About A Room of One's Own

In late October, 1928, Virginia Woolf delivered a lecture on "Women and Fiction" at Newnham
and Girton, the two women's college at Cambridge, England. Woolf had written the lecture in
May; in 1929, she expanded it into what is now "A Room of One's Own," and the essay was
published in book form on Oct. 24, 1929.

Woolf cannily utilized the setting of the lecture. The fictional university she visits, Oxbridge, is
an amalgam of England's prestigious Oxford and Cambridge universities, and the comparison of
the luxurious male and mediocre female facilities must have surely hit home at Newnham and
Girton (however, this probably did not make it into the lecture, since she gave her talk the same
day she had lunch at the men's college did not have much time to digest the inequality). She also
incorporated real people into her essay; aside from the many writers past and present she
discusses, the narrator is a barely-concealed version of Woolf herself, and even imaginary writer
Mary Carmichael, whose novel Life's Adventure the narrator dissects, shares the pseudonym of
birth-control leader Marie Stopes (who wrote a similar novel, Love's Creation).

"A Room of One's Own" is considered the first major work in feminist criticism. Woolf deploys
a number of methodologies--historical and sociological analysis, fictional hypothesis, abd
philosophy, notably--to answer her initial question of why there have been so few female writers.
She ties their minority status largely to socioeconomic factors, specifically their poverty and lack
of privacy. Her mantra throughout the essay is that a woman must have 500 pounds a year and a
room of her own if she is to write creatively.

Woolf also exposes the gender-consciousness that she believes cripples both male and female
writers. Most men, she maintains, derogate women to maintain their own superiority; most
women are angry and insecure about their inferior status in society. Male writing, then, is too
aggressive, whereas women's writing is reactive. Both genders thus obscure their subjects and
instead focus on themselves and their own personal grievances. The writer of incandescent
genius, Woolf maintains, rises beyond his or her petty gripes and attains a heightened, objective
relationship with reality; the subject is the world, not the writer's self.

Woolf considers this genius possible only if the writer has, borrowing Samuel Taylor Coleridge's
word, an "androgynous" mind; that is, a mind equal parts male and female (Woolf encourages
the differences between the genders). Feminist (and much minority) criticism still disputes this
idea: should women's writing rationally reflect both male and female influences, as Woolf
claims, or should it passionately reclaim the woman's voice muted by patriarchal society, as
Woolf argues is hampering? French critic H?l?ne Cixous epitomizes this opposing camp,
contending that only with their own language can women adequately express themselves.

Still, Woolf is hardly at odds with later feminists. She believes each gender can only know so
much about the other one (and about itself), and that women should, indeed, write about
women--so long as it is done without anger or insecurity. She gives convincing evidence for why
genius has so infrequently flowered among women. And, most important, she provides a strong
remedy: 500 pounds a year and a room of one's own.

Feminist criticism
Definition:

Feminist criticism is a type of literary criticism, which may study and advocate the
rights of women. As Judith Fetterley says, "Feminist criticism is a political act whose
aim is not simply to interpret the world but to change it by changing the
consciousness of those who read and their relation to what they read." Using
feminist criticism to analyze fiction may involve studying the repression of women
in fiction. How do men and women differ? What is different about female heroines,
and why are these characters important in literary history? In addition to many of
the questions raised by a study of women in literature, feminist criticism may study
stereotypes, creativity, ideology, racial issues, marginality, and more.

Feminist criticism may also involve reevaluating women writers--following the lead
of Virginia Woolf in "A Room of One's Own

A Room of Ones Own

Hundreds of years ago, an unconscious culture diseased the female population.

Similar to Shakespeare's sister, women were conditioned to conform to a feminine
ideology. This concept of femininity spread through out the country essentially
defining the nature of a woman and robbing them of their innate sense of self.
While women may have dreamed about the day when their creative spirit could be
unleashed, those dreams were quickly interrupted by the powerful grasp of male
dominance. By repressing women, the feminine role of dependency and obedience
was maintained. In return, society's power structure became refueled and the
patriarchy was perpetuated. Through time the power structure has broken down,
however, I believe Shakespeare's sister continues to exist in many women, still in
search of a "room of one's own".

