Love and Marriage in Mrs Dalloway

Love

The theme of love is one which encompasses all of the characters throughout the novel, especially Clarissa, who throughout this documented day thinks about all of the different loves in her life. Woolf shows us that these loves in Clarissa’s life are all examples of what Clarissa’s life could have been like. Each one symbolises a passionate but quickly extinguished life, a safe but boring life and a life with a whisper of passion but also with a constant question of what could happen in the future. 

Love is also seen as something that it very hard to express between the characters as shown with Peter and Richard, both of whom are trying to show their love for Clarissa. Even though Clarissa’s marriage to Richard is one that is portrayed as somewhat boring but dependable and traditional, he does seem to love his wife, but is trapped by his own emotions (‘partly one’s lazy; partly one’s shy’) which won’t let him completely open up his heart or mind to Clarissa. 

For Peter, even though he has trouble expressing his love, he believes that it is something that can only happen once in his life, the fact that he thinks so highly of love and puts it first explains why Clarissa’s rejection hurt him so badly and became the centre of his life. This emphasises Clarissa’s words that ‘love destroyed too’ and highlights the damaging effect that love can have on people. 

Throughout the novel, Woolf makes it a point of showing the readers that Clarissa is married to Richard, however she is also attracted to Peter and carries a deep love and admiration for her childhood friend Sally; this emphasises the complex emotional life of adulthood, and the impossibility of generalising social or sexual roles and as a result Clarissa conforms to Woolf’s own ideology about the fluidity and flexibility of the human psyche, especially in terms of romantic love between other people. The complexity of love is also shown through the relationship between Septimus and Rezia as it seems throughout the novel that although Septimus cares deeply for Rezia, she loves him much more than he loves her.

Marriage

Throughout the novel, Woolf aims to capture the truths and realities of marriage in the 20^th century and also shows that for many in the novel marriage is no more than a societal necessity in their lives. Woolf already emphasises the heroine’s marital status in the title of the novel, drawing the reader’s attention to the fact Mrs Dalloway is an ordinary woman of her time and as a result she is defined in terms of her husband and her identity is submerged in his, even her first name is erased by her social signature. 

For Septimus marriage is an attempt to stop his emotional numbness as he marries Rezia as a desperate escape rather than love in contrast to Rezia who wholeheartedly loves Septimus. Even from their introduction, Septimus viewed Rezia as an interruption (‘she was always interrupting’) and a disruption from the unity that Septimus had established with nature. Despite the fact that Rezia unconventionally holds and exerts the authority in her matrimony, Septimus still possesses control over her as he requires incessant supervision and Rezia is submitted to him and cannot do anything but look after him, meaning that she has to look after the household as well as her husband. 

Rezia is imprisoned within her marriage and is constrained in the bond that joins them. It could also be said that Clarissa is also struggling from the same problem as Woolf illustrates to the readers that the marriage between Richard and Clarissa is one that is not entirely based on love but rather necessity and convenience. This is also emphasised by the fact that Clarissa and Richard have a seemingly one-sided marriage and Woolf, throughout the novel is very ambiguous about Clarissa’s feeling towards Richard. They remain together merely because marriage is the social bond that keeps them together. 

In the novel there are also a few unmarried female characters, such as Lady Bruton, who breaks with the standards of society, unlike many of the female characters she doesn’t have to comply with any male boundary at all and is free to delve into sections of society that are considered as decidedly male; as a result of her unmarried nature she possesses the whole authority of her life. Much unlike Lady Bradshaw who is also another minor character in the novel who is caged by her husband’s strong endorsement of ‘proportion’, she is no longer allowed to do the activities she wants to, showing her husband’s dominance over her. This emphasises Woolf’s idea that marriage restrains a woman’s advancement in society and acts as a bond and a constraint for women especially. 

Quotes 

• ‘Everyone gives up something when they marry.’ (pg 72)
• ‘For there’s nothing in the world so bad for some women as marriage,’ (pg 44)
• ‘Then came the most exquisite moment of her whole life passing,’ (pg 38)
• ‘Love destroyed too. Everything that was fine, everything that was true went,’ (pg 139)
• ‘Every man fell in love with her and she was really awfully bored.’ (pg 148)
• ‘This being Mrs Dalloway; not even Clarissa anymore; this being Mrs Richard Dalloway.’ (pg 11)
• ‘Her wedding ring slipped – she had grown so thin.’ (pg 25)
• ‘Was it that she had taken off her wedding ring? ‘My hand has grown so thin.’’ (pg 73)
• ‘Love between man and woman was repulsive to Shakespeare.’ (pg 97)
• ‘Husbands had difficulty in persuading their wives […] of her interest in women who often got in their husbands’ way, prevented them from accepting posts abroad,’ (pg 116)
• ‘Mr Dalloway was always so dependable;’ (pg 117)
• ‘Power was hers, position, income.’ [Lady Bruton] (pg 122)
• ‘And there is a dignity in people; a solitude; even between husband and wife a gulf; that one must respect,’ (pg 131)
• ‘Love and religion! […] How detestable, how detestable they are!’ (pg 138)
• “Love and religion would destroy that, whatever it was, the privacy of the soul.’ (pg 139)
• ‘It might have been better if Richard had married a woman with less charm who would have helped him more in his work.’ (pg 197)