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Mrs Dalloway Masculinity

Decent Essays

I found both Peter Walsh in Mrs. Dalloway and Mr. Ramsay in To the Lighthouse to be very interesting characters within the topic of “masculinity.” Through these characters, Woolf gives us a different idea of what masculinity is and questions what society’s idea of masculinity is. Though they deem themselves as separate and higher than women, both Peter Walsh and Mr. Dalloway depend on women more than they’d like to admit. We begin to see that perhaps these men are not so masculine after all. Or perhaps, masculinity can take on a different form than we think. Through the first interaction between Clarissa Dalloway and Peter Walsh we get a solid sense of his character and personality. It seems to be an ongoing narration of Peter criticizing Clarissa, feeling self conscious about himself, then realizing he is still in love with Clarissa. “Shall I …show more content…

Being around Clarissa makes him return to the summer in Bourton and reflect on the things that happened as well as the way things could have gone differently. It seems that Peter is blaming Clarissa for many things. His confusion, a broken heart, and his unsure attitude of what he wants. Instead of confronting his problems, he continues to hide behind them and blame others for making him feel the way he does. When Peter goes to dinner before arriving at Clarissa’s party, we get an image of the man Peter wishes to be. Instead of a man who is self conscious, unsure of himself, and stuck in the past, we get an image of a confident and respectable man. “It was his way of looking at the menu, of pointing his forefinger to a particular wine, of hitching himself up to the table, of addressing himself seriously, not gluttonously to dinner, that won him their

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