Virginia Woolf stressed the importance of having a room of one's own or a place to
discover and explore the creative self. She encourages the young women to
develop the habit of freedom and the courage to write exactly what they think.
More than seventy years later, Woolf's words remain applicable. Women are still
struggling to confront the courage and "…face the fact…that there is no arm to
cling to…". For, while the societal barriers have disappeared, the mental barriers
have not. Though few women are expected to be submissive and obedient, the
ideology of the feminine role continues to starve women's souls. The pressure to get
married and have children while pushing one's personal desires and passions aside
persists.
Thus, when a woman's soul is in a state of starvation, she becomes a walking
skeleton, merely existing through life. As the natural gifts she is born with stay
buried and unnourished, she becomes a complete stranger to herself. In order to
reawaken the sense of self, she must express her instinctive cravings. When this is
accomplished Shakespeare's sister will emerge and a room of one's own will be
discovered.

A Room of One's Own

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First edition cover

A Room of One's Own is an extended essay by Virginia Woolf. First published in 24 October
1929,[1] the essay was based on a series of lectures she delivered at Newnham College and Girton
College, two women's colleges at Cambridge University in October 1928. While this extended
essay in fact employs a fictional narrator and narrative to explore women both as writers of and
characters in fiction, the manuscript for the delivery of the series of lectures, titled "Women and
Fiction", and hence the essay, are considered non-fiction.[2] The essay is generally seen as a
feminist text, and is noted in its argument for both a literal and figural space for women writers
within a literary tradition dominated by patriarchy.

A Room of One’s Own

Virginia Woolf a profound 20 th century feminist illustrates the history of women’s literary
writing in patriarchal society where they had no room of their own. They were the regular
victim of men’s anger, misunderstanding and hostility, exploitation. Therefore, in her essay
‘A Room of One’s Own’ she focused on feminist analysis of women’s literary tradition.

This radical process reveals the hidden truths of women’s writing, their success, failure
and the circumstances under which they wrote. Moreover, the essay is also a powerful
answer to the male biased assumption and society that women are biologically inferior and
mentally weak with no creativity. Because of such gender discrimination women have less
literary writing and have a few writers.

Woolf depicts the reasons like the lack of material resources, lack of appropriate socio
economic environment, lack of economic dependence, lack of education, domesticity, lack of
time, public relation, lack of their own room and social freedom that have hinder the
women’s history of writing such lacks restricts the proper growth of women’s physicality and
spirituality.
 Woolf says that the so called mental and physical inferiority of women is not in born but
the outcome of male biased cruel society and values. She therefore, addresses the question
why sister of Shakespeare was not able to write even a single play.

She further says had Shakespeare been a woman in his time he would not have been the
father of English drama. If she had written, she would have been a monster, not a writer.
So Woolf demands for the equal exercise of material resources in a society so that both men
and women came together.

Woolf, while giving the historical survey of women and fiction’ praises the women writers
who initiated the tradition of women writing despite the social hostility, Lady Winchilsea is
17 th century women writers and burst out again the position of women in society. As a
result she suffered from different social injustices like her writings were denied to publish,
remained in melancholy she was ridiculed and laughed at. Therefore, her writing opens with
a feministic speech, “Women live like Bats, labours like Beasts and die like Worms.”

This statement shows the whole scenario of contemporary social economic atmosphere
that was absolutely against the development of female personality. The assumption was
that no women of sense, sanity and modesty could write anything else, she was enlisted as
an eccentric or a monster.

Woolf praises Mrs. Aphra Behn, who wrote for her financial support and proved that
women could write and even for living. Similarly, she praises Jane Austin, George Elite and
Bronte sisters for their own room.

So it was easy for them to write fiction with their domestic experience. Some wrote
aggressively some mildly and some with male pseudonyms. Austin reflects her domesticity
but Charlotte Bronte is free and presents herself against social and male chauvinism.

