She argues, “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction”. She chants on and on about the topic of “women and fiction”, contemplating the role of women in the traditional domain and the virtues of women writers. Although, Woolf may have contemplated over such awareness that a woman needs an atmosphere of her own in which nobody can intrude, the modern world has prevailed over such hindrances throughout technological innovations that offer freedom of speech. Also, economical affluence is not a necessity for women to engage in the fictional world but rather a sufficient condition in the modern world. Thus Virginia Woolf’s predictions failed to represent the current vantage point revolving around women and fiction.
Woolf desires women to have money and a room of their own so that their so-called ?potential literary genius? has the opportunity to mature and develop. She believes that working towards getting women to question their socialization is bringing them closer to this eventual goal. Her work, however, is selfish and one sided at times, but understandably so. The preceding statement is by no means a personal attack on Virginia Woolf, nor is an attempt to discredit the work of the feminist movement.
Women’s disabilities are cultural; women writers can only survive despite the prejudices of men, and the key to their emancipation is to be found in their writing which women may call their own and which they can inhabit with the same freedom and independence as their “brothers.” Woman’s writing, for Woolf, is a revolutionary act. It is not a “sign of folly and a distracted mind, but was of practical importance” (AROO 71). Women’s beginning to write, she claims, was “of greater importance [even] than the Crusades or the Wars of the Roses” (72). Woman writer should keep on writing until she finds “a perfectly natural, shapely sentence proper for her own use” (83). Since the writing conditions for women in Woolf’s time were very difficult, feminist literary criticism began with various critiques of the patriarchal culture.
There is no question that Mariama Bâ’s novel, So Long a Letter, is undoubtedly a work of feminist literature. Although we are able to easily make this identification, it is much more difficult for us to define and explain how we were able to come to this conclusion. One explanation might be that the novel calls for a sense of equality and balance between the two sexes: We have a right to equal well-paid employment, to equal opportunities. The right to vote is an important weapon. And now the Family Code has been passed, restoring to the most humble of women the dignity that has so often been trampled upon.
An unlikely candidate to dispute the unfair, misogynistic treatment of women by men and society, Christine de Pizan successfully challenged the accepted negative views that were being expressed about women by the all-male literary world of her era. Part of Christine’s uniqueness stems from the time in which she lived, the middle to late 1300’s. The lack of a positive female role model to pattern herself after made Christine a true visionary in the fight for the equal rights of women. Her original ideas and insight provided a new and more intelligent way to view females. Pizan’s work, The Book of the City of Ladies, provided women much needed guidance in how to survive without the support of a man.
Her writing style constructs a relationship between her essay and women writers; it shows the reader that for women to become a writer without a "a room of one's own" is just as unconventional as her writing style. With both her words and her unique writing style, Woolf presents her view on women's writing. In a serious essay, a point or an argument should be made. This is why a writer writing a serious essay finds it necessary to shower his reader with logical reasons and facts. A typical writer wants the reader to examine, if not accept, the writer's point of view; however, Woolf claims that "lies will flow from [her] lips" in her essay.
Weldon is much more complex and experienced, and feminism is just one part of her personality, as well as of her novels. She is strongly feminist in her criticism of men and their lust for power, but at the same time she is very realistic. She is a feminist, but not a radical one, and reading her novels and examining her point of view is enriching, not limiting. She is often exaggerating and unforgiving, but if she was not, the message in her books would not be so appealing. “Readers crave explanations of their lives: the writers of fiction provide it, enlarging experience, giving meaning and significance where none was before.
She worries so much, in fact, that she fills a hundred some pages musing about how her appetite for "books in the bulk" might be satiated in the future by women writers. Her concerns may be those of a reader, but the solution she proffers comes straight from the ethos of an experienced writer. "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction," Woolf asserts early in her essay. This "one minor point," as she calls it, could have major repercussions for the future of literature. It would certainly, in the least, enrich the life of Virginia Woolf the reader.
We know this from Jane?s letter to Elizabeth regarding the actions of Miss Bingley and Miss Hurst ... ... middle of paper ... ... the novel would make no sense. Austen uses letters to make the novel much more interesting as it is different from constant dialogue. She superbly shows that there are different ways to provide the reader with information other than through dialogue or through the narrator. Letters are important in ?Pride and Prejudice? because they can enhance the plot, change the plot, provide the reader with additional information and can also show character.
In the novel “Praise of Folly” written by Desiderius Erasmus, the reader is presented with Folly-gender being a woman. Folly makes it very clear to us the readers, that without her many things would not occur, or would fail such as the likelihood to marry, keeping the marriage going, as well as having children and raising them happily. The reason marriage is allowed to continue on a blissful note, and not resulting in divorces, is because folly permits the partners to overlook the characteristics of the other individual that are perceived as undesirable. Folly works on the platform of passions and drives, which she sees as making life that much more tolerable and worth living, as opposed to wisdom which is said to be governed by reason. This