"We are shockingly late, dear Mrs. Dalloway..."

"We are shockingly late, dear Mrs. Dalloway, we hardly dared to come in," she [Lady Bradshaw] said.

At Clarissa's party, it is interesting that nearly everyone refers to her as "Clarissa" when they see her, rather than "Mrs. Dalloway." As I was looking for a quote to put into my essay, I stumbled across Lady Bradshaw's line at the party, where she greets Clarissa as "Mrs. Dalloway." This struck me as very interesting; why would Woolf make a point of having the wife of Sir William Bradshaw refer to Clarissa as "Mrs. Dalloway" when nearly everyone else in the book refers to her as "Clarissa?"

It makes perfect sense though, because Virginia Woolf wrote Septimus's doctors with her own doctors in mind, who did not understand her at all. They didn't understand the nature of her illness (or of Septimus's) and therefore did not understand who she really was.

I see Clarissa in part as a reflection of Virginia Woolf, so it makes all the sense in the world to have Clarissa on similar terms with the doctor and his wife as Woolf was with her doctors. Lady Bradshaw doesn't understand Clarissa enough to see her as independent; she only sees Clarissa as the surface-level "Mrs. Dalloway" and nothing else. I imagine Virginia's doctors viewed mental illness the same way--as a surface-level only type of illness where there is nothing of value underneath.

(This is also another way that Clarissa and Septimus are connected; the doctors don't understand him, and their wives fail to understand Clarissa. Also, Septimus doesn't like them, and Clarissa has very similar feelings.)