Thus, Woolf is of the opinion that literature is open to anyone. People can close the door
of libraries but it is impossible for them to restrict the freedom of mind of women. Despite
the social and gender inequality female writers produced some great works which prove that
female also feel as the man feel. They also possess intellect and creativity. Only male biased
society takes them as inferior to prove their so-called superiority.

Mary Wollstonecraft As a feminist, Wollstonecraft strongly raises her voice against

patriarchal domination over females. She firmly holds her belief that mind does not know
sex and answers the attacks charged by male writers. Read More...

Elaine Showalter Elaine Showalter’s feminist criticism is a clearly articulated feminist

literary theory. Showalter has proposed a separate and independent model of feminist
literary theory by rejecting the inevitability of male models and theories and by recalling the
history of women’s writing to the present. Read More...

Simone de Beauvoir “The Second Sex” by Buauvoir has destabilized the deep-rooted
patriarchal construction of myths to human manifest in the works of literature and
society..Read More...

Gilbert and Gubar Gilbert and Gubar collaborately influenced the advancement of both
the study of women writers and feminist literary theory. They trace a female literary
tradition and thus combat what they term women’s ‘anxiety of authorship’, while seeking for
a feminist poetics to rescue many women from the obscurity caused by their exclusion from
male dominated anthologies. Read More...

Julia Kristeva Julia Kristeva, a French theorist, in this essay talks about two stages,
‘semiotic’ and ‘symbolic’. She divides ‘semiotic’ and ‘symbolic’ from each other and says that
all significations are composed out of these two elements. Read More...

Definition
Steven Lynn's Texts and Contexts provides a hearty introduction to the world of Feminist Criticism.

"Like feminism itself, feminist criticism grows out of an effort to identify and oppose the various ways
women are excluded, suppressed, and exploited."

Furthermore, Lynn assumes a few things about Feminist Criticism:

1) The work doesn't have an objective status, an autonomy; instead, any reading of it is influenced by the
reader's own status, which includes gender or attitudes toward gender.
2) Historically the production and reception of literature has been controlled largely by men; it is
important now to insert a feminist viewpoint in order to bring to our attention neglected works as well as
new approaches to old works.
3) Men and women are different: they write differently, read differently, and write about their reading
differently. These differences should be valued.

Another definition:
Feminist literary criticism can be defined as the study of literature by women, or the interpretation of
any text written with an attention to gender dynamics or a focus on female characters.

And finally:
A criticism advocating equal rights for women in a political, economic, social, psychological, personal,
and aesthetic sense. On the thematic level, the feminist reader should identify with female characters and
their concerns. The object is to provide a critique of phallocentric assumptions and an analysis of
patriarchal visions or ideologies inscribed in a literature that is male-centered and male-dominated.

Key Figures and Works

The genre of literary theory known as feminist criticism is ever-changing and evolving. Today,
feminist literary criticism can be defined as "an effort to identify and oppose the various ways women
are excluded, suppressed, and exploited" (Lynn 194). This definition, however, has taken many years
to form. From the early writings of Virginia Woolf to the more recent essays by Sandra Gilbert and
Susan Gubar, feminist criticism as looked at now comments on the various ways women are
displayed, objectified, and held back in literary works.
The beginnings of American femnist criticms has roots in Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own.
With this revolutionary and though-provoking book, Woolf opened the world's eyes to the injustice
and ineqality that has historically befallen women in literature. Published in 1929, a time of great
cultural societal change, A Room of One's Own proposed that for a woman to advance and be held
with the same esteem as men they must be given a room of their own, a place where they are free to
examine their own ideas and views.
Throughout this highly acclaimed novel, Woolf examined the reasons women have tradtionally been
exluded from the cannon and other popular reading lists. She believed a woman must have full access
to the same opportunites as men - education being among the most important. Woolf, a woman who
was denied a formal education, being taught by her father, wrote "Thank how I was brought up! No
school; mooning about alone among my father's books; never any chance to pick up all that goes on in
schools - throwing balls; ragging; slang; vulgarities; scenes; jealousy! (www.utoronto.ca). Much of
Virginia Woolf's own life experience shines through in her writing.

