She had a perpetual sense, as she watched
the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she
always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even
one day.
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Summary
Clarissa enters her home, feeling like a nun who has left
the world and now returns to the familiar rituals of a convent.
Although she does not believe in God, the moment is precious to
her, like a bud on the tree of life. She is upset to learn that
Richard has been invited to lunch at Lady Bruton’s house without
her. Ascending to her attic bedroom, Clarissa continues to reflect
on her own mortality.
As Clarissa takes off her yellow-feathered hat, she feels
an emptiness at the heart of her life. She has slept alone since
she was ill with influenza but is happy to be solitary. She does
not feel passionate about Richard and believes she has failed him
in this regard. She feels sexual attraction to women and thinks
she was in love with her friend Sally Seton, who spent a summer
at Bourton.
Sally Seton, in Clarissa’s memory, was a wild, cigarette-smoking, dark-haired
rebel. Once Sally ran naked through the hallway at Bourton. Her
behavior frequently shocked Clarissa’s old Aunt Helena. Clarissa
and Sally planned to change the world. Under Sally’s influence,
Clarissa began to read Plato in bed before breakfast and to read
Shelley for hours. Clarissa remembers going downstairs in a white
dress to meet Sally, thinking of a line from Shakespeare’s play Othello—if
it were now to die ’twere now to be most happy.” Like Othello, she
believes that if she were to die at that moment, she would be quite
happy. Othello kills his wife, Desdemona, out of jealousy, then
kills himself when he finds out his jealousy is unwarranted. The
most exquisite moment of Clarissa’s life occurred on the terrace
at Bourton when, one evening, Sally picked a flower and kissed her
on the lips. For Clarissa, the kiss was a religious experience.
Peter Walsh interrupted the young women on the terrace, as thoughts
of him now interrupt Clarissa’s recollection of Sally. Clarissa
always wanted Peter’s good opinion, and she wonders what he will
think of her now.
The house buzzes with pre-party activity, and Clarissa
begins to mend the green dress she will wear that night. She shows
an interest in her servants and is sensitive to their workload.
She wants to be generous and is grateful to her servants for allowing
her to be so. She sits quietly with her sewing, thinking of life
as a wave that begins, collects, and falls, only to renew and begin
again.
The front doorbell rings, and Peter Walsh surprises Clarissa
with an unexpected visit. Peter plays with his pocketknife, as he
always did, and feels irritated with Clarissa for the kind of life
she’s chosen to live with conservative Richard. Seeing that she’s
been mending a dress, he assumes she has simply been wasting time
with parties and society since he left for India, shortly after
Clarissa rejected his marriage proposal. He says he is in town to
arrange a divorce for his young fiancée, Daisy, who lives in India
and has two children. He imagines the Dalloways consider him a failure.
Clarissa feels like a frivolous chatterbox around Peter.
Moved by his memories and made sensitive by the sheer struggle of
living, Peter bursts into tears. To comfort him, Clarissa takes
his hand and kisses him. She wonders briefly to herself whether
she would have been happier if she had married Peter instead of
Richard. Peter asks Clarissa if she is happy, but Elizabeth enters
the room before she can answer. As Peter leaves, Clarissa calls after
him, “Remember my party to-night!”
Analysis
Middle-aged Clarissa struggles to find her role in a society
that places great importance on fulfilling sexual stereotypes. Clarissa feels
invisible, virginal, and nunlike now that she is over fifty and will
not have any more children. She feels silly in her yellow-feathered
hat in front of Hugh, because Hugh is handsome and well dressed,
and in some ways Clarissa now feels as if she has no sexuality.
Clarissa’s daughter, Elizabeth, is nearly grown, and now, with mothering
behind her, Clarissa tries to discover her purpose in life, since
women of her class and generation were not trained for careers.
Clarissa feels her role is to be a meeting-point for others. She gathers
people together, as she will at her party that night. No matter
how uneasy she feels in her own life, she hides it so that others can
feel comfortable. She sews the torn folds of her party dress back into
place, masking both the flaws in the fabric and her own uneasiness.
She even gathers herself together by pursing her lips and making
her face into “one diamond.” She feels it is her job to be a refuge for
others and to conceal the strain and artificiality of gathering diverse
parts of life together.
