A Room of Ones own

1
A Room of Ones own

• (4)

2
Female ancestors

• Woolf reinforces her premise that women in the
  sixteenth century were unable to write because
  the social environment necessary for greatness
  was denied to them. She says that while it was
  presumably easier for women from wealthy families
  than it was for others less fortunate, obstacles
  such as public opinion were still, in most cases,
  insurmountable. She then quotes from a poem by
  Lady Winchilsea which addresses this very issue
  "Alas! A woman that attempts the pen, / Such a
  presumptuous creature is esteemed / The fault by
  no virtue can be redeemed" (57). Woolf explains
  that Lady Winchilsea was restricted by adverse
  social conditions and notes that her writing was
  therefore "disturbed by alien emotions like fear
  and hatred" (58).Woolf then turns to the work
  of another female writer, Margaret Cavendish, and
  notes regretfully that her gifts suffered from a
  lack of formal education. Although Woolf
  expresses admiration for the spirit in her work,
  she reports that Ms. Cavendish ultimately
  "frittered her time away scribbling nonsense and
  plunging ever deeper into obscurity and folly"
  (60).

3
Aphra Behn

• Finally Woolf comments on the career of the
  working-class widow, Mrs. (Aphra) Behn, who
  earned money by selling her stories. She explains
  that women would have been discouraged from
  resembling the rather coarse Mrs. Behn but
  applauds her for setting an encouraging precedent
  for women of all classes. Women and Fiction
  Woolf explains that it was because of the efforts
  of these women and others like them that writing
  finally joined the rather short list of genteel
  professions by which a young lady could
  "legitimately" earn an income.

4
Women / novels

• Woolf argues that the fact that writing gained
  acceptance as a suitable occupation for
  middle-class ladies made possible the emergence
  of the female novelists of the nineteenth century
  (George Eliot, the Bronte sisters, and Jane
  Austen). Woolf is struck by the fact that once
  women began to write, they were almost
  exclusively drawn to the production of novels
  she suggests that this was because they did not
  have private rooms in which to work. Arguing that
  novels demand less sustained concentration than
  poetry or drama, Woolf indicates that this genre
  could better withstand the constant interruptions
  that came with writing in the common sitting
  room.

5
Feminine issues

• Woolf reinforces her premise that artists (and
  particularly writers) require concentration and
  thus solitude in which to create. Because women
  were traditionally expected to care for the
  family and the home, they were denied this kind
  of extended privacy Woolf suggests that the
  subject matter dealt with by the
  nineteenth-century women novelists was impressed
  upon them by society at large "All the
  literary training that a woman had in the early
  nineteenth century was training in the
  observation of character, in the analysis of
  emotion. Her sensibility had been educated for
  centuries by the influences of the common
  sitting-room. People's feelings were impressed
  upon her personal relations were always before
  her eyes" (64). In other words, women were
  expected to write about "feminine issues"
  family, relationships, emotion, and so
  forth.Woolf's consideration of the
  nineteenth-century women novelists is not
  entirely meant as a critique, however. Looking at
  Jane Austen, for instance, Woolf finds that the
  limiting context of this writer's artistry could
  be employed as a strength.

6
Austen / Charlotte Bronte

• Women and Fiction According to Woolf's analysis,
  Jane Austen's temperament was perfectly expressed
  in her novels. Woolf admits, "I could not find
  any signs that her circumstances had harmed her
  work in the slightest. . . . Here was a woman
  about the year 1800 writing without hate, without
  bitterness, without fear, without protest,
  without preaching" (65). Woolf celebrates
  Austen's ability to write without bitterness but
  acknowledges that it was a happy coincidence that
  her temperament was so ideally suited to her
  situation and the subject matter available to
  her.In comparing Charlotte Bronte to Jane
  Austen, however, Woolf recognizes that the
  restrictions placed on women and women's writing
  could have terrible artistic effects. Women
  and Fiction Woolf finds that Charlotte Bronte's
  work suffered from the restrictions placed upon
  its author she perceives Bronte as being
  possessed of "more genius" than Austen, but the
  fact that this talent was forcibly pent-up meant
  that Bronte's writing would be marred by
  "indignation" and would come out "deformed and
  twisted" (69). Although Woolf sympathizes with
  Bronte's longing to experience life beyond her
  small domestic sphere, she judges the work itself
  objectively and concludes that it has suffered.

7
Feminine writing

• Woolf then turns her attention to the form of the
  novel as it has developed over the nineteenth and
  early twentieth centuries and reports that it
  tends to be stylized and predictable. She argues
  that the only way a novel can transcend its
  formal limitations is if it is written with
  integrity and reveals the truth about life.
  Because of the demand for integrity, Woolf argues
  that female novelists were on most solid ground
  when they wrote about the subject matter in their
  own limited experience. Women and Fiction
  Woolf admits that women's lives and "interests"
  were considered trivial in comparison to those of
  men, which made it inevitable that their writing
  would be deemed less important as well.

8
Female tradition

• Woolf points out yet another obstacle for female
  writers of the nineteenth century, namely the
  lack of a literary tradition upon which to draw.
• Thinking back through our mothers (72)
• She explains "It is useless to go to the great
  men writers for help, however much one may go to
  them for pleasure" (73).

9
Future of writing

• Women and Fiction Woolf explains that women will
  need to create their own tradition of writing and
  predicts that women will have to develop a new
  form which suits their natural abilities. In an
  attempt to define such a new genre, she suggests
  that women's books "should be shorter, more
  concentrated, than those of men, and framed so
  that they do not need long hours of steady and
  uninterrupted work. For interruptions there will
  always be" (74).