Mrs Dalloway

The plot

Clarissa Dalloway is getting ready for a party she will host with her husband Richard who is an important politician. Peter Walsh, a man she nearly married more than twenty years ago, visits her unexpectedly. He has just returned to London after five years in India.

The cast

  • Clarissa Dalloway is the wife of a wealthy politican. She is over 50 and 'has grown very white since her illness' (page 2). She grew up in a wealthy family at Bourton, their country home, but moved to London when she married. The big love of her life was Sally Seton, whom she once kissed. Peter Walsh caught them in the act, and she never forgave him for it, instead deciding to marry Richard.
  • Richard Dalloway is a Cabinet minister in the government.
  • Elizabeth Dalloway is their daughter (maybe 20-ish)
  • Peter Walsh almost married Clarissa and still feels something for her. He never got over her rejecting him and marrying Richard Dalloway instead. He has a chip on his shoulder about Richard. He is also currently involved with a married woman in India.
  • Septimus Warren Smith is a shell-shocked (?) young man who has come back from WWI a broken man, hallucinating, unable to cope. He commits suicide by jumping from an upstairs window landing on some railings.
  • Rezia Warren Smith is Septimus's Italian wife who is very worried by his strange mental state, but is unable to help him and unable to deal with his descent into madness.
  • Doctor Holmes is the pompous doctor who inadvertently hastens Septimus's suicide by visiting his home to take him to a country retreat (= asylum). He is also a guest at the Dalloways' party.
  • Miss Kilman is trying to exert her influence over Elizabeth, encouraging her to be religious. Mrs. Dalloway thinks she is terrible. Is she a lesbian?
  • Hugh Whitbread is a friend of Clarissa's since her childhood. He works at Court (i.e. something to do with the Royal Family), but is not so high up. His wife Evelyn is often poorly.