Sally, may have played the role of a foil character, but I believe she has her own story to express. As Virginia Woolf tends to do in her novels, she uses each and every possible being to its full effect. In the case of Sally Seton, Woolf not only uses the character to enhance the portrayal of Clarissa, but she also creates a new story all together with a specific theme: in society, the norm is that with age leaves naivety and ambition. This theme ties in with the story well, as it accurately reflects society in its most candid form, unlike other novels in which the plot runs on nearly unbelievably coincidental events. This theme about aging is exemplified by comparing Sally Seton's adolescence with her current state in the novel. She was a free, boundary-breaking girl who lived to her own accord, who, together with Clarissa, did things that society could not imagine at the time. For example, the intimate relationship between the two. As the reader is returned to the present, Sally had settled down with a husband and five sons. Even though she questioned Clarissa's way of living, even at the present (with the parties and such), Sally is the symbol of human aging and how even the wildest of children become disciplined.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Mrs. Dalloway and Sally Seton
Sally Seton, in Mrs. Dalloway, is shown to have lived a very dynamic life. She was portrayed as wild and free-living when she was younger, and yet she calmed and settled as she grew older. Sally plays many roles in the novel. Right off the bat, Sally seems to be the woman in the novel that helps build Mrs. Dalloway's (Clarissa Dalloway) character. The pair has shared intimate and personal experiences which aid in character development, for example the kiss the two shared, or the plans of reforming the world that they shared together.
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Excellent observations. I agree that Sally Seton (or, as she's now known, "Lady Rosseter") is one of the more compelling minor characters in the novel, and not only for her influence on Clarissa. Not only does her story reflect Woolf's general themes of aging and compromise, but there's an important *gender* component to her story as well. Sally, as a youngster, was a kind of gender rebel: she was an advocate for women's suffrage, but even in her daily behavior she challenged conventional ideas of femininity (smoking cigars and reading controversial literature, for example, or talking back to men like Hugh in conversation). A big part of young Clarissa's attraction to Sally has to do with the sense that she imagines great things for her, can't wait to see how she changes the world ("she would paint, she would write"). She also used to *worry* about her ("it was bound, Clarissa used to think, to end in some awful tragedyu; her death; her martyrdom:). So the vague sense of disappointment at seeing Sally's unconventionality so diminished (married to a capitalist, matron of *five boys*!) has a lot to do with gender, with the sense that Sally has succumbed to conventionality in the end.
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