Clarissa's Choices

In Mrs. Dalloway, Peter and Richard play Clarissa's opposing love interests. Why did Clarissa terminate her relationship with Peter after he returned from India for her? I believe it is due to her aging personality. She may have been marginally wild as a young girl, which would have been compatible with Peter's beliefs, but after aging, she has lost a large portion of ambition. She may hold onto memories of adventure, but she acts on these feelings with only a portion of her gusto (it is not known whether she is capable or not of doing so). For example, she kisses Peter only to follow by rejecting his proposals and putting a wall between herself and him. Instead, she remains, distant but together, with Richard. Human compatibility is a mysterious topic but one simple explanation for Clarissa's decision to remain with Richard is that she seeks to lead a stable life. This typical habit of seeking a stable partner is evident in real-life representations such as The Bachelor. On The Bachelor, the (wo)man starts out with selecting the (wo)men he/she is attracted to, but in the end it is the person who seems most husband-like that is selected. In the time period which Clarissa lived, Richard's status and occupation made him an ideal husband, as opposed to Peter, who represented a relatively less-dependable source of support.

Of course, in the end nobody will know whether Clarissa's decision to stay with Richard was for the better because of the dynamic of human nature. Who knows what Clarissa may have become if she decided to marry Peter the first time around. We will never know, except that Clarissa did only what most vanilla people would have done.