Homosexuality

For many of Woolf’s era, homosexuality was one of society’s biggest taboos and yet Clarissa admits that the day she kissed Sally Seton was the “most exquisite moment of her whole life” (35). While, on the outside, Clarissa appears to be a model woman in British society - acting just as she was expected to - this revelation serves as the antithesis to the ideal. By admitting that she had not only participated in kissing a woman but that she had liked it, Clarissa breaks out of the mold of her time period and the oppression placed on her by her contemporaries. While blatantly the picture of housewife perfection, Clarissa’s secret is her personal method of undercutting society and its traditional bounds.