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VIRGINIA WOLF
1
A Room of One's Own: pg. 103-112
Quote 3
By Saina, Jolie, Victoria, Alicia, Carina, Natascha, and Michelle
Summary
Summary
- Mary`s part of the book ends → Woolf addresses three criticisms the readers might have
- Concludes with another answer to the question of why women ought to write books
→ Maybe, if enough women write for long enough, then they will eventually produce something worthy of Judith Shakespeare
She doesn't go into whether men or women are better at writing, and whether one sex is better at writing a certain kind of book
→ Woolf addresses this by stating that it is not important who is better, rather just that women should be able to write what they want
1. Criticism
Mary is a material girl, putting too much emphasis on things like money and private rooms
"Intellectual freedom depends upon material things [...] Women have had less intellectual freedom than the sons of Athenian slaves. Women, then, have not had a dog's chance of writing poetry" (pg. 106, l. 21-26)
2. Criticism
“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction” (pg. 6, l. 1-2)
→ Poetry / Fiction depends on intellectual freedom
→ Intellectual freedom depends on material things (Room of one`s own and money"
→ Women have been poor, in station and in economy, for thousands of years
→ Hence, women have no Intellectual freedom
= Women have no chance to write
Framework to title
However, at the very end (pg. 110-111) Woolf notes in an accusing manner that women have now been granted more and more freedoms and yet still haven't produced anything great, thus claiming women have been relying too much on the excuse of having no opportunity to write.
Change
Why should women even write books, if it's so difficult and unrewarding?
→ Selfishly, she likes to read lots of books and states that lately there haven't been enough interesting ones
→ She just has a "conviction" that good books are desirable
3. Criticism
"Lately my diet has become a trifle monotonous; history is too much about wars; biography too much about great men"
(pg. 107, l. 10-12)
Quote
- Pun (trifle = dessert or something of little value)
- History and biography were written mainly by men and are non-fiction
- Not shaming authors or the "great men" - reflecting their realities
- Calling upon her audience to write
Links to other texts
Links to other texts
Macbeth:
- "Biography too much about great men" Lady Macbeth (partially the witches) were working minds - only King Macbeth denoted in history
- "History is too much about wars" - Macbeth focuses on war, assassinations, executions, and betrayal / no stream of conciousness... but it was his reality
The Handmaid's Tale:
- Gilead ruled by men - women merely treated as means to an end (Although relies on birth for survival)
- Yet, in the testaments found, mainly males were mentioned by name.
Judith Shakespeare (representing women in general)
Symbol
Beginning of the novel (pg. 48):
Symbol: Intellectual poverty of women, no access to education
End of the novel (pg. 112):
Symbol: Hope and a call to action for the women in her audience
"Drawing her life from the lives of the unknown who were her forerunners, as her brother did before her, she will be born"
(pg. 112, l. 20-22)
Context
Women have the opportunity, through life & literature (women’s rights), to give Judith and other women life again (not a tragedy)
→ Can continue building new traditions of literary women and a society that is not patriarchal
→ Through writing literature Judith/other women can be "written back into history"
→ Ensures no future woman becomes a Judith
Context
Link to other texts
Link to
other texts
Link to Macbeth:
- The witches have a strange physical appearance → ability to capture Macbeth & Banquo with the prophecies
→ Don’t conform to societal norms (contrast to the patriarchal world)
Link to Handmaid's Tale:
- Offred's rebellion against the regime/the oppression of women = symbol on behalf of all women (who have been forgotten, have died/suffered because of the regime)
- Encouraging other handmaids to rebel, use the advantages they have as women
- Theme: mutual empowerment/unity of women (as opposed to competition among each other)
Contrast to Virginia Woolf
Contrast
A Room of One's Own:
Hopeful, encouraging ending, referring to gained women rights & increasing influence (yet equality still has not been achieved)
Macbeth:
All women disappear from the stage:
-Witches
-Lady Macbeth killed herself
-Lady Macduff was killed
"I do not believe that gifts, whether of mind or character, can be weighed like sugar and butter, not even in Cambridge" (pg. 104, l. 13-16)
Quote 1
- Framework connecting to Oxbridge (chapter 1) → Mocking the universities created by men
- Contradicting herself by saying the freedom of the mind can't be measured by materialistic values, but also says that to have freedom of the mind we need a room of our own and 500 a year
- "Like sugar and butter" = common groceries, which can even be put into relation by the common 'housewoman'
Link to other texts
Link to other texts
Link to Handmaid's Tale:
- In Gilead, one's level of education was based on the rank in society
E.g.:
-Handmaid's weren't allowed anything
-Commander's Wives could watch the news
-Commanders could read and write
→ A literary "gift" could only be developed if one had some kind of power or money
→ Suppression through the regime established a system to measure one's value (including mental capacity)
"Lock on the door" = having your own room/space (seclude yourself) without distraction, "room for one own" → privacy to think, work, write
"Five hundred a year" = money a woman needs to have a freedom of mind
"Five hundred a year stands for the power to contemplate; a lock on the door means power to think for oneself" (pg. 105, l. 14-16)
Quote 2
- Presents and summarizes the main statement - "to write fiction a woman needs money and a room of one's own"
- In order to write ‘great fiction’, one must be freed from the constraints of ‘making a living’
→ 500 a year gave her some freedom and therefore time to think, but only through a "room to oneself" you can think creatively
- Connects to the idea of the library "with all its treasures safe locked within its breast" (pg. 10, l. 2-4)
Link to other texts
Link to other texts
Link to Macbeth:
- "Lock on the door" → Ensures privacy (secrecy)
- Lady Macbeth could only freely speak her mind whenever she was alone (soliloquy) or when she was manipulating Macbeth
Link to The Handmaid's Tale:
- Only those with money could buy themselves 'food for thought' (e.g. black market)
- Only men were able to have money
"Let the line of thought dip deep into the stream. For I am by no means confining you to fiction" (pg. 107, l. 21-22)
- Framework connecting to the fish in the stream (pg. 7)
- Underlining materialistic power
- Suggests that women can in the long run achieve more than just writing fiction → Connection between women and fiction isn't just money but instead the independence one gains from it (the freedom one can buy, e.g. time)
Link to other texts
Link to other texts
Macbeth:
Lady Macbeth used influence instead of money in order to gain some freedom
The Handmaid's Tale:
Only those in power were allowed or even taught to read and write
PERORATION
according to Merriam Webster
1. The concluding part of a discourse and especially an oration
2. a highly rhetorical speech
"The pressure of convention decrees that every speech must end with a peroration" (pg. 109, l. 4-5)
Quote 4
- Earlier was preaching that women should no longer confine to the conventions of gender → contradicting her own ideals
- Conclusion drawn is to be oneself, which shouldn't be conventional
- "I often like women. I like their unconventionality" (pg. 109, l. 30)
Link to other texts
Link to other texts
Macbeth: Lady Macbeth was acting unconventional by enacting power herself, yet she was still not disappointing societies' gender values by using Macbeth as her public presentation
The Handmaid's Tale: While the Commander wasn't conforming to the rules of Gilead (e.g. by letting Offred read), he was doing this only in secret → Officially he was part of creating the system and so conventionally, being in power, should believe in it
To analyze individually
- "Praise and blame alike mean nothing" (pg. 104, l. 36)
- "The theory that poetical genius bloweth where it liseth, and equally in poor and rich, holds little truth" (pg. 105, l. 29-30)
- "The world seems bared of its covering and given an intenser life" (pg. 108, l. 31)