor deepens — the saucer becomes a prison of milk in which Mabel sees herself drowning.

Robert Haydon's kind reassurance is immediately rejected by Mabel, who decides he is simply being polite.

The brief comfort Mabel takes from recalling the Miss Milan fitting dissolves and shame rushes back.

Charles's remark "Mabel's got a new dress" lands as a crushing blow that destroys her last hope for acceptance.

Mabel concludes that her inadequacy is hereditary — a weakness passed down through her family blood.

Mabel experiences an epiphany that she could stop obsessing over appearance and find genuine purpose.

Mabel imagines devoting herself to the poor and wearing a plain uniform that removes all dress anxiety.

The epiphany collapses immediately when Mabel instinctively lies to Mrs. Dalloway about enjoying the party.

Mabel recognizes she did not speak a single sincere word to anyone during the entire party.

Mabel exits with her thoughts fixed entirely on her old cloak, confirming the anti-epiphany is complete.

Mabel enters the Dalloways' party carrying a fragile confidence that dissolves the instant she measures herself against the other guests. Her reflection in the mirror confirms her fear, and she retreats into a spiral of self-examination that links her present shame to a lifetime of inadequacy. The fly metaphor grows richer and darker as it transforms from a simile for social awkwardness into an image of total entrapment — wings stuck, drowning in milk. Each interaction at the party — Robert's hollow kindness, Charles's cruelty — deepens Mabel's sense that she cannot be seen or accepted as she truly is. A moment of genuine revelation arrives, in which Mabel glimpses a life free from obsession with appearances, but it collapses immediately when she lies to her hostess and walks out the door thinking only about her old cloak.

The psychological shifts, epiphanies, and collapses that define Mabel's inner journey.