Gender and Death

One of the most fascinating characters in Mrs. Dalloway seems to be Peter Walsch. His ambivalence and ability to not make a decision makes him such a relatable character to the audience. At the same time Peter represents the male gender well with the way his personality seems to be masked by a hard shell that cannot let people in. Peter represents the male gender while Mrs. Dalloway represents the female gender. Virginia Woolf shows cultural differences between these two characters in Mrs. Dalloway. What is expected by society of the two characters, their interests, and mental thoughts differ greatly. As much as these two characters differ though, they are similar in their thoughts of death.

Men during the 1920’s are fascinated in innovation. Airplanes are flying overhead like never before and buildings are going up taller and thinner. They are the master of their industry. This male fascination with machinery can be seen when Peter is going on his walk of London. He stops to regard the monuments left after warfare and also notices the new technological developments around London from when he was last there. Probably more important to Peter than any of these previous sights is the sight of a woman who he is obviously attracted to as he is on his walk. His drive and interest in this woman causes him to follow this woman for a good mile or two in downtown London.

Clarissa goes on a walk similar to Peter’s. They occur at separate times but go through about the same area. It is interesting to note what Clarissa notices during her walk compared to the masculine representations Peter sees during his walk. Clarissa instead sees flowers. She sees beautiful sights and focuses in on the shops and boutiques she passes by. Clarissa’s representation of the female gender does it justice. The women of her class during this time would be concerned with the outer appearance of things just as Clarissa is.

While these two characters represent two opposite genders, they are similar in the way they both think about death. Peter carries his pocketknife around as if it is a weapon and he is defenseless without it. When Woolf goes inside Peter’s thoughts we see he is almost always going back to the idea of death. The female he follows during his walk seems to be a brief distraction from the thoughts of impending death. Clarissa has her weapon too when Peter comes to visit but hers is a sewing needle, thus supporting Clarissa’s representation of the female gender. And when Woolf leaves the mind of Peter for Clarissa, we see that Clarissa has experienced a good deal of death in her family already yet she is no more comfortable with the idea than when we see Peter’s thoughts. Woolf has made a very interesting point with her gender representations using these characters. People during the time must have had these impending thoughts of death probably due to the poor working conditions at the turn of the century. It seems that distraction to the idea of death is the only way to live life with some sort of peace.