- All's Well That Ends Well
- Antony and Cleopatra
- As You Like It
- The Comedy of Errors
- Coriolanus
- Cymbeline
- Hamlet
- Henry IV, Part 1
- Henry IV, Part 2
- Henry V
- Henry VI, Part 1
- Henry VI, Part 2
- Henry VI, Part 3
- Henry VIII
- Julius Caesar
- King John
- King Lear
- Love's Labor's Lost
- A Lover's Complaint
- Macbeth
- Measure for Measure
- The Merchant of Venice
- The Merry Wives of Windsor
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Othello
- Pericles
- The Rape of Lucrece
- Richard II
- Richard III
- Romeo and Juliet
- Shakespeare's Sonnets
- The Taming of the Shrew
- The Tempest
- Timon of Athens
- Titus Andronicus
- Troilus and Cressida
- Twelfth Night
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona
- Venus and Adonis
- The Winter's Tale
One afternoon, after Charles returns to his rooms, Ernestina takes off her dress and admires herself in the mirror wearing only her underclothes. When she has a sexual thought, she immediately puts on a dressing gown. In this passage, Fowles explains Ernestina’s state of mind in relation to anything sexual or bodily. Because Ernestina represents the conventional Victorian woman, in contrast to Sarah, this description of Ernestina’s attitude also provides a general idea of how Victorian society regards sexuality.
Ernestina does everything she can to completely ignore the existence of and necessity for sex. This is more or less what…