Virginia Woolf as Feminist and a Psychoanalyst

The fundamental notion of the female writer evolved within the nineteenth century when women were, and continued to be, considered as inferior beings when compared to their male counterparts. This is especially noticeable within the literary canon, where female writers are sparsely included in ‘reputable’ works of literature, let alone incorporated into any canon at all. Virginia Woolf, in her essay titled “In a Room of One’s Own” (1925), details the apparent trials and tribulations that female writers in the Victorian era experience when attempting to become recognized within a literary community. The female author is revisited during the second-wave feminist movement by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar in their psychoanalytic text, “Infection in the Sentence” (1979), which focuses on the “anxiety” associated with the act of writing as a woman. The approach to identifying the complex social constructs applied to women writers differ due to Woolf’s insistence on androgynous writing in order to unify perceived male and female characteristics, whereas Gilbert and Gubar celebrate distinctly feminine literature as a means to encourage an active literary community of women.

Virginia Woolf - Moving Beyond a Convoluted Memory of Her Parents Why would I start with Julia Duckworth Stephen to get to Virginia Woolf? One answer is Virginia’s often quoted statement that "we think back through our mothers if we are women" (Woolf, A Room of One’s Own). Feminism is rooted not just in a response to patriarchy but also in the history of females and their treatment of each other. Part of feminism is a reevaluation of the value of motherhood. But what does Virginia’s mother have to do with Virginia’s writing?

Feminist literary criticism is approach that is most concerned with the role of women within the context of literature. This includes how female characters are created and understood within any given text, in addition to the role of female authors and female readers. This paper shall focus on some of the theoretical concepts which have been contributed to the feminist literary discourse. It shall compare and contrast aspects of theory put forth by three prominent feminist critics, while also considering the arguments raised by three écriture feminine scholars. The feminist critics to be considered in this essay are Simone de Beauvoir, Elaine Showalter, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar.

(1996). “A Marriage Disagreement, or Marriage by Other Means.” The Feminist Memoir Project. ed. DuPlessis, Rachel, & Snitow, Ann. New York: Three Rivers Press.

Feminist art history-A literature review This paper aims at exploring the works of some famous feminist art historians such as Linda Nochlin, Norma Broude, Griselda Pollock, and Rozsika Parker, who focused their literature on the issue of women and art history from the 19th century through the 20th century. Broude states that female feminist art history students are of the belief that they have to rewrite art (Broude & Garrard 1982, 183). However, Broude and Garrard challenges this assumption by inquiring the “what and how” female feminist art history students would go about achieving the task of rewriting art, and what led to this notion of rewriting the history of art and what they intend to achieve by rewriting the history of art (Broude & Garrard 1982, 183). The notion of rewriting art history can be obtained from the accounts of Pollock and Parker that there have been variance in the affiliation and which are a product of social structures (Pollock & Parker 2013, 3). Thus in order to expose these differences art history has to be revamped.

Close reading reveals more than one possible answer to this question, but the overriding theme seems sympathetic to the Lady. By applying "the feminist critique" (Peterson 333-334) to Tennyson's famous poem, one may begin to understand how "The Lady of Shalott" not only analyzes, but actually critiques the attitudes that held women back and, in the end, makes a hopeful, less patriarchal statement about the place of women in Victorian society. As noted in the Norton Anthology of English Literature, the Industrial Revolution provided women with opportunities to work outside the home, but it also "presented an increasing challenge to traditional ideas of woman's sphere" ("Role of Women" 902). The idea of "public and private life as two 'separate spheres'... inextricably connected either with women or with men" (Gorham 4) had emerged as... ... middle of paper ... ...ian woman existing, albeit briefly, within the bounds of patriarchal society. References Abrams, M.H., ed.

"When Virginia Looked at Vita, What Did She See; or, Lesbian: Feminist: Woman- What’s the Differ(e/a)nce?" Feminisms: An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism. Ed. Robyn R. Warhol and Diane Price Herndl. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1997.

George Eliot’s most prominent female character, Dorothea Brooke, seeks to find fulfillment, professionally and socially, yet never fully achieves this goal. George Eliot is shining a light on the roles women played in relationships by showing a variety of relationships, both failing and thriving. George Eliot, just as Virginia Woolf also explained, had to battle for publishing rights by writing under a pen name and struggling to receive compensation to continue to write. ​Feminist critics point out that female writers achieved success due to their ability to conform to a world of patriarchal literature. George Eliot did so by conforming to society through the use of her pen name, Marian Evans.

“A Map for Rereading: or, Gender and the Interpretation of Literary Texts” New Literary History 11, no. 3 1980. 451-67 Treichler, Paula. “Escaping the Sentence: Diagnosis and Discourse in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Tulsa studies in Women’s Literature. 1984.

6. Lewin, Ellen. “Writing Lesbian Ethnography” reprinted in Women Writing Culture. University of California Press. 1995.