From the early death of her mother at age 13 to the sexual abuse from her own half brothers led to the many mental and emotional breakdowns that made Virginia Woolf, “one of the greatest novelists of the twentieth century…” (“Virginia Woolf” n.page.). Woolf’s, “Kew Gardens”, is a classic short story written in 1919 that shows the importance of women’s rights and illustrates that even when you are surrounded by people you still can feel empty and alone. This significant story reflects Virginia’s life filled with depression even though she was a great success and had a happy marriage.
Most authors are highly educated to become a great success, but Virginia Woolf is not like most authors. “She never had a formal education”________. Her father was a renowned author who gave her “an unlimited access to [his] very extensive library.”¬¬¬¬¬¬¬______. Her brothers were fortunate enough to go to preparatory and public schools and then continue onto college at Cambridge. But due to the time period in London, women were not treated with the same respect that men received. They did not get educations and were expected to stay home and learn how to cook and clean. “’[Later on in life she] described this period in a letter to Vita Sackville-West: "Think 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; jealousies!’” (Liukkonen n.page). However, Virginia never let any of these obstacles get in her way of achieving her dreams. Following the death of her father in 1904, her and her siblings moved to Bloomsbury where she soon started her life and career. She soon became a professor at Morley College where she met ...
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...n.page). Strongly recognized the most for being a feminist writer, Virginia’s childhood definitely influenced the type of writer she now today became.
Beyond just being an influence to women everywhere, she became such a popular author for the reason that she went above and beyond with her writings. Shmoop Editorial Team says, “Virginia Woolf ventured into uncharted literary terrain—the landscape of the human consciousness.” (n.page). Virginia often doesn’t stick to a plot, she would “structure to employ stream of consciousness to emphasize psychological aspects of her characters.”(“Virginia Woolf” n.page). Her writings were described as modern at the time and out of the ordinary.
Works Cited
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Virginia Woolf: Childhood." Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 22 Nov 2009.
No person is capable of perfectly articulating Virginia Woolf’s opinions on certain matters. However, through the observation of her works one might be able to gather her thoughts and form a more accurate description of her ideals. A Room of One’s Own contains Woolf’s ideals dealing with women in the arts, especially those associated with liberal arts. In this piece Woolf always describes a lack of strong women writers for her research but does name a few she deems worthy. It seems odd that Woolf would overlook Germaine de Stael while researching women with literary talent. The reasons for why Stael was disregarded could range from a language barrier at the time, Stael’s ideals on how a woman should behave within society, political propaganda, or Stael’s works might have simply gone unnoticed at the time. If Woolf had read Stael’s, On Women Writers, surely she would have mentioned it somewhere in her novel. Why would it be required that Woolf write about Stael? To simply answer this question, Stael was an intelligent woman in her time and many of Woolf’s main arguments coincide with Stael’s. Gender Inequality is one of these major themes where Stael shares similar views. They would both agree that this inequality feeds the other motifs described in their own works, such as: the individuality of truth, the importance of monetary means, or the hatred and ridicule that society directs at women writers. Woolf might not have agreed with all of Stael’s beliefs, but she would find Stael’s views on gender inequality and the causes of these inequalities to contain the essential oil of truth she was desperately searching for.
I have chosen to write about Virginia Woolf, a British novelist who wrote A Room of One’s Own, To the Lighthouse and Orlando, to name a few of her pieces of work. Virginia Woolf was my first introduction to feminist type books. I chose Woolf because she is a fantastic writer and one of my favorites as well. Her unique style of writing, which came to be known as stream-of-consciousness, was influenced by the symptoms she experienced through her bipolar disorder. Many people have heard the word "bipolar," but do not realize its full implications. People who know someone with this disorder might understand their irregular behavior as a character flaw, not realizing that people with bipolar mental illness do not have control over their moods. Virginia Woolf’s illness was not understood in her lifetime. She committed suicide in 1941.
Margaret had huge dreams of one day becoming a writer, but those dreams were put on hold when her father suddenly passed away in 1835. At this time, her mother was also sick and it became her responsibility to take care of her family’s finances. There were not many job opportunities available to women during this time, she found a teaching job and accepted the position. She first began teaching at Bronson Alcott’s Temple School in Boston and taught there until she went on to teach at the well-kn...
Ingram, Heather, ed. Women’s Fiction Between the Wars. "Virginia Woolf: Retrieving the Mother." St. Martin's Press. New York, 1998.
She wrote what she saw in a different way than other authors, which made her stand out. It all began though with the start of her life.
became more opinionated and she opened the eyes to other writers in this time period to express their true feelings. Without this push and brav...
