A Room Of One's Own

The book ‘A Room of One’s Own’, by Virginia Woolf is based upon two papers read to the Arts Society at Newnham and at Girton in October 1928.It is a book length essay on the topic of ‘Women and Fiction’. Although most of the text in the book seems to be a little far-fetched, it seems to be a courageous piece of writing when viewed under the lens of the early twentieth century when it was written. At that time, women were not allowed into particular universities and libraries--let alone given the opportunity to creatively express themselves. Much of the seclusion can be seen in the fact that Newnham and Girton were the only women's colleges at Cambridge. Through her book, Woolf challenges the patriarchal system which had put shackles on women in each and every sphere of life, both mental and physical

As a preamble, she talks about the ambiguity of the topic of ‘Women and Fiction’. In her own words she says that the topic might mean women and what they are like, or it might mean women and the fiction that they write; or it might mean women and the fiction that is written about them. Then she gives her conclusion that a woman must have a room of her own and money in order to write fiction. Then she takes us on a journey, her own journey on how she came at that conclusion. Her investigation begins at Oxbridge , where she was not allowed to walk on the turf and denied entry to the library which were many of the luxuries denied to women at that time. Then she goes to the British Library and there she searches through a vast literature on women written by ‘men’. This is essential because she finds no books written by women on their own sex. Then she returns home disappointed and begins to search through history. She is able to find a dichotomy between the women portrayed in fiction and those written about in history. In her own words she tries to explain-“Imaginatively she is of the highest importance; practically she is completely insignificant. ...Some of the most inspired words, some of the most profound thoughts in literature fall from her lips; in real life she could hardly read, could scarcely spell, and was the property of her husband.” Then she explains the trials of women in the eighteenth century and gives us an example of a fictitious Judith Shakespeare, sister of Shakespeare, who though equally prodigious and meritorious, was denied by the compulsions from her own family and society to write any work of literature, befitting any Shakespeare, and now is lost in suburbs of London. Then she comes to four great novelists considered by her-George Eliot, Emily Brontë, Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë and she continually refers to their work as the ideal product of a woman's ability to write fiction. But she is quick to point out that though these women were incandescent, brilliance of writers like Charlotte Bronte was lost in the ire vented out against the other sex in her writing. Then from the shelf, she pulls down a novel called Life's Adventure by Mary Carmichael. Woolf points out that it is the first time she has read novel on women’s relations to their own sex than the opposite sex. As a peroration, she tells women to develop a hidden Judith within them, “ for great poets do not die; they are continuing presences; they need only the opportunity to walk among us in the flesh”. If one might ask why the author puts so much stress on a room and money, she points out giving examples that intellectual freedom depends upon material things as she herself had experienced, having been left an income of five hundred a year by her aunt, and this intellectual freedom is a prelude to poetry or any work of fiction.

On the whole Virginia Woolf calls for both men and women not to be only men or women , but have a androgynous state of mind, be incandescent like Shakespeare and write because books have a way of influencing one another. Metaphorically, five hundred a year stands for the power to contemplate and a lock on the door means the power to think for oneself because through time women have been treated as vessels for procreation, to be ‘shielded’, shackles of chastity hampering them, but not as any source for any genius. Although it might seem arbitrary in our time of today when we have works of literature written equally both by men and women, but think of nineteenth century “ when a women composing or writing was compared to a dog walking on legs, which you think might not happen but still happens”. Sometimes the reader might get confused in the lines written by the author or the narrative she includes from many authors she mentions. In some ways a reader will have to agree with author, like women have been considered inferior so that a man can consider himself superior to half the people that he meets with. Sometimes the text become less interesting and too tedious just like a essay and the journey that Woolf takes us on too tiresome, but the golden nuggets that are extracted at the end makes one realise that the journey was worth going on. Although some might say and call the author to be feminist, but she has also given praise to male authors and poets where they deserved like in the case of Shakespeare whom she calls to be the best example of incandescence that an author or a poet should be. One can also give an example of the situation when Woolf finds solace when a man and woman meet and go together in a cab, in their harmony. Sometimes a reader might disagree in her assessment of some literary maestros whom she out rightly dislikes. Although the book length essay is on the topic of women and their status quo then and now in relation to fiction, but one feels the basic essence of the novel in the oneness and unity of the masculine and feminine parts in one’s mind and against “All this pitting of sex against sex, of quality against quality; all this claiming of superiority and imputing of inferiority, belong to the private-school stage of human existence where there are 'sides'”. Woolf’s writing can be said to be prismatic, slightly chaotic and ambiguous and poetic and the book seems to be one written by an erudite person, a frank and genuine genius and not by a woman hampered by the social norms or prejudices of her time.

-Samarth Sarsar

2007ME10523