We realize the futility of answering such a question. It is a question that Virginia Woolf tried not to answer with a portrait, but with a novel-as-sketch. Human beings, she knew, are mixtures. So is the present — and the past. Within themselves, human beings are composed of their concepts, their memories, and their presents; and, in the eyes of other people, the same human beings are composed of another set of impressions, emotions, and distortions. To get a true sense of Clarissa Dalloway, one must not look for a clearly outlined, traditionally dimensioned reproduction of a fictional character. The pieces of Clarissa which Virginia Woolf has given us do fit together, but each person's impression of Clarissa must be considered as being separate, yet valid; then if we realize this, and draw back and see the novel as a sketch, as shadowy, as a series of gestures, and not as a complete, composed picture, we see a work of art far more exciting and multi-dimensional than had the author merely created a conventional figure in a conventional plot.
The novel ends as Clarissa is approaching Peter. We end by observing Clarissa Dalloway, along with Peter, as he says, "there she was." We see multiple images; we see the mystery, the variety and the richness of a human being who is far more than a hostess. We are particularly aware of the mystery because the spirit of our age is scientific and too often we expect when we finish a book to say, "I know all about that character." One cannot say that about Clarissa Dalloway. We have continually seen how different people interpret what they see and what they hear.
