Clarissa marries Richard because he is, in her eyes, the perfect husband for the angel in the house. He has a respectable job, knows the right people, and has the desire to become successful. Clarissa wants to be the wife of and someone who would be content with her partial giving of her heart and her mind, not someone like Peter. Richard gives her the independence she needs. “For in a marriage a little license, a little independence there must be between people living together day in day out in the same house; which Richard gave her, and she him” (Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway). He allows her to form her identity through her parties and does not require her to think for herself. The independence is Clarissa’s escape from her inner desires and thoughts about the decisions she makes and whether they make her happy. Richard holds the attitude women should not be passionate and express themselves fully. Woolf shows her disgust with in her essay on Professions for Women: “For though men sensibly allow themselves great freedom in these respects, I doubt that they realize or can control the extreme severity with which they condemn such freedom in women” (Woolf, Professions). Peter unlike Richard, is not put off by the idea of a strong, passionate woman. Peter wants Clarissa to kill the angel in the house and become a woman driven by her desires; he is upset by her waste of potential.
here she is mending her dress, mending her dress as usual, he thought; here she’s been sitting all the time I’ve been in India; mending her dress; playing about; going to parties, running to the House and back and all that, he thought, growing more and more agitated, for there’s nothing in the world so bad for some women as marriage, he thought; and politics, and having a Conservative husband, like the admirable Richard. (41)
Peter is the only person in Clarissa life to see her true intelligence but also her weaknesses. Clarissa could not marry Peter since he would not have given her the independence she needs. Peter wants an emotional commitment from Clarissa and wants her to do something more worthwhile in her life. Peter forces Clarissa to think for herself, he would not allow her to hide behind the angel. Clarissa does not think of herself as intelligent because intelligence is an addition to being a good wife and requires Clarissa to give more than she would like to give: “Not that she thought herself clever, or much out of the ordinary” (Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway) Society has so ingrained women’s sole purpose into Clarissa head that she did not realize her potential. To realize her full potential would be admitting she is unhappy with her life. Clarissa tells lies to herself and others to convince them she is happy with the angel living in her head. She does not think about the past, her relationships, her regrets because “All of these questions, according to the Angel in the House, cannot be dealt with freely and openly by women, they must charm, they must conciliate, they must-to put it bluntly-tell lies if they are to succeed” (Woolf, Professions). Clarissa is able to convince herself she is happy with her life and this is what helps her continue to stay married.
Unlike Clarissa Dalloway, Laura Brown does not embrace the idea of the angel in the house. Her restrictions are far greater since Laura knows of her intelligence and of the life she is missing out on: “She, Laura, likes to imagine that she has a touch of brilliance herself, just a hint of it.” “Here is the brilliant spirit, the woman of sorrows, the woman of transcendent joys, who would rather be elsewhere, who has consented to perform simple and essentiality foolish tasks, to examine tomatoes, to sit under a hair dryer, because it is her art and her duty” (42). Laura is not able to use her intelligence for better things since she bound to the angel. Unlike Clarissa, Laura thinks for herself and fights the angel constantly in her mind. She questions the importance of domestic tasks and finds family life exhausting. Laura wishes she was able to just accept her fate with as much grace as Clarissa. Marriage for her is her duty; it is what every respectable young woman does and she needs to surrender to the angel if she is going to be happy with her current life.
Laura suppresses the angel inside her head by reading. Reading is Laura’s escape from her daily life consumed with domestic tasks. “One page, she decides, just one. She isn’t ready yet; the tasks that lie ahead are still too thin, too elusive. She will permit herself another minute here, in bed before entering the day” (Cunningham 40). Laura reads Mrs. Dalloway as a man would, allowing her internal desires to come alive: “you cannot review even a novel without having a mind of your own, without expressing what you think to b e the truth about human relations, mortality, sex.” (Woolf, Professions) Laura is embarrassed by her thoughts since the angel would not approve so she hides her reading. Laura ultimately needs to leave her family so she is able to read freely and think solely for herself. Clarissa represents the type of wife Laura wants to be for Dan but Laura can see into Clarissa and senses her unhappiness. Clarissa ironically gives Laura the strength to kill her angel, to leave her family. Clarissa is able to avoid her thoughts but Laura is not able to. Laura can not bear the thought of sacrificing all of her dreams for her family.
Laura’s cake is as important to her as Clarissa's parties are to Clarissa. Her attempts at baking a cake may seem simple and ordinary but to Laura it encompasses all her efforts to accept the angel in the house. She wants this cake to look perfect so it can mask her imperfections: “There’s nothing really wrong with it, but she’d imagined something more. She imagined it larger, more remarkable” (99). All she can see is the shortcomings, of how she is not living up to the angel’s standards. The cake is another failure as is Dan making his own breakfast on his birthday and buying her flowers. Dan has taken on some of the angel’s duties since Laura is incapable.
Laura is similar to Mrs. Dalloway in the sense they need to society to see them as flawless. Laura does not want others to see her struggle with the angel. She is feels as though Kitty can see right through her, seeing all the flaws on the cake. Laura’s thoughts are similar to Clarissa thoughts about her appearance when she sees Hugh on the street. After hearing Kitty’s health problems and hearing she does not have the prefect relationship with her husband, Laura is able to open up. Laura feels relief that not everyone is as happy as they seem and other’s are always lying to themselves and others to appear to be: pure: “Her purity was supposed to be her chief beauty” (Woolf, Professions). Kitty impurity gives her strength to admit her own unhappiness with her life.
The characters Clarissa Dalloway and Laura Brown show how the phantom of the angel in the house is always present in a woman’s mind. A woman is caught between her own desires and the desires of the angel and needs to find a way to balance them. Clarissa never questions her life so she is able to live with the angel in her head, submitting herself to a life filled with sacrifices. Clarissa will never live up to her full potential or experience passion because of this. Laura sees Clarissa Dalloway’s unhappiness and emotional withdrawal and knows she can not live life suppressing her unhappiness. Laura kills her angel in the only way she can, by leaving her family. Laura leaves to live a life on her own terms, acting on her personal desires. Laura hopes to be able to reach her potential now that the angel is gone, in ways Clarissa never will.
Works Cited
Cunningham, Michael. The Hours. New York: Picador USA, 1998.
Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. San Diego: Harcourt, Inc., 1925.
Woolf, Virginia. “Professions for Women.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature, he Major Authors. 6th. Ed, M.H. Abrams, et al. New York and London: Norton, 1996.
