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Virginia woolf and her contribution to Feminism
Virginia woolf and feminism
Virginia woolf and her contribution to Feminism
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Throughout Virginia Woolf’s writings, she describes two different dinners: one at a men’s college, and another at a women’s college. Using multiple devices, Woolf expresses her opinion of the inequality between men and women within these two passages. She also uses a narrative style to express her opinions even more throughout the passages.
One of the most prominent rhetorical devices Virginia Woolf uses throughout both pieces is imagery. She uses imagery in order to make the ideas and situations become more personal. An even more important way she used imagery was to express the differenced throughout her experiences at both colleges. In the first passage with the men’s college, Woolf uses very descriptive and colorful imagery to describe her surroundings. Describing the “soles, sunk in a deep dish…spread on a counterpane of the whitest cream…” and the wineglasses “flushed yellow and flushed crimson,” the author shows the lavish style that those in the men’s college lived in. With her second piece, Woolf described the place as plain, describing the food as very normal and borin...
In the predominantly male worlds of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Aurora Leigh (Book I)”, the women’s voices are muted. Female characters are confined to the domestic spheres of their homes, and they are excluded from the elite literary world. They are expected to function as foils to the male figures in their lives. These women are “trained” to remain silent and passive not only by the males around them, but also by their parents, their relatives, and their peers. Willingly or grudgingly, the women in Woolf and Browning’s works are regulated to the domestic circle, discouraged from the literary world, and are expected to act as foils to their male counterparts.
In Virginia Woolf’s two passages describing two very opposite meals that was served at the men’s college and the other at the women’s college; reflects Woolf’s attitude toward women’s place in society.
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is set in an ordinary 1950s New England suburban house. Nothing is overly expensive or glamorous. But in plays, designers typically want things to catch the eye, even though in this instance such would ruin the mood. The set designers captured this mood perfectly. Nothing is anachronistic. The set even lacks a coherent color scheme; but why would there be? In most houses, walls are painted and papered, carpet is put down, but, twenty years later, these same walls are decorated with paintings and the floors are covered with rugs and furniture that would not have even been considered in the inception. The set of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? shows this hodgepodge perfectly. Above the set, the eaves of the house, and the roof of another house are clearly seen, providing, again, a voyeuristic view of the play’s events. Such realism creates a believable mood for the play, heightening the effect that these things are actually happening (heightened still more with Albee’s back-and-forth style of dialog), leaving the viewer acting as a voyeur, but also identifying closely with the characters.
Conventional forms of writing did not portray truth, but rather dealt with certain aspects of life that were distorted and then pieced together via descriptions, coincidences, and transition passages (Blackstone 13). Feminine sensibility was an aspect that could be brought into the novel, and therefore Woolf employed new forms and techniques to her novels (Bernard 12). Through these changes, she consciously made the decision to change the novel from a genre that was developed and dominated by men, to a form that would depict the “movement of things under the surface--the free play of thought, emotion, insight” (Blackstone 12-13). Due to the transforming atmosphere of the time, Woolf was allowed to explore new territories.
College campuses today bring up many controversial issues in society. For instance, on Lincoln College campus zero tolerance has been an endless dispute among students and faculty. Members of administration on other campuses are trying to either slow down the consumption of alcohol on campus or stop it all together. Whether the regulating or extinction of alcohol is or is not fair is yet unknown. Reasons that contributed to zero tolerance, actions among universities in the U.S, rules on Lincoln College campus and student opinion, and faculty perception on the zero tolerance rule will be used in order to come up with a valid conclusion to this controversial issue. Should college campuses have a zero tolerance rule?
The University of a Florida offers meal plans for students who wish to have a meal ready for them rather than worrying about what they are going to eat, or perhaps cook, throughout the day. The problem with this idea however, is that students oftentimes do not take full advantage of this system. Whether it is cooking, eating out, or even going home on the weekends, there are several factors that can get in the way of taking full advantage of the meal plan. This dilemma often leaves families asking the same question: is buying the meal plan that is provided by colleges actually worth the money? While buying a meal plan for college appears to make sense for many incoming freshmen, it does not always translate into the most efficient use of their money.
Women have been oppressed and kept from reaching their full potential for centuries. Expectations for women have been set in society and breaking out from that mold is difficult for the public pressure demands women to conform to its ideals. Virginia Woolfe questions why women are expected to behave differently than men in her essay A Room of One’s Own and presents several reasons why society has set limited boundaries for women. Due to the lack of opportunities women have compared to those of men, women are often more ignorant. This does not occur naturally but rather because of the circumstances of their lives. Due to the lack of opportunities and ignorance, women are also far less wealthy economically and with experience in life. Virginia Woolfe analyzes the causes and effect of oppression on women in her essay A Room of One’s Own and modern novels also portray the damaging outcomes that occur from oppression.
