Even if the door to the trailer had opened, the woman inside, be she Meryl Streep or Vanessa Redgrave or even Susan Sarandon, would have been simply that, a woman in a trailer, and you could not possibly have done what you wanted to do. You could not have received her, there on the street; taken her in your arms, and wept with her. It would be so wonderful to cry like that, in the arms of a woman who was at once immortal and a tired, frightened person just emerged from a trailer.

Clarissa has just caught a glimpse of a movie star in her trailer, which causes her to ponder the sense of immortality that comes with fame and recognition. Clarissa believes that fame brings reassurance and that famous people avoid the fear that they may be forgotten completely. She longs to be remembered and feels terrified that her whole life will no longer have value or meaning if she is forgotten. The embrace that Clarissa desires echoes the various embraces that occur between women at several points throughout the book. While her desire to fall into the arms of the star and weep with her may seem strange, Clarissa believes that she would be able to transcend boundaries and connect with that person’s essence.

Laura shares an intimate kiss with Kitty, which makes her feel as though she can see inside her neighbor, an experience that rattles her for the rest of the day. The kiss between Virginia and her sister Vanessa is the catalyst for Virginia’s revelation about the Mrs. Dalloway character. Virginia feels a thrilling, forbidden strangeness during the kiss and decides to make such a kiss the centerpiece of her character’s life. Though the various’ characters sexual identities resist definitive identification, these intimate moments with women form the various emotional climaxes of the book. The embraces are not purely romantic or sexual, but instead they provide moments of intimacy and connection that lead each character to important revelations about her life.