Mourning Clarissa Parry
By Ruby Mitchell
When Clarissa Dalloway refers to herself as “being Mrs. Dalloway; not even Clarissa anymore; this being Mrs. Richard Dalloway,” it sets the tone for the slightly melancholic, deeply sentimental thoughts she will be having throughout the rest of the novel (Woolf 10). In this passage, Clarissa is mourning the loss of her individual identity, and contemplating the person who she has become: a person who’s life and identity exist in relation to her husband. She seems unsatisfied or unhappy in some way with this identity she has to live with every day–one that she doesn’t necessarily identify with. The question of Clarissa’s happiness is an underlying theme throughout Mrs. Dalloway, and is even brought up explicitly by Peter Walsh, when he directly asks her: “are you happy, Clarissa?” (Woolf 46). This very emotionally charged conversation shades the rest of this novel with the question: is Clarissa Dalloway happy? As Peter questions Clarissa’s happiness, he begins to expand by specifically asking her whether her husband, Richard, is making her happy. I find it interesting that the question of Clarissa Dalloway’s happiness was always intertwined with her love interests, with the assumption that she isn’t satisfied with her current marriage. The question is always about who she would have been happiest marrying, or whether she has made the right choice about who to marry, but I believe the root of Clarissa’s unhappiness and dissatisfaction is not her marriage, but rather the loss of the person she could have become had she stayed single.
For someone who thinks back to their past as much as Clarissa does, it's hard not to get caught up on what could have been. During her time at Burton, Clarissa describes herself staying up late, reading philosophy, and discussing ways that she could change the world. Contrasting this to her current day self, who “knew nothing; no language; no history; [and] scarcely read a book now, except memoirs in bed,” it's clear that Clarissa feels like she wasted the potential she had to be some sort of intellectual (Woolf 8). She struggles with feeling out of place in the world of her husband’s job in politics, feeling like she can’t add anything of substance to the conversations, and getting slightly insecure and offended when she isn’t invited to events with him, assuming she is being excluded because people don’t find her interesting enough. Clarissa is constantly trying to justify her current life and get away from the “perfect housewife” narrative that Peter Walsh placed on her, and she feels insecure about having lived up to his expectations of what she would become.
Peter Walsh openly claims that Clarissa has wasted her potential by marrying Richard, and I believe Clarissa subconsciously agrees with him. But I don’t think the solution to this problem would be to marry Peter; she would not be happier with him, she would just feel trapped playing a different character, an extension of him rather than Richard. The root of Clarissa’s dissatisfaction with her life is not a problem with who she married, but rather a problem with getting married in general. Once she got married to Richard, her life and reputation became partly dictated by him, and this would hold true for a marriage to Peter. The day Clarissa Parry got married, and became Clarissa Dalloway, she lost a little piece of herself. This is the thing she finds so comforting about looking back on her past, and this is the thing she misses about her life before marriage. She does not wish she married someone different, and she’s not necessarily dissatisfied with her current marriage, but being a married woman, whose identity is intertwined with her husband’s, she has to mourn the loss of the person she was, and the person she could have become had she stayed Clarissa Parry.
Works Cited
Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. Harcourt, 2005.
I think your description of slightly melancholic really sums up the overarching feeling of the book well. I never felt any strong emotions (whether it be the whole book or just one section) while reading, but it did often feel a bit less than neutral. I would finish a reading assignment feeling a bit dissatisfactory, and I think that was somewhat of a reflection of Clarissa's overall tone and attitude in the whole book. She was never overly upset, but she didn't seem to be entirely happy either. I wonder how the book would feel if she had stayed a Parry instead.
ReplyDeleteIt makes sense to see the present-day Clarissa as mourning the loss of her identity as Clarissa Parry, and that time of life that was full of unrealized potential that this name represents. Maybe all adults on some level mourn the loss of who they once were and the time and place they once occupied--though that doesn't necessarily mean that they are unhappy in their current place. But I don't know that "staying single" would have been seen as a remotely viable option for a young woman in Clarissa's time--and a contemporary feminist might say "Exactly--that's part of the problem!" Elizabeth might have more options, according to Kilman--who is herself happily unmarried. Clarissa is coming of age at a time when a woman's life would indeed be constrained by her marriage choices in a range of ways, and even radical young Sally Seton ends up marrying a merchant in Manchester.
ReplyDeleteThere is something undeniably frustrating about narrowing the question of *Clarissa's* identity and destiny as "Peter versus Richard" (Woolf was an OG feminist, so she shares this frustration!) but even young Sally admits that this is pretty much what her choices boil down to. You make a good point about how she seems in many ways *unsuited* to the role of political wife--as she notes repeatedly, she knows nothing about politics, unlike Lady Bruton; she can't keep Armenia and Albania straight; she is unsure what "the equator" is. But when it comes to the "perfect hostess" slur, I don't know--in the party scene I DO see evidence that she is perfectly cut out for this role. Everyone says she's great at it, and she DOES maintain that her parties are misunderstood by all these men around her, and that she sees herself as playing an essential function in "making life happen." She seems both happy and unhappy about how her life has turned out, and yet she intensely loves being alive, and we can't say she actually *regrets* anything specific. This seems pretty realistic, to me--maybe a lifetime with NO nostalgia or regret is too much to ask.
Great post Ruby! I like how you clearly tie Clarissa's dissatisfaction with her superficial Mrs. Richard Dalloway identity to her marital status. Despite Clarissa's dissatisfaction with Peter's prediction that she is the perfect hostess, I believe she continues to solidify her Mrs. Richard Dalloway identity and perfect hostess role. Unable to express her internal Clarissa Parry since she must act as Mrs. Richard Dalloway, Clarissa develops a sense of isolation and invisibility, so she remedies this feeling by diving deeper into her perfect hostess role and satisfying people of similar class at her parties to obtain validation from them.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Clarissa does not grieve who she would be with Peter, but her past freedom. A married life is not for everyone, but was forced to be in the early 20th century. Therefore, I think it makes sense why she never considers an alternate timeline where she did not marry at all. The unachievable reality always appears better when constricted in another reality, regardless of how good she perceives the current timeline. The root of Clarissa's worries about who she married seems to be the constriction of her current marriage, in which there is no peaceful way out. You gave some really good points, great blog post!
ReplyDelete