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Unit 29: Virginia Woolf — Mrs. Dalloway: Detailed Study of Text

children. One woman warned him that Daisy would be wrecked when he died and her reputation Notes
was tarnished. But he did not want to think about that. He cared less and less about what
others thought. Still, maybe it was best if Daisy forgot about him.
At dinner, though alone, Peter commanded respect. A nearby family, the Morrises, liked Peter
and after leaving the dining room for the smoking room, they engaged him in conversation.
Peter liked being liked. He decided that he would attend Clarissa’s party, in order to ask
Richard what the English government was planning to do in India. Peter moved to the porch
and watched the hot day dwindle into night. The prolonged summer evening was new to
Peter. He enjoyed watching the young lovers dawdle. Peter looked at the newspaper, as he
was quite interested in cricket matches. Finally, he left the hotel and slowly moved toward the
Dalloway’s home. The symmetry of London’s squares and streets struck him as beautiful. It
seemed as if everyone was dining out. Bustling, dressed up Londoners scattered to and fro.

Did u know? Reaching Clarissa’s home, Peter breathed deeply to prepare himself for the
challenge. Instinctively, his hand opened the knife blade in his pocket.

Part II Section Five Analysis

Woolf writes, “It was as if he were sucked up to some very high roof by that rush of emotion
and the rest of him, like a white shell-sprinkled beach, left bare. It had been his undoing in
Anglo-Indian society - this susceptibility.” Expanding on Woolf’s theme of life as the sea,
Peter Walsh too experiences the waves of emotion that rise and fall in Clarissa’s life. He notes
that his inability to weep or laugh at the right time has left him as empty and lonely as a beach
that is washed clean after the sea pulls back. In this case, the thematic metaphor functions to
illustrate Peter’s societal isolation when he is stripped of the metaphoric sea that connects him
to life. Immediately following Peter’s thoughts in the text, Woolf describes Peter’s memory of
Clarissa’s transcendentalist-like theory of living. The theory follows, “...since our apparitions,
the part of us which appears, are so momentary compared with the other, the unseen part of
us, which spreads wide, the unseen might survive, be recovered somehow attached to this
person or that, or even haunting certain places after death...” Clarissa has served this purpose
to Peter as thoughts of her frequently, or infrequently, occur to him, causing him to relive
their times together at the most unexpected times. In this sense, Clarissa acts as metaphoric
sea in Peter’s life. Her absence leaves him empty and wondering; whereas her presence provides
connections to a life that he desires for years after her presence has ceased.
Peter has trouble facing these reminders of Clarissa, these remnants of her unseen surviving,
and thus, becomes embittered when he receives the note from her at his hotel. Unlike her
husband, Clarissa has an easier time communicating and has successfully expressed herself in
the written form and delivered this expression to Peter before he arrives back at his hotel.
Peter feels bombarded by the memories he suffers of Clarissa, and her ghost makes an even
greater appearance in the form of the note. The blue (symbolic of the sea) envelope, recognizably
addressed in Clarissa’s hand, stands as a symbol of Peter’s continuing attachment to Clarissa
and his proclaimed susceptibility. He looked at a picture he had carried with him of Daisy and
felt a different sentiment entirely. With Daisy, “All is plain sailing.” This ocean of feeling does
not haunt Peter; this relationship he can navigate.
England as society and civilization passes by and impresses Peter. Yet, he still is incapable of
escaping the past. His thoughts, and Woolf’s prose, merge and blur with the past as the two
are expressed interchangeably. They exist as one for Woolf’s characters. The intersection of
time and timelessness most noticeably occurs directly in front of Peter’s gaze as he sits on the

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