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Fiction

Notes Suddenly, Elizabeth entered. Clarissa said, “Here is my Elizabeth.” Peter greeted her and
rushed out the door. Clarissa ran after him, yelling to not forget her party.

Self Assessment

Multiple Choice Questions:
1. What does Clarissa set out to purchase in the novel’s opening scene?

(a) A bag of ice (b) Flowers
(c) Champagne (d) Fairy Lamps
2. What object does Peter Walsh always have with him?
(a) A banjo (b) A flash light
(c) Asilver comb (d) A pocketknife

3. What colour is Clarissa Dalloway’s party dress?
(a) Lavender (b) Peach
(c) Green (d) Red
4. In which month does the novel take place?
(a) June (b) October

(c) December (d) April

Part One Section Three Analysis

We see many echoes of Woolf within the character of Clarissa during this chapter. The theme
of the virgin, symbolizing seclusion, independence, and sexual aridity, takes over as we move
from Clarissa, excited with life, to Clarissa, secluded, reflective, and lonely. Her relief at
returning home is compared explicitly by Woolf to a nun returning to her habit and yet,
ironically, she only ventures to her virginal, narrow attic room when she feels snubbed by
society. Because of this snub, we learn further how much Clarissa cares about societal issues
as she meditates on her worth as a result of it. Conversely, we learn that she enjoys being
alone to the extent that she has slept alone in the attic since her illness. Directly after Woolf
describes Clarissa’s starch white sheets pulled tightly over her narrow attic bed, an overt
metaphor for virginal sexuality, she includes that Clarissa wondered if she had failed Richard.
She also states that Clarissa had loved Sally as a man loves a woman, implying that Clarissa
had never truly loved Richard in this manner, and perhaps had never loved any man in this
manner. The flaws of communication and intimacy between Richard and Clarissa are foreshadowed.
In the eyes of some critics, Woolf insinuates that Clarissa was stifled in her homosexual love
for Sally by the standards of society and her own conservatism.

Notes Sally was Clarissa’s inspiration to think beyond the walls of Bourton, to read, to
philosophize, to fantasize. Woolf describes the kiss between Sally and Clarissa as
an epiphany of sorts, an ecstasy.

Sally stopped; picked a flower; kissed her on the lips. The whole world may have turned
upside down! The others disappeared; there she was alone with Sally. And she felt that she
had been given a present, wrapped up, and told just to keep it, not to look at it - a diamond,

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