Mrs. Dalloway One

"She had a right to his arm, though it was without feeling. He would give her, who was so simple, so impulsive, only twenty-four, without friends in England, who had left Italy for his sake, a piece of bone." (Woolf 16)

 In Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, Richard finds Clarissa in Italy when she is a young and naive woman of twenty-four, and brings her home to England to make her his bride. Clarissa, being a rather impulsive woman, agrees to go with him. Virginia Woolf suggests with her language that Mrs. Dalloway was once a plain and humble girl, who was starving for affection and therefore would take whatever was thrown at her. A bone was tossed by Richard Dalloway, and she hungrily took the bait. Because of the way Richard courted Clarissa, the relationship structure becomes slightly less affectionate and more because marriage is what is expected of young, proper gentlemen.

Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. New York: Harcourt, Brace and, 1925. Print.