In Passage one, Woolf’s diction greatly contributes to the elegant scene that she portrays. Woolf uses words like “whitest,” “rich,” “sharp,” and “sweet” (passage I) to portray how ornate the meal is. These words all suggest positive connotation, making the reader visualize the beauty of the meal. On the contrary, Woolf manipulates the language in passage two to portray how much worse the conditions are at the Women’s college. Words that suggest negative connotation in passage two are “plain,” “transparent,” “muddy,” and “dry.” These words were strategically placed by the author to vividly portray the differences between the colleges. Woolf’s word choice emphasizes women’s lower place in society to the reader. Virginia Woolf offers contrasting tones when describing the different colleges. For the men’s college in passage one, Woolf develops an elegant tone when describing all of the details of the lavish feast. For the women’s tone in passage is very crude. She offers little detail, and keeps everything very simple and plain. There seems to be sadness in her transparent description. This portrays her viewpoint on the unequal treatment of women.
One of the most fascinating elements that female authors bring to light is their use of perspective—something that’s most commonly illustrated through the eyes of a man, a male author, or, more often than not, both. Women writers offer a different voice than their male counterparts, even if it’s simply by the subtle inclusion of their own experiences within the narrative of the central character. With that in mind, the question must be asked—how do these female authors present their male characters? It’s common for male authors to stick to stereotypes and caricatures of the women they include in their works; but do female authors choose to follow this style as well? How do they represent the “modern man” within their texts? Through Woolf’s
She says, “The image that comes to mind when I think of this girl is the image of a fishermen lying sunk in dreams on the verge of a deep lake with a rod held out over water. She was letting her imagination sweep unchecked round every rock and cranny of the world that lies submerged in the depths of our unconscious being” (379). Woolf was implying like fishermen, writers must sit and wait patiently, writers wait until the perfect idea comes along, and fishermen until the perfect fish come along. The use of metaphors in her essay give her audience the opportunity to think creatively of what they are being told as well as employ life-like comparisons to the ideas being expressed by the writer or
The Contrast of Virginia Woolf and Alice Walker After reading the four essays assigned to this sequence, it becomes interesting to contrast two author's points of view on the same subject. Reading one professional writer's rewriting of a portion of another professional writer's essay brings out many of each of their characteristics and views. Also, the difference in writing styles could be drastic, or slight. Nevertheless, the writers display how versatile the English language can be.
People eat food every day without thinking twice about it, because it is a necessity for us to live. How often do you think about what is in the foods that you eat? How many calories does it have? Are there any vitamins and minerals in it? Is it high in fat? For most of us and especially college students who live a busy life on the go, the answer to that question is probably no. Since becoming a recent graduate of Indiana University of Pennsylvania Academy of Culinary Arts, I have been more interested in food and what people are eating. Also since more young Americans are becoming obese I want to find out what they are eating and where. Going to college and seeing how students have poor eating habits I want to find out why they are eating this way. Is it because they are away from home for the first time? Or is it because that is the only food that is available for them? I also want to find out if students would eat healthier if it was provided for them? My hypothesis is that students eat unhealthy because it is more convenient for them. There is usually no time to cook a homemade meal and most college students are always in a hurry so it is easier to pick up takeout. Also most college students don’t know how to cook. I also believe that most college students don’t care if the food is unhealthy for them, as long as it tastes good. Hopefully, in the following pages I will uncover the wide world of college eating.
Rich writes, “It is in the tone of a woman almost in touch with her anger, who is determined not to appear angry, who is willing herself to be calm and detached, and even charming in a roomful of men where things have been said which are attacks on her very integrity...she is acutely conscious-as she always was-of being overheard by men” (Rich 20). Rich articulates that Woolf, even while writing about women in fiction, was not able to free herself from male criticism. Her attempts to appeal to women but not displease men lead her essay to be less effective than it could have
Woolf gives various examples in her life of how this discrimination has an enormous effect on the capability of women to have their own thoughts, opinions, and to see with their own perspective. Woolf’s argument that women must overcome certain obstacles, “angels,” or phantoms, is effective through her use of the rhetorical triangle, her elaborate diction, and the rhetorical situation.
Throughout her life Virginia Woolf became increasingly interested in the topic of women and fiction, which is highly reflected in her writing. To understand her piece, A Room of One’s Own Room, her reader must understand her. Born in early 1882, Woolf was brought into an extremely literature driven, middle-class family in London. Her father was an editor to a major newspaper company and eventually began his own newspaper business in his later life. While her mother was a typical Victorian house-wife. As a child, Woolf was surrounded by literature. One of her favorite pastimes was listening to her mother read to her. As Woolf grew older, she was educated by her mother, and eventually a tutor. Due to her father’s position, there was always famous writers over the house interacting with the young Virginia and the Woolf’s large house library.