Society’s Influence on Different Sexual Relationships

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Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway: | Society’s influence on different sexual relationships | | | | Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway: Society’s influence on different sexual relationships Virginia Woolf was a significant modernist writer who wrote Mrs Dalloway in post war Britain in the 1920’s. Like TS Elliot’s works of the time, she too made social commentary on the effects that the Great War had on the UK and that society had to relook at its frivolous and trivial lifestyles of the past. The war had changed people and their perspective on many things, such as equality of the sexes and the classes. This essay will explore how Woolf portrays the differences between the socially acceptable relationships of the time and the potential disruption and influence that society had regarding alternative relationships. The relationships that Clarissa Dalloway has with the other characters in the book reveal as much about her personality as her own thoughts and expressions do. The one relationship in particular is that of her childhood relationship with Sally Seton. The memories she has of Sally are happy, exhilarating and joyful. She puts Sally on a pedestal because she was everything that Clarissa was not. In Clarissa’s memory she was a rebellious, adventurous girl who had a devil may care attitude. Sally ran naked through the hallway at Bourton, Clarissa’s childhood home, which shocked the servants and her behaviour also frequently shocked Clarissa’s stuffy old Aunt Helena. In the first sentence of the chosen extract Clarissa Dalloway uses the words “purity” and “integrity” to describe her feelings for Sally Seton. This indicates that there is innocence about her feelings for Sally and that it is almost simplistic and uncomplicated. These are happy memories for her. As Sparknotes states “Clarissa remembers going downstairs in a white dress to meet Sally, thinking

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