About halfway through Mrs. Dalloway, we finally meet the character that fills the role of Clarissa Dalloway's husband: Richard Dalloway. Up until this point, we have learned a fair amount about Richard and his relationship with Clarissa, through Clarissa's own thoughts, as well as her flashbacks to when she was 18. However, we have never actually been exposed to Woolf's use of free indirect discourse through Richard himself. Clarissa describes her relationship with her husband Richard as fairly simplistic and uninteresting, claiming that Richard does not really care for Clarissa and that he never does anything significant for her. However, observing Richard's emotions and reactions in the scene after lunch at Lady Bruton's makes me think that Richard might not be so indifferent to Clarissa after all. More importantly, this scene shows that Richard and Clarissa's relationship goes deeper than the the shallow, superficial level that Clarissa makes it out to be.
Immediately after finishing lunch at Lady Bruton's, Richard and Hugh Whitbread walk across the street towards a jewelry shop. Richard, seeing Hugh walk into the shop after staring through the window, feels a moment of indecisiveness regarding whether he should enter the shop or not. Eventually, he decides to enter in after Hugh Whitbread. Richard's decision at this point is peculiar, as he even says in a following paragraph that he certainly would not enjoy shopping for jewelry with Hugh Whitbread. Why then did Richard decide to enter the store in the first place? The answer lies within the nature of Richard's relationship with Clarissa, as well as Richard's observations of Hugh Whitbread within the store. Once inside the store, Richard sees the determination and experience that Hugh expresses towards getting a present for his wife. At first, this act of Hugh's seems extremely odd to Richard, and he starts to think his history of buying jewelry for Clarissa. This prompts an anecdote in Richard's mind, in which he remembers one of the rare times when he bought Clarissa a bracelet as a present. He goes on to recount that this action of his did not end well, as Clarissa never wore the bracelet. It seems that in the heat of the moment, Hugh's vast experience in buying presents for his wife, along with the idea that Richard himself has rarely bought presents for Clarissa, overwhelm Richard. He starts to think impulsively and with anxiety as he frantically searches for the perfect gift for Clarissa. Richard's actions in this scene show that he is, in fact, considerate of Clarissa, as he is genuinely searching for the gift that will best appeal to Clarissa. While his character may be fairly basic and his mindset simplistic at times, we can observe Richard's true feelings towards Clarissa in this scene: he is simply trying to do his best to please Clarissa and receive a feeling of redemption for his past actions in this aspect.
Richard's charisma and true love towards Clarissa are even more apparent in the scene following the one at the jewelry store. After deciding on roses as the present to bring to Clarissa, Richard sets off on his journey home. All throughout his walk home, Richard is thinking about one thing: that he is going to tell Clarissa that he loves her. While a simple idea in itself, Richard's mindset in this scene is critical to understanding the relationship between Richard and Clarissa, from a perspective other than Clarissa's. The fact that Richard thinks of proclaiming his love to Clarissa the entire way home shows that Richard is indeed considerate and cares for Clarissa. It is true that he doesn't have all the time in the world to spend with her, but these events show a strict contradiction with Clarissa's notion that Richard doesn't care for her. He obviously cares for her, enough that he is willing to buy flowers for her and walk all the way home, simply to express to his wife that he loves her. We finally observe the depth in Richard and Clarissa's relationship in perhaps the most important scene pertaining to this idea of the validity of Richard as a substantial husband to Clarissa. Despite his constant thoughts about the passion with which he is going to say to his wife "I love you," when Richard actually arrives home and greets Clarissa, he can't muster up the strength to actually say the words. While some might think that this exhibits Richard's inability to communicate with Clarissa and might characterize their relationship as weak based off of this, I would argue the opposite. It is the fact that they are able to understand each other on a deeper level and the idea that their relationship exists, and maybe even thrives, on a level past the superficial that allows them to understand what each other are thinking during this heartfelt moment. Clarissa understands what Richard is attempting to get across, and Richard understands that Clarissa knows this. Because Richard and Clarissa share this intimate connection, they sit happily and are able to understand what they each are thinking with respect to each other, all without Richard having to say anything that even remotely resembles the phrase "I love you" to Clarissa.
I found Richard and Clarissa's relationship to be quite puzzling. It's interesting that when we are reading Clarissa's narration, she refers a lot more to others, like Peter, than to her actual husband, but when we are in Richard's head, we get a passage solely focused on her. I definitely do think that they feel very comfortable and have a connection with one another, but I sometimes doubt the extent of Clarissa's feelings for him because a big portion of the book she spent wondering whether or not she had made the right decision to marry him.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard not to like Richard in this whole passage, especially in the scene in the jewelry store (where the contrast with Hugh--and his critical comments about how "pompous" Hugh is acting--really sets him off in a good light). And his ineptitude is, I think, part of what makes him so genuinely admirable and maybe even familiar here. Hugh is the guy who just knows how things are done--he knows which manager to insist to see in order to get the service he's accustomed to, etc. He will do (once again; we get the sense that it's rather routine) what he's "supposed to" do as a husband, and life will go on. Richard, as you say, is suddenly taken with an intense desire to communicate his daily, enduring affection for Clarissa, and he flails about trying to find some socially coherent way to do so (to "say it in so many words"). He knows he's an inept purchaser of jewelry, but he tries anyway, eventually settling (good call, Richard!) on flowers. Which, of course, the reader already knows will resonate strongly with Clarissa--we get parallel scenes of her going to "get the flowers herself," and him marching, bouquet in hand, up to her room. He doesn't manage to say those words, as you note--but he succeeds in communicating the feeling.
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