A room of one's own

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own (1929) Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own (1929) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Summary The dramatic setting of A Room of One's Own is that Woolf has been invited to lecture on the topic of Women and Fiction. She advances the thesis that "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." Her essay is constructed as a partly-fictionalized narrative of the thinking that led her to adopt this thesis. She dramatizes that mental process in the character of an imaginary narrator ("call me Mary Beton, Mary Seton, Mary Carmichael or by any name you please—it is not a matter of any importance") who is in her same position, wrestling with the same topic. The narrator begins her investigation at Oxbridge College, where she reflects on the different educational experiences available to men and women as well as on more material differences in their lives. She then spends a day in the British Library perusing the scholarship on women, all of which has written by men and all of which has been written in anger. Turning to history, she finds so little data about the everyday lives of women that she decides to reconstruct their existence imaginatively. The figure of Judith Shakespeare is generated as an example of the tragic fate a highly intelligent woman would have met with under those circumstances. In light of this background, she considers the achievements of the major women novelists of the nineteenth century and reflects on the importance of tradition to an aspiring writer. A survey of the current state of literature follows, conducted through a reading the first novel of one of the narrator's contemporaries. Woolf closes the essay with an exhortation to her audience of women to take up the tradition that has been so hardly bequeathed to them, and to increase the endowment for their own daughters. Analysis of Major Character The Narrator The unnamed female narrator is the only major character in A Room of One’s Own. She refers to herself only as “I”; in chapter one of the text, she tells the reader to call her “Mary Beton, Mary Seton, Mary Carmichael or any other name you please . . . ” The narrator assumes each of these names at various points throughout the text. The constantly shifting nature of her identity complicates her narrative even more, since we must consider carefully who she is at any given moment. However, her shifting identity also gives her a more universal voice: by taking on different names and identities, the narrator emphasizes that her words apply to all women, not just herself. The dramatic setting for A Room of One’s Own is Woolf’s thought process in preparation for giving a lecture on the topic “women and fiction.” But the fictionalized narrator is distinct from the author Woolf. The narrator lends a storylike quality to the text, and she often blends fact and fiction to prove her points. Her liberty with factuality suggests that no irrefutable truth exists in the world—all truth is relative and subjective. The narrator is an erudite and engaging storyteller, and she uses the book to explore the multifaceted and rather complicated history of literary achievement. Her provocative inquiries into the status quo of literature force readers to question the widely held assumption that women are inferior writers, compared to men, and this is why there is a dearth of memorable literary works by women. This literary journey is highlighted by numerous actual journeys, such as the journey around Oxbridge College and her tour of the British library. She interweaves her journeys with her own theories about the world—including the principle of “incandescence.” Woolf defines incandescence as the state in which everything is personal burns away and what is left is the “nugget of pure truth” in the art. This is the ideal state in which everything is consumed in the intensity and truth of one’s art. The narrator skillfully leads the reader through one of the most important works of feminist literary history to date. Themes The Importance of Money For the narrator of A Room of One’s Own, money is the primary element that prevents women from having a room of their own, and thus, having money is of the utmost importance. Because women do not have power, their creativity has been systematically stifled throughout the ages. The narrator writes, “Intellectual freedom depends upon material things. Poetry depends upon intellectual freedom. And women have always been poor, not for two hundred years merely, but from the beginning of time . . .” She uses this quotation to explain why so few women have written successful poetry. She believes that the writing of novels lends itself more easily to frequent starts and stops, so women are more likely to write novels than poetry: women must contend with frequent interruptions because they are so often deprived of a room of their own in which to write. Without money, the narrator implies, women will remain in second place to their creative male counterparts. The financial discrepancy between men and women at the time of Woolf’s writing perpetuated the myth that women were less successful writers. The Subjectivity of Truth In A Room of One’s Own, the narrator argues that even history is subjective. What she seeks is nothing less than “the essential oil of truth,” but this eludes her, and she eventually concludes that no such thing exists. The narrator later writes, “When a subject is highly controversial, one cannot hope to tell the truth. One can only show how one came to hold whatever opinion one does hold.” To demonstrate the idea that opinion is the only thing that a person can actually “prove,” she fictionalizes her lecture, claiming, “Fiction is likely to contain more truth than fact.” Reality is not objective: rather, it is contingent upon the circumstances of one’s world. This argument complicates her narrative: Woolf forces her reader to question the veracity of everything she has presented as truth so far, and yet she also tells them that the fictional parts of any story contain more essential truth than the factual parts. With this observation she recasts the accepted truths and opinions of countless literary works. Motifs Interruptions When the narrator is interrupted in A Room of One’s Own, she