Clarissa’s memories of Peter aren’t of moonlight walks or love letters; rather they are the more personal observations, personality traits that were impressed upon her memory “his eyes, his pocket-knife, his smile, his grumpiness” (1). Peter Walsh is Clarissa’s complement rather than her opposite; they fill the emptiness within each other and even after years of separation they are still very much a part of one another, creating the foundation for the other’s life, for the memories and the laughs and the tears that are the substance of self and the threads of identity. Peter and Clarissa are “companions in the art of living,” continually stumbling upon each other in their mind’s eye, constantly realizing how much a part of them the other is (60). Their mutual memories have forever shaped their identities, influencing every action and path taken in life. Of course, the one decision that changed the course of their lives was that of Clarissa to marry Richard Dalloway rather than Peter. This decision jades Peter’s vision of Clarissa, causing him to judge her more harshly than he should at times. He admits that “in some ways no one understood him, felt with him, as Clarissa did” (49) and that “she had influenced him more than any person he had ever known” (172). There is no doubt that Peter Walsh still loves Clarissa, but he begins to admit to himself that perhaps she had made the right choice, and as the novel proceeds his vision of her becomes less bitter, more innocent, like the girl she was before “he was a prey to revelation . . . that she would marry Dalloway” (67).
While Clarissa’s identity is mostly created by the memories of Bourton and her youth, Peter Walsh matures in India while unsuccessfully attempting to escape from his past. Peter needed the extra years of being in India to further separate himself from Clarissa and to become his own person. Peter’s stay in India reintroduced him to a more normal life, rather than a life saturated by the unattainable Clarissa. Peter immerses himself in India, even going so far as to woo a married woman, all in the vain attempt to forget Clarissa, to forget that she has married another man. Peter hides from his past but ironically believes that “women live much more in the past than we do . . . They attach themselves to places; and their fathers” while it is in fact he who still to some extent lives in the past, even after years in India (60). After returning from India he thinks of himself as “an adventurer, reckless . . . swift, daring, indeed . . . a romantic buccaneer,” and this self-image helps him face Clarissa and his old feelings for her (58). There is no doubt that he still loves her, but it is not as urgent, not as infuriating to him as it was in his youth. Peter is very much shaped by his memories that are still so sharp and raw, pervaded with Clarissa and connecting everything to her and the way things were when he still believed that the power of love could bring them together. What Peter comes to realize is that they have never been truly separated because their memories keep them together, perpetuating the bond created in their youth.
However, while Clarissa’s and Peter’s memories might be similar, Virginia Woolf often contrasts Peter’s impression of an event with Clarissa’s, showing their varying viewpoints. The most affecting example of this is when Clarissa asks Peter if he “[remembers] the lake” (46). Completely opposite memories and emotions are called up in each of them by this simple question: Clarissa simply enjoys the memory, recalling when she was young and unencumbered by society’s demands; Peter feels as though he has been stabbed through the heart, all of the pain associated with her rejection reflecting back upon him once more. Similarly, Peter’s description of what Clarissa has become and compared to Clarissa’s opinion of her own self are very different. Peter sees “something cold in Clarissa” and always has, calling her timid and conventional, ready to be molded into whatever people asked her to be (53). He doesn’t understand why she loves to throw parties, not seeing that “what she liked was simply life” even after she explains “That’s what I do it for . . . to life” (136). Woolf creates countering views, allowing the personalities of Peter Walsh and Clarissa Dalloway to develop through not only the eyes of each other but through their own memories as well. Clarissa and Peter are intertwined with each other through their pasts but their paths diverge as their perspectives shift, creating variances in their personalities and self-identities.
Memory, truth and identity are tightly bound together, each complementing and supporting the other. Virginia Woolf’s Clarissa Dalloway and Peter Walsh are created by their memories; they are each a part of the other but also individual and unique because of their differing perspectives. Whether recalling Peter’s ever-present pocket-knife or Clarissa’s love for wearing white gowns, each memory has the power to shape identity, to shape life. Clarissa and Peter’s memories are eternally knotted in the combined tapestry of their lives, never to be disentangled from each other and therefore entwining their lives together as well as their memories of calm summers and bitter storms. Memory can be triggered by anything, causing life to run in a continual loop between the past and the future, the truth and the dream. Peter and Clarissa will always be shaped by their memories; that is, the core of their being. As Clarissa descends the stairs at the end of her party Peter wonders “what is this terror? What is this ecstasy? . . . What is it that fills me with extraordinary excitement? It is Clarissa . . . For there she was” (219). And there she will always be, forever bound in his memory just as he is forever tied into hers, together creating their true identities.
Works Cited
Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. Great Britain: Hogarth Press, 1925.
