Peter Walsh's Correction: Inner Life in Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway

As one of the three central characters in Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, Peter Walsh plays a complicated and significant role in both the arc of the narrative and in the characterization of the others in the novel. One of his most significant functions is to illuminate the precarious mental practice of internally correcting his failures to mitigate feelings of social inferiority. His character serves as a commentary on the processes of inner life and the compensation that can result from obsessive self-fashioning. In this essay, I aim to prove how, within Woolf's narrative, Walsh retreats to the realm of inner life, reimagining himself and those around him to correct his shortcomings and the failures of his past.