In Virginia Woolf’s “To the Lighthouse”, the struggle to secure and proclaim female freedom is constantly challenged by social normalcy. This clash between what the traditional female ideologies should be and those who challenge them, can be seen best in the character of Lily Brisco. She represents the rosy picture of a woman that ends up challenging social norms throughout the novel to effectively achieve a sense of freedom and individuality by the end. Woolf through out the novel shows Lily’s break from conventional female in multiply ways, from a comparison between her and Mrs.Ramsey, Lily’s own stream of consciousness, as well as her own painting.
Virginia Woolf, in her novels, set out to portray the self and the limits associated with it. She wanted the reader to understand time and how the characters could be caught within it. She felt that time could be transcended, even if it was momentarily, by one becoming involved with their work, art, a place, or someone else. She felt that her works provided a change from the typical egotistical work of males during her time, she makes it clear that women do not posses this trait. Woolf did not believe that women could influence as men through ego, yet she did feel [and portray] that certain men do hold the characteristics of women, such as respect for others and the ability to understand many experiences. Virginia Woolf made many of her time realize that traditional literature was no longer good enough and valid. She caused many women to become interested in writing, and can be seen as greatly influential in literary history
Kane, Julie. Varieties of Mystical Experience in the Writings of Virginia Woolf. Twentieth Century Literature Vol 41 Iss 4 1995.
feminism is in actuality quite limited in tha t she only applies it to British, upper middleclass women writers. Virginia Woolf’s essay-which to Bennett seemed non- feminist and to Daiches seemed feminist- universalist-is, by our modern definition, feminist; however, the borders of culture, class, and profession that composed her frame of reference drastically limit the scope of Woolf’s feminism.
...s. The foremost condition for the creation of fiction is motivation and the imagination of the author. Even Virginia Woolf’s books resulted from such urge and willingness to express her ideas. Unlike, Woolf’s statement of how women need the private space of their own, financial affluence to write fiction, so many things motivate and encourage people to write without considering such circumstances. Woolf argues on the significance of financial affluence in its relevance to social equality. She even states, “Of the two — the vote and the money — the money, I own, seemed infinitely the more important”. However, money can’t represent the ideals of equality. As for women writers, their ideas and stories is the condition that motivates them to write fiction. Thus, the “500-pound a year” cannot replace the innate essence of writer’s passion in writing fiction.
In Virginia Woolf’s feminist essay “A Room of One’s Own,” Woolf argues that “a woman must have money and a room of her own” (16) if she is to write fiction of any merit. The point as she develops it is a perceptive one, and far more layered and various in its implications than it might at first seem. But I wonder if perhaps Woolf did not really tap the full power of her thesis. She recognized the necessity of the writer’s financial independence to the birth of great writing, but she failed to discover the true relationship to great writing of another freedom; for just as economic freedom allows one to inhabit a physical space---a room of one’s own---so does mental freedom allow one to inhabit one’s own mind and body “incandescent and unimpeded.” Woolf seems to believe that the development and expression of creative genius hinges upon the mental freedom of the writer(50), and that the development of mental freedom hinges upon the economic freedom of the writer (34, 47). But after careful consideration of Woolf’s essay and also of the recent trend in feminist criticism, one realizes that if women are to do anything with Woolf’s words; if we are to act upon them---to write the next chapter in this great drama---we must take her argument a little farther. We must propel it to its own conclusion to find that in fact both the freedom from economic dependence and the freedom from fetters to the mind and body are conditions of the possibility of genius and its full expression; we must learn to ‘move in’: to inhabit and take possession of, not only a physical room, but the more abstract rooms of our minds and our bodies. It is only from this perspective in full possession of ourselves that we can find the unconsciousness of ourselves,...
"She dressed like a tart and behaved like a bitch. She seems to be an unpleasant and utterly unscrupulous character. She's gone every sort of hog since she was seventeen ... and she stinks like a civet cat that has taken to streetwalking." (Hansen 1) That is very harsh thing to say which came from the mouth of Virginia Woolf, another writer during the time period. Now although she nor a lot of people were very fond of Katherine Mansfield, people did admit to liking this ambitious young writer. By the time Mansfield died, she wrote 72 stories, mastered playing the cello, did a good amount of traveling and became a magazine editor as well as accomplished many other things in a matter of 35 years. Katherine was a passionate woman and she lived outside the norm of most young women of her time. Furthermore, had a free spirit and risked everything as well as always having a form of glitz in her life. She displayed herself as flashy and would change her personality so easily, as well as her writing. It was dif...
DeSalvo, Louise A. Virginia Woolf: the Impact of Chilhood Sexual Abuse on her Life and work. Boston: Beacon, 1989. 122-25.
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.