Peter Walsh

(this picture is from the 1997 British film adaptation of Mrs. Dalloway, where Clarissa kisses Peter after he starts breaking down as he's talking about his love life)

Hello again folks.

In this blog post I would like to discuss Peter Walsh’s character. 

During the first parts of the book, as readers, we didn’t get much insight on Peter and all we knew about him were the things Clarissa was thinking about him; “…a positive imbecile as Peter…he could be intolerable, impossible…”(Woolf 6). Peter doesn’t have the best first impression on the reader through Clarissa’s perspective, though she seems to have at least some favorable feelings towards him, like when he came back from India and unexpectedly came to greet Clarissa. This is when we shift over to Peter’s viewpoint. After he greets Clarissa, he asks, “and what’s all this?” he said, tilting his pen-knife towards her green dress” (Woolf 40). It is implied that he is judging Clarissa and her dress-mending, with his body language and you can almost hear his judgmental tone of voice as he asks that question. Peter also assumes that’s all she’s been doing while he was away in India, which shows how he’s quick to jump to conclusions. Clarissa seems to be aware of his criticalness, as she states, “he’s very well dressed…yet he always criticizes me”(Woolf 40). Peter is quite critical of the people around him, especially Clarissa, her husband Richard, and Hugh. For instance, he criticizes Richard Dalloway, saying, “[Richard] was a thorough good sort; a bit limited; a bit thick in the head; yes; but a good thorough sort. Whatever he took up he did in the same matter-of-fact sensible way; without a touch of imagination, without a spark of brilliancy…he ought to have been a country gentleman—he was wasted on politics”(Woolf 73). Perhaps this criticism is partially because Peter is somewhat jealous of Richard for marrying Clarissa, but we can see on page 72 that Peter also criticizes Hugh: “for all the people he had ever met Hugh was the greatest snob—the most obsequious—no, he didn’t cringe exactly. He was too much of a prig for that”(Woolf 74). This just shows how much his mind is focused on judging other people, whether its Clarissa or the other characters. But why is he like this? Yes it could have been his personality from the start, but I feel like his past caused him to start thinking this way. In the book, Peter sounds like he doesn’t really have a clear direction he is going in life. He can’t get his feelings straight, he overthinks and talks himself into things like loving Daisy or not loving Clarissa (he breaks down in front of Clarissa after talking about his love life), he (way too often) reminisces about his memories with and of Clarissa, is clearly obsessed with her, and is just kind of a mess. He seems to be insecure, as stated: “for himself, he was absurd. His demands upon Clarissa (he could see it now) were absurd. He asked impossible things. He made terrible scenes. She would have accepted him still, perhaps, if he had been less absurd”(Woolf 62). All of this could factor into why he is so critical of others—maybe it makes him feel better about himself and his shortcomings, though it doesn’t seem like he is completely aware of his flaws. He thinks he’s the only one that’s meant to be with Clarissa, though theoretically, if he were to have married Clarissa, he would have somewhat suffocated her with his obsession. He even says he wants to “…carry off Clarissa, to save her from the Hughs and the Dalloways and all the other ‘perfect gentlemen’ who would ‘stifle her soul’…make a mere hostess of her”(Woolf 74). On the other hand, as we see through the perspective of Peter Walsh, we are also able to see the characters in the book from a new, fresh set of eyes. Towards the beginning of the book, Clarissa introduces Hugh to the reader as this "...extremely handsome..." man with a "...perfectly upholstered body..."(Woolf 6), but considering what Peter stated in his criticism of Hugh, it feels like Peter's thoughts about Hugh seem to be more reliable than Clarissa's, as she tends to romanticize her memories with people and could possibly have a bias towards Hugh. Anyways, that is just a snippet of Peter's perspective vs. Clarissa's, which is a different conversation, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that even though Peter Walsh seems like a mess, personality-wise and also up in his head, he has reasons to be and think the way he does, and his perspective could give us new insight on the characters in the book to be able to get a better understanding of them.