- Richard Dalloway - We don't meet him until well into the book. We get quite a negative picture of him from Peter (and Bourton-Sally, who conjures Peter to save Clarissa from Richard), who recounts his Richard at Bourton as somewhat of an uninteresting buffoon. For the first half of the book, as we peer into Clarissa's thoughts, we shift uncomfortably in our seats as she makes statements that put the happiness of her marriage into questions. But when we finally uncover Richard, he turns out to be, if not sweet, endearingly dopey. His excitement and anticipation when he thinks of expressing his love to her is cute. Richard is a pleasant surprise.
- At the end of the book (pg. 184, to be exact), Sally (Lady Rosseter, oh, the irony) passes judgement on Clarissa for marrying Richard and slipping into a life, as she puts it, of "all this" -- of all the parties and hobnobbing. Peter, of course, has been having similar thoughts throughout the entire party and the entire novel. What's fun about this particular instance is that, in the other room, Clarissa is having a very deep moment after she hears of Septimus' suicide.
Even the old bat Mrs. Kilman gets this subtly treatment. The way in which she proudly brands herself as not-one-of-the-rich but still envies them is insufferable for sure, but as readers, we can see where her hatred of Clarissa comes from. Perhaps that is one of the points of the novel; that everybody is such a complicated and varying ball of emotions and contradictions that for anybody else to be able to characterize them is near impossible.
But that's not 100% true, because we still walk away with some idea about the nature of the person that we read -- their "net" qualities that we can distinguish from the tangled mess that is their inner monologue. I would still call Mrs. Kilman "net bad." She's particularly disturbing in the way that she only takes pleasure in eating anymore, so bitter is she towards the rest of the world.
One of the two significant characters to whom Woolf's subtle characterization and my "net" terminology doesn't seem to apply to is Hugh. I'll give it to him, Clarissa seems to like him, or find him harmless. Fine. NOBODY else does. I laughed aloud during the party scene, in which the narration bounced from character to character, and every time Hugh was seen anew, something defamatory was said about him. I think my favorite is Sally on 184 (again -- it's an excellent page):
"Hugh Whitbread it was, strolling past in his white waistcoat, dim, fat, blind, past everything he looked, except self-esteem and comfort."
I am inexplicably reminded of a balloon at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
I wonder if Woolf meant anything by making Hugh the black sheep of her cast -- the one who doesn't get to be complicated. It's worth noting that another decently universally hated figure -- in a novel where other character's opinions are often somewhat close to the mark, yet unavoidably simplistic -- is the much more secondary character of Dr. Bradshaw. Knowing a bit of Woolf's history is key to understanding Bradshaw's treatment; she was prescribed the rest cure for her breakdown, and was skeptical of psychiatrists because of it. Perhaps Woolf is using Hugh as a comment on early 20th-century British pomp.
I love the description of Hugh as a balloon at the Thanksgiving Day parade! You're right that he gets less positive commentary than any other character--somehow even the epithet "admirable" sound like a backhanded compliment ("the admirable Hugh!"), as if nothing more specific can be said about him except that he "can be admired." But there is a kind of benign tolerance expressed toward him--like, yeah, he's pompous and self-important, and he overestimates "his little job at court," but he's not *evil*. He's basically harmless.
ReplyDeleteHugh has assumed *such* a conventional but ineffectual role in public life, seemingly, that all that can be said of him is that he's "harmless."
Your summation of a character's qualities to determine "net goodness" intrigues me. I think that this kind of quality quantification would only work in a book with a narration style such as Mrs. Dalloway. Otherwise there wouldn't be nearly as complete a view of the ins and outs of a character.
ReplyDeleteDr. Bradshaw almost certainly would be considered "net bad," based on the few opinions of him we get, even accounting for the potential bias Woolf may have against him. But I also wonder about other characters. Would you consider Peter "net good" or "net bad?" He is a compelling character that is interesting and not completely stuck in the pomp of high English society, but he is in some ways a societal let down. He got himself into a failed marriage and is currently (in the book) trying to get another married couple divorced for his own sake. Plus he does seem to be a bit stuck on the past and what could have been with Clarissa.
I'm not so sure where I would put him. I want to say that he deserves a "net good" score, but at least from what I remember of him there seems to be more negatives to him. And so, while your idea is interesting, it becomes incredibly difficult when you have to assign values to certain to the qualities that we know about a character.
I thought your post was very interesting. Every character is complex, except for Hugh, whom nobody likes. Clarissa seems to have the least aversion to him, but still says that he is intolerable. Besides, Woolf doesn't even elaborate on Hugh. Bradshaw had the one page about him, but Hugh doesn't get much more than everyone else's view of him--that he is fat, pompous, and self-centered. And the few moments we have in Hugh's brain confirm this, especially when he thinks of the trouble he will have to go through to try to get Peter Walsh a small job. I hadn't thought about the lack of complexity that Hugh had before.
ReplyDeleteYou make a very interesting point. I would add that Woolf makes no attempt to complicate our perception of Dr. Holmes, and to some extent Dr. Bradshaw. I think Woolf has allowed her resentment of the psychiatrists of her time to override her desire of creating authentic human characters, and the result is complete vilification of Dr. Holmes. The class has come somewhat to their defense.
ReplyDeleteYour post was really intriguing; I never thought of the fact that Woolf doesn't really go into that much depth with Hugh as a character! Something that I specifically like about Woolf is how she is big on the fact that people aren't always what they appear to be, and there's things going on under the surface that we can't see. Maybe in this case with Hugh is the exception. Perhaps he's basically how people perceive him to be, and that's why Woolf didn't bother so much with this character.
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