Bruton and Seton

I really enjoyed the character of Lady Bruton when Richard and Hugh Whitbread went to her house. I found her refreshing, as I did Sally Seton, as they are both strong willed characters. Many of Woolf’s female characters seem confined in their lives, with Rezia feeling stuck in a failing marriage to Septimus and Clarissa being forced to wonder what her life could’ve been if she had married Peter. Bruton and Sally are both stimulating characters in a book full of self-doubting, depressed, and crazy people. They both seem to enjoy life and don’t take part in the bipolarity that seems to affect most of the characters. Sally is passionate about flowers and having fun. She is lively. So is Lady Bruton; she is a talkative activist. The inclusion of such lively characters in the book paints a very interesting dichotomy.

Besides Septimus, Sally and Bruton are the only characters in Mrs. Dalloway that I really enjoy, which is why Woolf’s characterization of them at times upsets me. In a book where all of the female characters seemed to be defined by the men they are with, Bruton and Sally are different. Supposedly. But Woolf ruins this characterization. We hear at one point in the novel that the free-spirited Sally has settled down and become a good, respectable housewife. What?!?! We also witness, after hearing Lady Bruton being compared to a general and speaking without reserve, Bruton’s inability to write a simple letter. She has to call upon Richard and Hugh to write a letter on her behalf. Are you serious?!?! After writing two great characters, Woolf ruins them. After spending all that time to show that these characters are indifferent, that they are self-sufficient, Woolf destroys this characterization.