How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Before Richard's decline, Clarissa always fought with him. Richard actually worried over questions of good and evil, and he never, not in twenty years, fully abandoned the notion that Clarissa's decision to live with Sally represents, if not some workaday manifestation of deep corruption, at least a weakness on her part that indicts (though Richard would never admit this) women in general, since he seems to have decided early on that Clarissa stands not only for herself but for the gifts and frailties of her entire sex. (1.29)
Exactly what is it about Clarissa Vaughan's decision to live with her partner, Sally, that displeases Richard Brown? It isn't homophobia or conservative cultural values, so what's the problem? Does he not think they love each other enough, or in the right way? Is he jealous?
Quote #2
He had a habit of asking about Sally after one of his tirades, as if Sally were some sort of utterly banal safe haven; as if Sally herself (Sally the stoic, the tortured, the subtly wise) were harmless and insipid in the way of a house on a quiet street or a good, solid, reliable car. Richard will never admit to nor recover from his dislike of her, never; he will never discard his private conviction that Clarissa has, at heart, become a society wife […]. (1.29)
This is the reason why Richard Brown is so disgruntled by Clarissa Vaughan's life with her partner, Sally. From his perspective, Sally has domesticated Clarissa (the former flower child), and has turned her into a "society wife"—just like the original Mrs. Dalloway.
Quote #3
You respect Mary Krull, she really gives you no choice, living as she does on the verge of poverty, going to jail for her various causes, lecturing passionately about the sorry masquerade known as gender. You want to like her, you struggle to, but she is finally too despotic in her intellectual and moral intensity, her endless demonstration of cutting-edge, leather-jacketed righteousness. You know she mocks you, privately, for your comforts and your quaint (she must consider them quaint) notions about lesbian identity. (1.31)
Under certain circumstances, Clarissa Vaughan and Mary Krull could be political allies. But because Clarissa holds more traditional and culturally conservative ideas about femininity, domesticity, and lesbian identity, she and Mary—a radical queer and gender theorist—are usually at odds.