- Our third chapter begins with the same line that ended its second chapter: "Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself" (3.1).
- We've now been whisked to a suburban neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, in 1949.
- There, a woman named Laura Brown is reading Mrs. Dalloway and "trying to lose herself" (3.4).
- It's early morning, "well past seven," and Laura hasn't yet got herself out of bed. She can hear her husband, Dan, puttering around the kitchen downstairs, making breakfast for their son, Richie.
- Feeling depressed and lethargic, Laura is struggling to muster up the energy to get out of bed and do what's expected of her.
- Laura decides to read one more page of Mrs. Dalloway, and we readers read along with her as she does.
- As Laura reads, she thinks about the end of the Second World War, and about "the new world, the rescued world," of America's booming economy and blooming suburbs (3.8).
- Laura also thinks of her husband, Dan, who returned from the war and so seemed to deserve an ideal American life, complete with a loving wife, a suburban home, a good job, children, and supper on the table every night.
- Laura reads for a little while longer, then works up the energy to get out of bed and go downstairs.
- Downstairs, Dan and Richie are eating cereal at the kitchen table, where a bouquet of white roses is sitting splendidly. Dan has bought Laura flowers on his own birthday, and she doesn't quite know what to say.
- After a few minutes of morning chitchat, Dan heads off to work. Once he's gone, Laura tells Richie that they're going to make a cake for his father's birthday. As she does, she steels herself to get through the day.