Clarissa Dalloway

Character Analysis of Clarissa Dalloway
Submitted by: Hamza Majeed
Registration no. : ( 2020-GCUF-062369)
Submitted to: Mam Nawal
Course code : ENG-511
Course Title : Modern Novel
Department of English
GCUF
Clarissa Dalloway: Character Analysis - in
Mrs. Dalloway
Introduction

“Mrs. Dalloway” is a novel written by Virginia Wolf . Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway is the central figure round whom
all the story revolve. She is the main focal point of the action in the novel. Her age is about fiftees. She
married a member of parliament , Richard Dalloway . Her daughter name is Elizabeth. She has a friend from
past named Peter Walsh. On the surface level, Mrs. Dalloway is the story of Mrs. Clarissa’s Dalloways party. It
is through her mind that the story and movement of the novel goes forward and backward.
Family Background
Mrs. Dalloway was born and brought up at Bourton. She was fond of walking. She had visited London with her
friends many times especially with her lover Peter Walsh. She preferred Richard Dalloway for marriage
because she loved power and self-material, glamour and sophisticated, artificial modem life. Richard Dalloway
had provided him all the material and economic security Moreover, she wanted to have some privacy also in
married life which was provided to her by Mr. Richard Dalloway.
Mr. Richard Dalloway was a member of Parliament, thus Dalloway's had a vast social circle. Clarissa loved
to hold parties at home but that was used to be arranged for the benefit of Richard. Inspite of all this
aristocracy, her married life was not happy She felt that she did not respond to her husband’s love warmly. She
became very sad and depressed when she was informed by her maid: servant Lucy that Mr. Richard Dalloway
had gone to lunch with: Lady. Bruton.
Clarissa’s Gusto for Life

At the age of fiftees, Clarissa Dalloway’s zest for life is noteworthy The most remarkable characteristic was
her capacity to enjoy life. We are reported, “And of course she enjoyed life immensely It was: her nature to
enjoy ... any how there was no bitterness in her, none of that sense of moral vi repulsive in good women. She
enjoyed practically everything. If you walked with her in Hyde Park, now it was a bed of tulips, now a child in a
perambulator, now some absurd little drama she made upon the spur of the moment.” She had ‘divine vitality’
and gave incessant parties. She liked very much to visit people, to lunch with them and invite them. She was
fond of dancing and riding. “To dance, to ride, she had adored all that.”
Mrs. Dalloway’s Sense of Independence

Clarissa was a lover of freedom, she wanted to lead her life according to her own wishes even after marriage.
In marriage, she thought, there must be a little independence, even license which Peter was not expected to
give and with Richard this was no problem. “With Peter, everything has to be shared, everything gone
into.” Later on, she detested Miss Kilman, Elizabeth’s tutoress, because she was dominating over her
daughter, Elizabeth.
Her Love for Peter Walsh

Mrs. Dalloway was in love with Peter Walsh before her marriage with Richard. This love of Peter Walsh was a
part and parcel of her life. It has left ineradicable marks upon her soul. Everytime she was reminded of Peter
Walsh whenever she thought of her past and Bourton. “Always when she thought of him she thought of their
quarrel for some reason, because she wanted his good opinion so much perhaps she owed him words;
‘sentimental’, ‘civilized’, they started up everyday of her life, as if he guarded her. Her attitude towards life was
sentimental. “‘Sentimental’, perhaps she was to be thinking of the past. What would he (Peter) think, she
wondered, when he came back”. When Peter Walsh had unexpectedly come back from India and went to
meet her, she felt “so glad, so shy, so utterly taken aback to have Peter Walsh come to her
unexpectedly in the morning;”. She went to the extent of kissing him. All through the novel, she has
recollected her memories associated with Peter Walsh, his movements and gestures, and innumerable details
of those days when they had walked together at Bourton. She did not marry She had left him due to her sense
of independence, spiritual privacy; that, “attic-room”, and Richard provided her everything. Peter was much
possessive and was not expected to allow her an “attic room”.
Mrs. Dalloway: A Symbolical Figure

Her life was aimless and meaningless. This represents the aimless drifting of contemporary civilization. A.M.
Moody has pointed out her as a representative figure. She represents the “upper middle class world of London
in which she lives and moves. She is also a criticism of that class; and further, “she is an animated mirror,
having a life made up of the world she reflects; she is a living, image of the surface of the society Virginia
Woolf was concerned with.” She is the symbol of the insincerity, the triviality and hypocrisy of upper class
social life. She is referred as ‘a prude’, cold, hard and something priggish about her.
A Round Character and use of Stream-of-Consciousness

Mrs. Dalloway is ranked among the immortals of literature. She is a round character, first in the sense that she
is a multi-faced personality and secondly because she under the stress of circumstances, gets; changes
rapidly and grows psychologically. The ‘roundness’ has been achieved by the technical device of the use of
stream-of-consciousness. We see her as a girl, wife, mother, beloved and conventional hostess, not only in the
single day of the June but as she was thirty years before at Bourton.
Conclusion
The heroine of the novel, Clarissa is analyzed in terms of her life, personality, and thought process throughout
the book by the author and other characters. She is viewed from many angles. Clarissa enjoys the moment-to-
moment aspect of life and believes that a piece of her remains in every place she has visited. She lacks a
certain warmth, but is a caring woman. Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway was a conscientious mother and an
affectionate wife. She remained faithful throughout the novel to her husband inspite of her spiritual emptiness.
She loves to be accepted but has the acuity of mind to perceive her own flaws. Clarissa is a representative of
an uppity English gentry class and yet, defies categorization because of her humanity and her relation to her
literary double, Septimus Warren Smith. She is superficially based on Woolf's childhood friend, Kitty Maxse.
Modern civilization is a spiritual wasteland, and this, “death of the soul” is symbolized by Clarissa Dalloway.

Clarissa Dalloway

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Clarissa Dalloway

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Clarissa Dalloway

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Character Analysis of Clarissa Dalloway

Submitted by: Hamza Majeed

Registration no. : ( 2020-GCUF-062369)

Submitted to: Mam Nawal

Course code : ENG-511

Course Title : Modern Novel

Clarissa’s Gusto for Life

Mrs. Dalloway’s Sense of Independence

Her Love for Peter Walsh

Mrs. Dalloway: A Symbolical Figure

A Round Character and use of Stream-of-Consciousness

You might also like