A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf


Word Count: 274 
A Room of One's Own Virginia Woolf

"men are hated and feared, because they have the power to bar her way to what she wants to do--which is to write" (Woolf)

"football and sport are 'important'; the worship of fashion, the buying of clothes 'trivial'" (Woolf)

    Virginia Woolf begins chapter four of A Room of One's Own giving background as to why most early female authors seem to be so angry and spiteful. When speaking of Lady Winchilsea, Woolf states, "men are hated and feared, because they have the power to bar her way to what she wants to do--which is to write." (Woolf). This quotation depicts the fear female writers harbored during this time; it also gives reason to their anger, which seems to be just a translation of their fear. I believe this quotation shows their sense of isolation as well. The female writers of the time were writing in secret, and it seems like they were living other lives. 
    My favorite portion of this chapter is when Woolf compares masculine traditions to female ones. She states, "football and sport are 'important'; the worship of fashion, the buying of clothes 'trivial'" (Woolf). Woolf relays this observation back to literature where men's writing is acclaimed and women's is shamed. Because of this, she states that women would attempt to write as a man would, but Jane Austen and Emily Brontë novels are great because they wrote as a woman. Woolf ends this chapter by speaking to the lack of training women obtained during this period. One can observe sentences and recognize which was written by a female because most lack the instruction to understand sentence structure. For example, Jane Austen uses the same structure throughout her novel, but the consistent sentence structure did not affect her content. She still wrote fantastically. This shows that a formal education in writing was also no necessary if one had a passion. 

Works Cited
Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One's Own. Apr. 2020, gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200791.txt.


Comments

  1. Mia CiccarelliJanuary 14, 2021 at 7:33 AM

    I like the quotes that you chose! "football and sport are 'important'; the worship of fashion, the buying of clothes 'trivial'" (Woolf) was one of my favorite quotes as well. Chapter four portrayed how some women writers wrote as theirselves and did not pretend to be a man. They were proud of their opinions, accomplishments, and did not hold back their feelings. As you mentioned Jane Austin and Emily Bronte were apart of this group of women.

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  2. Julianna HigginsJanuary 14, 2021 at 7:37 AM

    I thought the quotes that you chose to include in your blog were important because the comparisons allow people to see the drastic difference in perspectives from female to male priorities. I also thought it was interesting when Virginia Woolf addressed how she was unsure of where females would be heading toward in the future. This is because of the current state of how far behind women seemed to be in their writing abilities due to their lack of education.

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