generally fails to regain her original concentration, suggesting that women without private spaces of their own, free of interruptions, are doomed to difficulty and even failure in their work. While the narrator is describing Oxbridge University in chapter one, her attention is drawn to a cat without a tail. The narrator finds this cat to be out of place, and she uses the sight of this cat to take her text in a different direction. The oddly jarring and incongruous sight of a cat without a tail—which causes the narrator to completely lose her train of thought—is an exercise in allowing the reader to experience what it might feel like to be a woman writer. Although the narrator goes on to make an interesting and valuable point about the atmosphere at her luncheon, she has lost her original point. This shift underscores her claim that women, who so often lack a room of their own and the time to write, cannot compete against the men who are not forced to struggle for such basic necessities. Gender Inequality Throughout A Room of One’s Own, the narrator emphasizes the fact that women are treated unequally in her society and that this is why they have produced less impressive works of writing than men. To illustrate her point, the narrator creates a woman named Judith Shakespeare, the imaginary twin sister of William Shakespeare. The narrator uses Judith to show how society systematically discriminates against women. Judith is just as talented as her brother William, but while his talents are recognized and encouraged by their family and the rest of their society, Judith’s are underestimated and explicitly deemphasized. Judith writes, but she is secretive and ashamed of it. She is engaged at a fairly young age; when she begs not to have to marry, her beloved father beats her. She eventually commits suicide. The narrator invents the tragic figure of Judith to prove that a woman as talented as Shakespeare could never have achieved such success. Talent is an essential component of Shakespeare’s success, but because women are treated so differently, a female Shakespeare would have fared quite differently even if she’d had as much talent as Shakespeare did. Symbols A Room of One’s Own The central point of A Room of One’s Own is that every woman needs a room of her own—something men are able to enjoy without question. A room of her own would provide a woman with the time and the space to engage in uninterrupted writing time. During Woolf’s time, women rarely enjoyed these luxuries. They remained elusive to women, and, as a result, their art suffered. But Woolf is concerned with more than just the room itself. She uses the room as a symbol for many larger issues, such as privacy, leisure time, and financial independence, each of which is an essential component of the countless inequalities between men and women. Woolf predicts that until these inequalities are rectified, women will remain second-class citizens and their literary achievements will also be branded as such. Important Quotations Explained 1. Call me Mary Beton, Mary Seton, Mary Carmichael or any other name you please—it is not a matter of importance. Explanation for Quotation 1 >> This line comes from Chapter One, and its enigmatic and elusive tone regarding the true identity of the narrator is maintained throughout the text. Woolf and the narrator both struggle with the same issues, but they are two distinct entities. The narrator is a fictionalized character—an invention of Virginia Woolf—and she remains vague about her true identity. In this quotation she even instructs the reader to refer to her by different names. This lack of one “true” identity for the narrator gives A Room of One’s Own a sense of being universal: the ideas apply to all women, not just one. The lack of one identity also makes the narrator more convincing. By taking on different identities, the narrator transcends one single voice, and consequently she makes herself a force to be reckoned with. Her blasé attitude about something that is considered fixed and important by most people—identity—makes her all the more intriguing. 2. A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction. Explanation for Quotation 2 >> This phrase from Chapter One is perhaps the most famous line from A Room of One’s Own, and it functions as the thesis of the work. The phrase “a room of one’s own” has gained such a stronghold in our culture that it has almost become a cliché. With this line, and the entire book, Woolf has touched off one of the most important assertions of feminist literary criticisms. The oft-held argument that women produce inferior works of literature must necessarily be qualified by the fact of the circumstances of women. Unlike their male counterparts, they are routinely denied the time and the space to produce creative works. Instead, they are saddled with household duties and are financially and legally bound to their husbands. By being deprived of rooms of their own, there is little possibility for women to rectify the situation. Even though this is clearly a historical truth, Woolf’s assertion was revolutionary at its time. It recast the accomplishments of women in a new and far more favorable light, and it also forced people to realize the harsh truths about their society. 3. One must strain off what was personal and accidental in all these impressions and so reach the pure fluid, the essential oil of truth. Explanation for Quotation 3 >> This assertion, presented in Chapter Two, characterizes the narrator’s initial mission in A Room of One’s Own. She endeavors to find the absolutely essential truth and expose it, but over the course of the text, the narrator comes to realize that no absolute truth exists. She sees that the experience of each person and his or her life is inextricable from his or her perceptions of reality. In other words, we cannot remove the self, the historical period, or any other inherent biases from someone’s opinion. Everything depends on everything else, and the kind of person someone is absolutely influences everything he or she does—even the kind of art he or she creates. This idea is connected to her argument that the plight of women has influenced the dearth of good literature that they have produced. The narrator fictionalizes A Room of One’s Own, demonstrating this synthesis of fact and fiction. 