Peter Walsh

Peter Walsh is a major character in Mrs. Dalloway. He contrasts with Clarissa Dalloway's character in that his and Clarissa's personalities create a new depth to each of the characters. Clarissa, in the present moment, represents a socially-bound character whose outer life is much more tame than her self-conflicts. On the other hand, Peter represents the opposition to Clarissa's lifestyle. One particularly interesting trait about Peter is his tendency to fiddle with his pocket knife. Whenever he is conflicted or nervous, he pulls out the knife and fiddles around, following the curves of the knife with his fingers, which possibly represents his instability. I think this is an important aspect about Peter, because even though Peter seems narrow-minded and set on his ideals when the novel follows his perspective, the way he fumbles with his knife shows that he is uncertain about what he is usually very straight about. This shows how similar Peter and Clarissa actually are, because on some level, they both are very self-conflicted. Even though they seem so different at first glance, they really do share similar traits. This is why Peter plays such an important role, he aids in categorizing the type of person Clarissa is by acting as a skewed reflection of Clarissa's self.