Richard/Richie Character Analysis

Richard’s chair, particularly, is insane; or, rather, it is the chair of someone who, if not actually insane, has let things slide so far, has gone such a long way toward the exhausted relinquishment of ordinary caretaking—simple hygiene, regular nourishment—that the difference between insanity and hopelessness is difficult to pinpoint. The chair—an elderly, square, overstuffed armchair obesely balanced on slender blond wooden legs—is ostentatiously broken and worthless.[…] Richard will not hear of its being replaced.

It seems suddenly easy to bake a cake, to raise a child. She loves her son purely, as mothers do—she does not resent him, does not wish to leave.

How often since then has she wondered what might have happened if she’d tried to remain with him; if she’d returned Richard’s kiss on the corner of Bleecker and MacDougal, gone off somewhere (where?) with him, never bought the packet of incense or the alpaca coat with the rose-shaped buttons. Couldn’t they have discovered something…larger and stranger than what they’ve got?

Laura releases Kitty. She steps back. She has gone too far, they’ve both gone too far, but it is Kitty who’s pulled away first. It is Kitty whose terrors have briefly propelled her, caused her to act strangely and desperately. Laura is the dark-eyed predator. Laura is the odd one, the foreigner, the one who can’t be trusted. Laura and Kitty agree, silently, that this is true.

Laura glances over at Richie. He is still holding the red truck. He is still watching.

Before following them, Virginia lingers another moment beside the dead bird in its circle of roses. It could be a kind of hat. It could be the missing link between millinery and death.

She would like to lie down in its place. No denying it, she would like that.

The truth is that he does not love Hunter and Hunter does not love him. They are having an affair; only an affair. He fails to think of him for hours at a time. Hunter has other boyfriends, a whole future planned, and when he’s moved on, Louis has to admit, privately, that he won’t much miss Hunter’s shrill laugh, his chipped front tooth, his petulant silences.

There is so little love in the world.

Leaving the desk, she can hardly believe she’s done it. She has gotten the key, passed through the portals.

He will watch her forever. He will always know when something is wrong. He will always know precisely when and how much she has failed.

“But there are still the hours, aren’t there? One and then another, and you get through that one and then, my god, there’s another. I’m so sick.”

Richard smiles. He shakes his head. He says, “I don’t think two people could have been happier than we’ve been.”

He inches forward, slides gently off the sill, and falls.

The candles are lit. The song is sung. Dan, blowing the candles out, sprays a few tiny droplets of clear spittle onto the icing’s smooth surface. Laura applauds and, after a moment, Richie does, too.

“So,” Dan says after a while. “Are you coming to bed?”

“Yes,” she says.

From far away, she can hear a dog barking.

They settle into another silence, one that is neither intimate nor particularly uncomfortable. Here she is, then, Clarissa thinks; here is the woman from Richard’s poetry. Here is the lost mother, the thwarted suicide; here is the woman who walked away. It is both shocking and comforting that such a figure could, in fact, prove to be an ordinary-looking old woman seated on a sofa with her hands in her lap.

And here she is, herself, Clarissa, not Mrs. Dalloway anymore; there is no one now to call her that. Here she is with another hour before her.

“Come in, Mrs. Brown,” she says. “Everything’s ready.”

Richard’s chair, particularly, is insane; or, rather, it is the chair of someone who, if not actually insane, has let things slide so far, has gone such a long way toward the exhausted relinquishment of ordinary caretaking—simple hygiene, regular nourishment—that the difference between insanity and hopelessness is difficult to pinpoint. The chair—an elderly, square, overstuffed armchair obesely balanced on slender blond wooden legs—is ostentatiously broken and worthless.[…] Richard will not hear of its being replaced.

It seems suddenly easy to bake a cake, to raise a child. She loves her son purely, as mothers do—she does not resent him, does not wish to leave.

How often since then has she wondered what might have happened if she’d tried to remain with him; if she’d returned Richard’s kiss on the corner of Bleecker and MacDougal, gone off somewhere (where?) with him, never bought the packet of incense or the alpaca coat with the rose-shaped buttons. Couldn’t they have discovered something…larger and stranger than what they’ve got?

Laura releases Kitty. She steps back. She has gone too far, they’ve both gone too far, but it is Kitty who’s pulled away first. It is Kitty whose terrors have briefly propelled her, caused her to act strangely and desperately. Laura is the dark-eyed predator. Laura is the odd one, the foreigner, the one who can’t be trusted. Laura and Kitty agree, silently, that this is true.

Laura glances over at Richie. He is still holding the red truck. He is still watching.

Before following them, Virginia lingers another moment beside the dead bird in its circle of roses. It could be a kind of hat. It could be the missing link between millinery and death.

She would like to lie down in its place. No denying it, she would like that.

The truth is that he does not love Hunter and Hunter does not love him. They are having an affair; only an affair. He fails to think of him for hours at a time. Hunter has other boyfriends, a whole future planned, and when he’s moved on, Louis has to admit, privately, that he won’t much miss Hunter’s shrill laugh, his chipped front tooth, his petulant silences.

There is so little love in the world.

Leaving the desk, she can hardly believe she’s done it. She has gotten the key, passed through the portals.

He will watch her forever. He will always know when something is wrong. He will always know precisely when and how much she has failed.

“But there are still the hours, aren’t there? One and then another, and you get through that one and then, my god, there’s another. I’m so sick.”

Richard smiles. He shakes his head. He says, “I don’t think two people could have been happier than we’ve been.”

He inches forward, slides gently off the sill, and falls.

The candles are lit. The song is sung. Dan, blowing the candles out, sprays a few tiny droplets of clear spittle onto the icing’s smooth surface. Laura applauds and, after a moment, Richie does, too.

“So,” Dan says after a while. “Are you coming to bed?”

“Yes,” she says.

From far away, she can hear a dog barking.

They settle into another silence, one that is neither intimate nor particularly uncomfortable. Here she is, then, Clarissa thinks; here is the woman from Richard’s poetry. Here is the lost mother, the thwarted suicide; here is the woman who walked away. It is both shocking and comforting that such a figure could, in fact, prove to be an ordinary-looking old woman seated on a sofa with her hands in her lap.

And here she is, herself, Clarissa, not Mrs. Dalloway anymore; there is no one now to call her that. Here she is with another hour before her.

“Come in, Mrs. Brown,” she says. “Everything’s ready.”