I think that Sally’s character is one of the most relatable and interesting characters in the book, even when compared to the 21st century. She is a female character that tends to act of her own accord and is quite daring compared to the rigid Victorian ideals that she grew up knowing. She even is said, by Peter, to have “suddenly lost her temper, flared up, and told Hugh that he represented all that was most detestable in British middle-class life. She told him that she considered him responsible for the state of ‘those poor girls in Piccadilly’”, when getting into an argument with Hugh about his conservative views on women’s rights.
Not to belabor the point, but just to prove how unconventional Sally is in relation to her rather stuffy and conservative fellow characters at the age of 18, she: “ran along the passage naked” and “bicycled round the parapet on the terrace; smoked cigars” and, perhaps most notably, Clarissa describes how Sally “kissed her on the lips”. Clarissa characterizes Sally as “reckless” and “absurd”. At this point in the book, the only thing I wanted to know about was: what happened to Sally Seton? Was she traveling around pulling similarly daring stunts? Did she have some kind of career? No. Sally Seton was married.
Now I don’t have the best personal 20th century gauge for how surprising it is that Sally settled down with a nice, rich, conservative husband and life. The reader, however, at least has Peter’s commentary on the situation: “It was Sally Seton--the last person in the world one would have expected to marry a rich man and live in a large house near Manchester, the wild, the daring, the romantic Sally!”
Ultimately, I think Sally’s story is very telling about the limited pathways for women in the late 19th and early 20th century. Even in relation to what happened to Clarissa, what Clarissa and Peter keep imagining what Clarissa could have been and how she could have possibly become like Sally instead of becoming the naive and proper “perfect hostess”. Contrasting young Clarissa and young Sally is easy and almost instinctual to the reader in that they are almost perfect opposites that are, like opposites do, attracted to each other (as friends or otherwise).
And yet, they both end up at about the same station in life when all is said and done in middle age. The question I pose then is this: why does Sally have to settle into the life she never apparently wanted in her younger years? Why give up her freedom and strong morals just to get married? And did she really have a choice?
Your blog post brings up an interesting point on the 20th century's suppression of women's rights and overall conservatism. Sally in my mind is the perfect expression of freedom and liberalism, but gets ultimately suppressed by the wall of conservatism, because it is dominant at hand.
ReplyDeleteI see Sally's life as a reflection of the "childhood best friend" that everyone has. Whether it's your neighbor or a school friend, I'm assuming most people have a friend that they can think back to with fond memories. Even just the idea of this friend brings back a sense of nostalgia and it reminds you of the vividness of life when you were younger. However, this "childhood friend" inevitably grows up and when you see them again many years later, there's a bit of a sad feeling and that's the feeling that I think people get when they see Sally. Is it truly her that has become suppressed, or is it just the contrast between her grown-up self and the memories that the other characters have of her?
ReplyDeleteIt was definitely a surprise when I first found out because Sally was described as quite different from Clarissa and it was odd to think that freedom loving Sally would settle down with a rich man. Sure, Sally's personality would have changed over the decades, but would it in such a way to lead to such a result? It does reinforce to me the limited options Sally would have, with society heavily enforcing ideas of marriage (focused on wealth, not love) and family upon woman.
ReplyDeleteI think Sally's life choices kind of back up the sense of nostalgia Clarissa feels, because no one from her youth is the same anymore. Peter has aged and he's about to marry someone else, she doesn't even sleep in the same room as her husband, and even her closest friend has given in to conventionality. This just makes Clarissa's memories even more powerful, because she can never get those times or those people back in the same way.
ReplyDeleteI feel quite sad thinking about Sally and where she ended up, as it really highlights the inevitability of the path that most women ended up taking - Sally shows that even someone like her, with her wild and different personality, would end up exactly the same as women who fit the role from the start. Does this mean that her core personality didn't matter at all to her future and life? A disheartening thought.
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