Mrs. Dalloway 7

• "She could see Peter out of the tail of her eye, criticising her, there, in that corner. Why, after all, did she do these things? Why seek pinnacles and stand drenched in fire? Might it consume her anyhow! Burn her to cinders! Better anything, better brandish one's torch and hurl it to earth than taper and dwindle away like some Ellie Henderson!" (p. 167-168)

Clarissa Dalloway has an emotional breakdown during her party even though she has carried these inner feelings throughout the entire novel. Clarissa cares way too much about what people think of her, is deathly afraid of failure, and hates to be criticized. She feels that she constantly needs to be impressing people, and if she hasn't reached the top, she feels extremely unsuccessful. Virginia Woolf relates Clarissa's feeling of failure to the character Ellie Henderson. Ellie is Clarissa's dreary cousin who doesn't really fit into the crowd, thought of as plain, and doesn't have many qualifications. Clarissa imagines her hypothetical downfall to be much like the life Ellie Henderson leads.