As Virginia Woolf opened the door to feminist criticism, many other teachers and philosophers
were doing the same. First among them is Simone de Beauvoir. Born in Paris in 1908 to a wealthy
bourgeois family, she would go on to write one of the most widely read feminist works.
As a young adult, she abandoned all forms of religion and became an atheist. It is with this absence of
religion that Beauvoir felt she could dedicate her life to study and writing. As Beauvoir moved
through life and study of philosphy and society grew more intense, she noticed a sharp inequality that
surrounded her gender. In her famous and revolutionary work The Second Sex, she looked at the roles
society placed upon gender. Coining the phrase "woman are not born, but made"
(www.person.psu.edu), Beauvoir pointed out the role of otherness that woman are usually forced into.
Like society as a whole, Beauvoir belived that in written works one sex conquers the other. She saw
that literature was written for men, by men, objectifying woman and leading them to alienation. She
felt, like Woolf, that societal norms allowed "woman figures in male writers texts to be [seen as]
imprsoned in the mirror that has the surface of an impresonal mask, ready to reflect the image men
wish to see on the surface." Simone de Beauvoir believed woman in writing were stripped of their
personalities and forced to conform to male ideals.
In the opening lines of chapter one of The Second Sex, Beauvoir lays the groundwork for later
femist writers. She tells her readers, "Woman? Very simple, say the facniers of simple formulas: she
is a womb, an ovary, she is a female-this word is sufficient to define her."
As feminist criticism moved into the 20th century, the focus shifted. With the writing of Sandra
Gilbert and Susan Gubar as a guide, crtics began to move away from seeing woman as ifxed images in
male texts to viewing them more as the subjects of writing. Through their insigtful essay Madwoman
in the Attic, Gilbert and Gubar looked at writing as a metaphor. A text was not simply a combination
of words on a page, but rather a genecology; a kind of hierarchy where the author is seen as a father. It
is this father who is seen as the creator and master of all, from which the son - text - follows.
Feminism

Sooner or later in an Introduction to Literature class, we need to discuss "the F word": Feminism.
I don't understand statements of this sort:

• I think that the media exploits women's bodies, sure, but I'm not one of those feminists!
• I think it sucks that women get 71¢ on the dollar compared to men for equal work, but
I'm not one of those feminists!
• I think the fact that "she was askin' fer it" is a viable defense in spousal abuse and rape
cases in Idaho shows a touch of injustice, but I'm sure not one of those feminists!

Who turned "feminist" into a dirty word? (Probably George Bush and that batch; Pat Robertson
occasionally rants against "witches, lesbians, and feminists.")

Feminist literary criticism, arising in conjunction with sociopolitical feminism, critiques

patriarchal language and literature by exposing how these reflect masculine ideology. It
examines gender politics in works and traces the subtle construction of masculinity and
femininity, and their relative status, positionings, and marginalizations within works.

Beyond making us aware of the marginalizing uses of traditional language (the

presumptuousness of the pronoun "he," or occupational words such as "mailman") feminists
focused on language have noticed a stylistic difference in women's writing: women tend to use
reflexive constructions more than men (e.g., "She found herself crying"). They have noticed that
women and men tend to communicate differently: men directed towards solutions, women
towards connecting.

Feminist criticism concern itself with stereotypical representations of genders. It also may trace
the history of relatively unknown or undervalued women writers, potentially earning them their
rightful place within the literary canon, and helps create a climate in which women's creativity
may be fully realized and appreciated.

One will frequently hear the term "patriarchy" used among feminist critics, referring to
traditional male-dominated society. "Marginalization" refers to being forced to the outskirts of
what is considered socially and politically significant; the female voice was traditionally
marginalized, or discounted altogether.