Lifting the Victorian Veil and the Coming of Age of ModernismIn Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf challenges accepted beliefs about gender roles and sexuality in London of the post-war era, while lifting the veil of Victorian culture and revealing the advent of Modernism and delving into the complex psyche of Clarissa Dalloway and other characters. During the 1920s, when Mrs. Dalloway was written, rigid Victorian standards of gender identity and sexuality were yielding to modernist philosophies. Furthermore, Woolf's work presents some of these evolving ideologies through the introspections of Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Warren Smith, including revolutionary (for the time) beliefs about gender roles and sexuality. Accordingly, the content of this article focuses on Woolf's reinterpretation of gender identity and sexuality as the culture of post-World War I Britain transitioned from Victorian to modernist thinking and practices. The period following World War I was a time of disillusionment and impetus for social policies and increased political change. Woolf writes: “The late age of worldly experience has brought forth in all of them, in all men and women, a well of tears. Tears and pain; courage and resistance” (6). It was from this “well of tears” that individualist thought challenged existing social constructions surrounding gender identity and sexuality, and Woolf shares a candid look at these complex issues that are still relevant today. Woolf's opening words, “Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself” (1) reveal much about the female gender identity and personality of the protagonist, Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway, an aristocratic and privileged woman in post-war London. The foundation of Clarissa's identity is the socially and financially advantageous position that offers her the freedom to pursue the purity and integrity that Woolf spoke of regarding Clarissa and Sally. However, social issues related to gender roles and sexuality remain unresolved even in today's progressive society; as a result, Mrs. Dalloway resists. Works Cited Krouse, Tonya. “Sexual Deviance in “Mrs. Dalloway": The Case of Septimus Smith." Virginia Woolf Miscellany 70 (2006): 15-16. Literary reference center. Network. July 15, 2014.Schiff, James. “Rewriting Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway: Homage, Sexual Identity, and the One-Day Novel of Cunningham, Lippincott, and Lanchester.” Criticism.Vol. 45, no. 4. (2004): 364. Web. July 11, 2014. Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co, 1925. Kindle file. Wyatt, Jean M. “Mrs. Dalloway: Literary allusion as structural metaphor. PMLA. ModernLanguage Association. vol. 88, no. 3 (1973): 440-451. Network. 11 July 2014.