LITERATURE: Mrs. Dalloway – Character Study

There is a challenging aspect to the multiple pov in this book, especially since it gets right inside the characters’ heads. 

Who do you believe?

I think however that we’re getting a composite image that includes the characters’ own self-image, and as the end of the day–and the story–draws near, the three main characters are brought together at Clarissa’s party.  More on each later, but this was telling of Clarissa:

Sinking her voice, drawin Mrs. Dalloway into the shelter of a common feminity, a common pride in the illustrious qualities of husbands and their sad tendency to overwork, Lady Bradshaw (poor goose–one didn’t dislike her) murmured how, "just as we were starting my husband was called up on the telephone, a very sad case.  A young man (that is what Sir William is telling Mr. Dalloway) had killed himself.  He had been in the army."  Oh! thought Clarissa, in the middle of my party, here’s death, she thought.  (p. 183)

I had a semi-relationship with Clarissa, while not understanding her way of life except from what I’ve read or seen in movies, I felt for her approach to middle-age, the running into of a past love.  But this rather changed my perception of her.