Daisy

Daisy is the married woman in India whom Peter Walsh hopes to marry, although his desire is bound up with jealousy, uncertainty, and a recurring wish for freedom from attachment. She has two young children and is the wife of a Major in the Indian Army. The novel gives little direct access to her independent perspective: she emerges chiefly through Peter’s recollections, a photograph, and his account of her letters, while the practical consequences of leaving her marriage remain in view around his romantic hopes.

Identity and Circumstances

When Peter tells Clarissa Dalloway about Daisy, he presents her as a married woman, the wife of a Major in the Indian Army, with a boy and a girl. He says he has come to England to consult his lawyers about a divorce. The description makes clear that the proposed marriage is not a simple beginning: Daisy’s existing marriage and her children shape what a future with Peter would demand of her.

A photograph in Peter’s pocket gives her a more particular presence in his thoughts. It shows Daisy on a verandah, dressed in white, with a fox-terrier on her knee. Peter regards it as the best likeness he has of her, and his attention to the image reveals how much his attachment is sustained by memory and projection while she is away.

Peter’s Account of Their Relationship

Peter’s feelings do not settle into a straightforward story of devoted courtship. He remembers that during an earlier period he could go for hours and days without thinking of Daisy; later, he wonders whether he had been in love with her then, when he recalls the intensity and misery of that time. He also imagines that the present balance has changed: he believes Daisy is now in love with him. Yet when her ship sails, he feels relief and wants to be alone. Her attentions for the voyage—cigars, notes, and a rug—strike him as burdensome rather than welcome.

That relief coexists with possessiveness. Peter reads Daisy’s letter about meeting Major Orde as an attempt to make him jealous, and the possibility that she might marry someone else makes him furious. He recognizes that his trip to England to see lawyers is not simply a determined effort to marry her: part of him wants to prevent her from marrying another man. His jealousy therefore exposes a gap between wanting Daisy to belong to him and accepting the responsibilities that a shared life would entail.

A Future Imagined, Then Questioned

In his conversation with Clarissa, Peter places Daisy before her in imagination, as if Clarissa’s response might confirm the importance of his attachment. Clarissa, however, sees the woman taking shape in his account as partly his invention. She thinks he has been deceived before and considers his pursuit a folly, even while recognizing that he is in love. Their exchange makes Daisy a point of intimacy between Clarissa and Peter as well as the subject of Peter’s romantic plans: Clarissa can understand him, but she does not simply endorse the future he presents.

Peter’s imagined reunion is especially vivid when he looks at Daisy’s photograph. He pictures her as eager to give him everything he wants and recalls her as young, charming, and ready to run to meet him. This imagined welcome is sharply contrasted with the practical uncertainty that follows. Peter wakes at night wondering what marriage would mean for Daisy, not merely for himself. Mrs. Burgess, to whom he has confided, suggests that his absence in England might make Daisy reconsider; she points to Daisy’s social position and the prospect of giving up her children. The possibility of marriage thus appears as a choice carrying costs for Daisy that Peter’s romantic vision cannot erase.

Attachment and Narrative Significance

Peter admires the faithfulness and daring he associates with loving Daisy, yet he doubts his own ability to match such devotion. He recognizes a tendency to see around things, tire of mute devotion, and want variety in love; at the same time, he cannot bear the idea of Daisy loving anyone else. The contradiction is not resolved by the narrative. His longing is genuine, but so are his desire for solitude and his possessive jealousy.

Daisy’s role is consequently defined by a tension between presence and distance. She is concrete in the details Peter keeps—a photograph, letters, and small preparations for a voyage—but much of the future he attributes to her remains his own imagined version of what she would choose. The novel’s account of her through Peter makes that imbalance consequential: his feelings can be intense without establishing what Daisy herself will decide. Her remembered image becomes a measure of the difference between Peter’s capacity to desire lasting love and his capacity to live within its demands.