Great Works II

From the very start of the book where Clarissa heads off to buy flowers for her part in the evening, we can see that the mood of the story changes quickly. Through her walk, she stumbles upon shops and her observations that bring back memories of her past and much criticism and self-reflection of herself. She reminisces about the time she rejected Peter Walsh for marriage and it seems like she still has feelings for him despite Peter making her cry with his judgments on Clarissa wanting to marry a rich guy and throw parties. This holds somewhat true, since Clarissa married Richard is who rich and it brings to her the notion that everyone she knows, and she knows a lot of people, will just know her as Richard’s wife. She feels a sense of a low identity in which she lives in the shadow of her successful husband. She puts herself down which brings up the idea of agency to the extent where Clarissa doesn’t really exercise this to remove herself from this shadow. She also mentions that her affection isn’t there for him but for a female friend, Sally Seton.
Clarissa holds a conflicted mindset that enables thoughts within her to be unhappy with who she really is. She projects these thoughts through memories of her youth, significant moments in her life and current events. This novel seems to take the sequence style of Frankenstein in a way that the story is taught through other stories but Mrs. Dalloway, is a story within stories by the views of Clarissa and then Peter. Clarissa seems to be out of place and question’s her role in life. In addition, she wonders what would happen if she were to have married Peter Walsh instead of Richard. The denial of marriage from Clarissa is a recurring theme in the novel as both Clarissa and Peter think about their past regarding them heavily. Although Peter is critical of Clarissa and still bears the pain of rejection after many years and on the other hand, we have Clarissa who is not engaged in her marriage and has wonders about how things would’ve turned out if she married Peter. Self-reflection is an obvious in this novel and a big contributor to opening up the emotions of characters within this book.