Sentimentality and Gender in Virginia Woolf and Laurence Sterne

Virginia Woolf employs eighteenth-century sentimentality in her work and when she does, it has always been assumed that she perceived sentimentality in the same negative way as the Victorians. Woolf, however, adopts Laurence Sterne's playfulness with sentimentality. In A Sentimental Journey, Sterne exposes the ravages of war and the topsy-turvy nature of culture when it is built on empire. Sentimentality is expressed for the weak and abject, but Sterne understands that these abject characters are soldiers that previously served the nation. In Jacob's Room, Woolf exposes the same with Betty Flanders expressing sentiment for fallen soldiers. In addition to this sentimentality is a false sentimentality that men learn at institutions like Cambridge, even though sentimentality is associated with feminine weakness. In Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf is the most ambivalent about sentimentality and hoping to find a sense of true feeling. Clarissa Dalloway, Peter Walsh, and Septimus Warren Smith, all display a sense of true of feeling in addition to the false sentimentality. Because of rigid class differences, Septimus is the most natural without having learned sentimentality at Cambridge. His lack of learning and his true feeling make him an outsider, and he must escape society. In The Waves, the men all adopt false sentimentality. The women are outside because they are not allowed to attend Cambridge, but like Betty Flanders, Jinny is able to learn sentimentality. The most natural and wild character who is outside this false sentimentality is Rhoda, and she too must escape society.