4. It would have been impossible, completely and entirely, for any woman to have written the plays of Shakespeare in the age of Shakespeare. Explanation for Quotation 4 >> This passage in Chapter Three is one of the most significant conclusions of A Room of One’s Own. While the more common argument is that the lack of important, impressive literary works by women proves that they are less capable than men, the narrator takes the opposite approach. She chooses to examine her historical period and question the context in which women are judged. What she realizes is that the playing field is incredibly unequal. Given the circumstances of the treatment of women of her time, there is no way they could have rivaled men in literary achievements. The narrator invents the figure of Judith Shakespeare to illustrate this point. She tells a story of a fictional twin sister of Shakespeare, who is just as talented as her famous brother but, because she is a woman, her talent leads to a very different end. 5. Life for both sexes—and I look at them, shouldering their way along the pavement—is arduous, difficult, a perpetual struggle. It calls for gigantic courage and strength. More than anything, perhaps, creatures of illusion that we are, it calls for confidence in oneself. Explanation for Quotation 5 >> Woolf presents this claim in Chapter Two. She asserts this point amidst a discussion about the unequal treatment of women by men. In this discussion, she cites men as the reason for this—she believes that men have systematically subordinated women in order to reinforce their own confidence as the more capable sex—but she does not blame men for this. Rather, she sympathizes with men in their quest for confidence, and she speaks of the importance of confidence in creating art. The lack of confidence amongst women has led to the generally inferior quality of their art. To Woolf, the anger in women about their plight as second-class citizens is reflected in their writing. And yet, they persist. She relates the fact that women continue to write even though they are actually lacking in confidence to the way that people continue living their lives even when wracked by doubt about their relevance in society. In this way, she depicts women as valiant. …………………. Virginia Woolf, one of the founders of the movement known as Modernism, is one of the most important woman writers in English. Her "stream-of-consciousness" essays and novels provide an invaluable insight into both her own life experiences and those of women at the beginning of the twentieth century. Her most famous works include Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), Orlando: A Biography (1928), The Waves (1931), and her most recognized work, A Room of One's Own (1929). A Room of One's Own is an extended essay, based on Woolf's lectures at a women's college at Cambridge University in 1928. In it, Woolf addresses her thoughts on "the question of women and fiction," interpreted by Woolf as many questions. In A Room of One's Own, Woolf ponders the significant question of whether or not a woman could produce art of the high quality of Shakespeare. In doing so, she examines women's historical experience as well as the distinctive struggle of the woman artist. Questions to Think About: What is the meaning of the title of this piece? When asked to speak of women and fiction, Woolf replies with a discussion of why it is important for women writers to have their independence. According to Woolf, what is the relationship or connection between rooms of one's own and "women and fiction"? Woolf defines the question of women and fiction as being three inextricable questions: women and what they are like; women and the fiction they write; and women and what is written about them. What answers does she provide for each of these questions? What are women like, according to Woolf? What kinds of fiction do (or, as of 1928, did) women write? What is (or, as of 1928, was) written about women? Why does Woolf say she is disappointed in herself for being unable to come to a conclusion that students can write in their notebooks and take away from them? Why would this be so important as a part of a lecture? Why would it be so important to Woolf to be able to do so? Woolf writes, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is going to write." What does this mean to Woolf? Why does it matter so much when Woolf walks on the turf at Cambridge University, and what does she make of this event? Why is a woman barred from admission to the University's library? Why does her exclusion make her so angry that she vows never to ask for "such hospitality" again? What importance is it that the dinner at the women's college is "not good"? How does this lead to an exloration of the founding of the women's college? What is Woolf's broader conclusion about women and their cultural poverty that this incident leads to? What does Cambridge University represent for Woolf, a Modernist? How is it a symbol of Victorianism? Why are men so rich and women so poor, according to Woolf? What are the historical roots for women's poverty? What explains the startling contrast between women's estate in fiction (as "shining beacons" and as symbols of humanity) and in history (as slaves)? What is the significance of the list of references to women she discovers in the course of her reading? What sorts of arguments about women does Woolf find in English writing prior to 1928? Why has the woman artist, according to Woolf, led a life of such "disorder" and struggle? How does Woolf argue against the assumption that "no woman can write the plays of Shakespeare"? What does Woolf mean by the statement, "Who can measure the heat and passion of a poet's heart when it is caught and tangled in a woman's body"? Why, according to Woolf, have so many women written under assumed--male--names? What history of women's writing does Woolf identify in A Room of One's Own? Woolf discusses the ways in which limits of propriety blighted Jane Austen and Emily Bronte's writing, but she also argues that they both wrote "as women write." What does Woolf mean by this? What does her identification of this quality in Austen's and Bronte's writing say about Woolf's view of women's cultures? What does Woolf mean when she says, "There is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of the mind"?