Cunningham's novel also uses the device in Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway" of placing the action of the novel within the space of one day. In Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway" it is one day in the life of the central character Clarissa Dalloway. In Cunningham's book it is one day in the life of each of the three central characters; Clarissa Vaughan, Laura Brown and Virginia Woolf herself. Through this prism, Cunningham attempts, as did Woolf, to show the beauty and profundity of every day—even the most ordinary—in every person's life and conversely how a person's whole life can be examined through the prism of one single day.