Virginia Woolf Themes

Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own is a classic lecture observed by many scholars and students around the world. The story begins with her thinking of topics relating to women in fiction for her presentation at Cambridge, England. She was speaking at Newnham and Girton College, two women’s colleges, in 1928 (Woolf 3). While thinking of subjects, Woolf came to accept two needs that women did not have; therefore, stopped them from writing excellent literature. Woolf says that every writer need money and a room of one’s own in order to write. While Woolf’s points are valid, there is more than simply money and space that are needed. The point that Woolf didn’t explicitly list is that women were treated differently in their social spheres due …show more content…
On one hand, people value tradition because people enjoy stability and consistency. If the rules of the world were constantly changing, it could be difficult for one to catch their bearings. On the other hand, tradition keeps talented people from becoming masterly people. If one simply follows along with tradition, there can be no room for development. One of the hardships that Woolf mentions is the traditions of the wealthy class versus the working class. Middle class women were not expected to write or be creative in Woolf’s lifetime (Woolf 44). Their main purpose, according to society, was to work for their husbands. Contrarily, upper class women were not scorned for their creative works. Woolf states that “one would expect to find a lady of title meeting with far greater encouragement than an unknown Miss Austen or a Miss Bronte” (Woolf 57). Tradition plays such an integral role in society, and Woolf could easily discern what limits were being placed on women, especially those of her class. Perhaps the most interesting passage in the lecture is the page where Woolf goes into whether or not womanhood should be protected. In this passage she defines “womanhood” as the female gender. Woolf considers women to be the “protected sex” which she says could be endangered if women break traditions. Her worry is that soon women will become coal miners when they once were nursemaids or engine runners when they used to be shopkeepers. She …show more content…
For example, it must be true that most children develop at the same rate because children in the fifth grade often look the same, as far as height and facial maturity. In Woolf’s lecture, she takes what society has told her and adopts this as the truth. Woolf’s truth is that men are more powerful than women. She observes that powerful men like the monarchy of England, the professors of universities, and judges will never be questioned because they have power. One of the issues that Woolf’s lecture has is that women are unable to create their own truths. It appears as though Woolf sees that men know the absolute truth, while everyone else is left at their mercy. One of the subjects that may seem impossible for Woolf to touch on is how construed the concept of truth is for women. While this truth has been generally used to work against women, Woolf mentions that women have used the universal truth for writers in order to gain creditability in the writing profession. This truth is that people who write “without hate, without bitterness, without protest, without preaching” are the best writers who are closets to being as great as Shakespeare (Woolf 67). Those who are able to discern situations and see them as they really are can become the most influential writers. Woolf leaves these thoughts on the periphery of her argument when she should use them to cut right to the core of