Nothing is Black and White

Having just completed tonight's reading, I realized something that seems very significant: there are no "bad" characters in this book at all. Although Clarissa is a snob, she is also wise and has depth as a person. She loves life and doesn't lose value because she is a snob.

Initially, I did not like Peter at all because of how Clarissa introduced him as the type of guy who is obnoxious, pretentious, and judgmental even though he seems to be in love with her. However, after spending some time inside Peter's head, I couldn't help but sympathize with him. It was the same with Richard--I wasn't sure at first whether I liked him because of Clarissa's initial attitude toward him. She seemed like she didn't really care about him that much, and didn't seem to think he was all that wrapped up in her. After being in Richard's head though, I really like him. He's conscious of social classes and doesn't think very positively of them. Even though his wife is clearly a snob, he doesn't treat her in the rude way that Peter does, and he doesn't even think of her as a snob, which I think is pretty admirable.

The same goes for other characters, such as Lady Bruton. At first when Clarissa reacted to her own lack of a lunch invitation from her, I assumed that Lady Bruton was a snob to an even greater extent than Clarissa. Of course, when I got inside Lady Bruton's head and heard about her time spent with her brothers riding her pony named Patty. Hearing about people's childhoods makes me see them as more human and real for some reason, and the characters in Mrs Dalloway are no exception.

It is interesting and odd to be reading a book with characters that are actually all likable in one way or another. I can sympathize with every single one of them. This is especially weird for me, because with almost every character there is something I either don't like about them or something I think I don't like about them, but there are many more things that I do like. This mimics human beings so well, and ultimately contributes to Woolf's excellent job of creating "real" characters.