Chapter 7 Summary

Virginia Woolf walks down the street, planning Mrs. Dalloway's suicide. She decides to give Clarissa a first love - a woman. In her youth, when everything seems possible, Clarissa will fall in love with a woman and be excited and happy about the future. Clarissa must then "come to her senses, as young women do, and marry a suitable man." (pg. 82) Virginia decides Clarissa will kill herself when she reaches middle age. For the moment, Virginia focuses on the young lover, what she should be like. Virginia decides to make her brave and scandalous, like her own sister Vanessa. The author talks to herself while walking down the street, and people raise their eyebrows at the odd scene Virginia makes as she talks to herself.

Back at her home, Hogarth House, she pauses to get into character. She reminds herself that she is...