Miss Kilman's other pole of self-deception, her sacred dimension, is her main source of strength — and hate. She has turned to religion for solace and peace but does not realize that she is actually waging a small-scale holy war against Clarissa Dalloway. She gives herself absurd grandeur by comparing her suffering in life with Christ's agony. Like the church, she is dogmatic, and like all invaders who wage holy wars, she is terribly self-righteous. She is after Clarissa's soul, the goal of the church, and also the most sacred, individual possession of Mrs. Dalloway. Ironically, Clarissa feared males, rebelling against their tradition-conferred domination. She idealized the natural, easy comradeship of "women together." Yet here, in Doris Kilman, is a monster far more terrifying than any man in Clarissa's life. And, though we see that Clarissa can face Miss Kilman in the flesh, it is the idea of Miss Kilman that terrifies her — the vulgar, envious, destructive force that, like a serpent, has slipped into the Dalloway house and threatens to poison and destroy Clarissa.
Miss Kilman, the sweaty, mackintoshed tutor, looks like a nobody; no one would guess the degree of frustrated possessiveness seething in her: if only she can gain Elizabeth, she will have succeeded, as a first step, in conquering Clarissa Dalloway. Her appearance successfully disguises her goal. But Virginia Woolf shows us Doris Kilman's real nature. When, for example, Miss Kilman is eating in the restaurant with Elizabeth, we see her eating "with intensity" — greedily gobbling down the pink sugared cakes and consuming the chocolate eclairs. Ugly, plain Miss Kilman is trying to devour Clarissa Dalloway and Elizabeth. She is hungry for Clarissa's loveliness, for Elizabeth's youth, for money, poise, and class — arid the cakes and pastries will never sate her. As she stuffs the delicacies into her mouth, we notice her hands. They open and close, the fingers curling inward. It reminds us of the convulsive, spreading claws of a cat who is intent on its prey.
