Clarissa Dalloway as a Character

 Note: I used a PDF to get the quotes for this post, so I don’t have page numbers. 

Welcome back! This post marks the ending of Mrs. Dalloway, so I decided that this post should be a character analysis of Clarissa, since she is the main character. 

Throughout the book, she dwells on the past and finds herself swept up in regret and nostalgia. Often, long passages narrate her thoughts about the past and much of the book takes place in her mind as opposed to events occurring. 

Very often, her past romances weigh heavy on her mind, especially her love with Sally Seton when she was young, and her decision not to marry Peter Walsh. She knows that their marriage would not have worked, but she wonders what her life could have been. She rejected him in favor of a tame, passionless companionship with Richard. About Peter, Clarissa thinks, 

“She was upset by his visit. She had felt a great deal; had for a moment, when she kissed his hand, regretted, envied him even, remembered possibly (for he saw her look it) something he had said--how they would change the world if she married him perhaps; whereas, it was this; it was middle age; it was mediocrity; then forced herself with her indomitable vitality to put all that aside, there being in her a thread of life which for toughness, endurance, power to overcome obstacles, and carry her triumphantly through he had never known the like of. Yes; but there would come a reaction directly he left the room. She would be frightfully sorry for him; she would think what in the world she could do to give him pleasure (short always of the one thing) and he could see her with the tears running down her cheeks going to her writing-table and dashing off that one line which he was to find greeting him. . . . "Heavenly to see you!" And she meant it.”

    We get a clear picture of Clarissa’s thoughts thanks to the narration style of the book. Here, she thinks back to other choices she could have made. What if she had chosen love and married Peter? Even to the present day, she feels some degree of regret, or at least sadness, in his presence. She feels that she couldn’t give him what he needed, that she wasn’t worthy of him and instead chose the “safe” option. Woolf writes that, “But it would not have been a success, their marriage. The other thing, after all, came so much more naturally.” The ease of a simple, uncomplicated partnership with Richard trumped whatever feelings she had. But even in this one passage, she conveys more raw emotion for Peter than she does for Richard throughout the entirety of the book. 

    Richard is also aware of this to some degree. About this, Woolf writes,  “But [Richard] would tell Clarissa that he loved her, in so many words. He had, once upon a time, been jealous of Peter Walsh; jealous of him and Clarissa. But she had often said to him that she had been right not to marry Peter Walsh; which, knowing Clarissa, was obviously true; she wanted support. Not that she was weak; but she wanted support.” Once again, it is made clear that Richard was not at all a choice made through love but because Clarissa wanted a stable, predictable life more than anything else. Her romantic relationships provide important insight to her as a character, as someone who is filled with doubts and opts to choose what she thinks is correct, rather than what is right. 

Her personality also has adapted to the upper-class lifestyle provided to her by her husband. She is focused on throwing lavish parties and enjoys the finer things in life. In my opinion, the shallowness of her interests is a direct result of her attempts to cope with her regret and continuous internal struggle with life. She avoids confronting difficult things as much as possible, instead focusing on inconsequential things that bring her brief joy, such as throwing a party. A quote about her reads, 

“She cared much more for her roses than for the Armenians. Hunted out of existence, maimed, frozen, the victims of cruelty and injustice (she had heard Richard say so over and over again)--no, she could feel nothing for the Albanians, or was it the Armenians? but she loved her roses (didn't that help the Armenians?)--the only flowers she could bear to see cut...But--but--why did she suddenly feel, for no reason that she could discover, desperately unhappy?”

This passage literally says, using roses and people in crisis as an example, that Clarissa is a woman that bothers herself with small things rather than being concerned about a true problem, such as global issues (as her politician husband does). She distracts herself, whether purposefully or not, with insignificant pleasures like pretty flowers. 

I would also like to briefly bring up the narration style of this passage in particular. The entire book is written in stream-of-consciousness style, but this passage in particular shows a natural progression of thought rather than traditional prose. The stutter stood out in particular, as does the questioning of the accuracy of the thoughts themselves. It resembles what would be running through a person’s head, which creates more of an accurate transfer of thoughts between the characters head and the reader. It makes them more relatable and understandable, and also illustrates more raw emotions, like confusion in this case. 

Overall, Clarissa’s character is one with a lot of baggage and doubt. She is unsure of a lot of things in her life, and throughout the novel, she reminisces on her life and her experiences and decisions she’s made (which looking back, were not necessarily the best ones). I liked her as a character, since I think she does what she can with all of the internal struggle that she has, despite living a calm, privileged life.