MRS. DALLOWAY
SHACKLED BY THE PAST
The novel captures how characters like Clarissa, Smith, Walsh,
Rezia and Seton are in one way, or the other trapped by their respective past. The firm
decision, they had taken in their past, controls their lives. The main character Clarissa could not forget her happy, peaceful life in Bourton, where she lived with her parents before her marriage. Bourton becomes her
yardstick in evaluating all the incidents of her life in London. Thus she is misfit who could not break free of her past. Rezia, who marries Smith because of her passion to live in England pays for it. At one point, she cries that she is alone. She leaves her burdenless life in Florence and her doting family to marry a neurotic. And she suffers for it throughout the novel. Walsh was rejected by Clarissa, and he could not forget it. This remains as a wound in his heart forever. He too is a victim of the past. We could find that past has an inevitable hand in the lives of all these characters.