Socrates And Virginia Woolf Essay

Born into completely different situations at completely different times in history, Socrates and Virginia Woolf had very different ideas about the concept of freedom. Socrates was never able to experience freedom of religion which every American knows as a basic right given by the Constitution. Woolf on the other hand was given just a glance at women’s equality and only as a result of her financial stability. While both Socrates and Woolf knew that they weren’t given a fair chance at freedom, they both wanted to let others understand what they were going through so that when the change inevitably happened, people could look back on the past and conceptualize about, and appreciate, how far the world has come. Socrates determined that death set …show more content…
She imagines that one day the right to vote for women will really benefit them and that they will be able to help implement change in the democratic society that they are apart of. She doesn’t think that that day will come for quite awhile though. Woolf knows that gaining the right to vote is important, but not as beneficial as something else that happens in her life. The day that Woolf received the right to franchise she also inherited 500 pounds a year for every year left that she was alive from her aunt passing away, and to her the money meant so much more. “The news of my legacy reached me one night about the same time that the act was passed that gave votes to women… Of the two – the vote and the money – the money, I own, seemed infinitely the more important” (Woolf 37). The money that Woolf inherits serves as one of the two things that makes freedom possible and also makes achieving the other thing “a room of ones own” more realistic. “…a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction…” For Woolf the way to her freedom is through being able to write fiction and not be disturbed while she is doing so. She knows that money is what will get her there. Money will get her away from the laborious jobs that she would have to work if she didn’t receive the inheritance. Money will allow her to never rely on another person for financial support and thus never feel obligated to do what they want. Money will provide Woolf with “Intellectual freedom” and that is what is crucial to her obtaining “a room of one’s own”. “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… That is why I have laid so much stress on money and having a room of one’s