A Room of Ones Own

1
A Room of Ones Own

• 5/05/2008

2
Style

• A Room of One's Own is based on a series of
  lectures that Woolf gave at the women's college
  at Cambridge (Newnham and Girton). This accounts,
  in part, for the conversational tone, as does her
  talent for writing in a "stream-of-consciousness"
  style. The sentences are often quite lyrical,
  moving smoothly from image to image and idea to
  idea through elegantly fashioned clausal
  structures that highlight the associative nature
  of her thought. While very fluid and highly
  accessible, the piece is tightly structured,
  demonstrating the work of a logical, methodical
  mind. Woolf also challenges genre boundaries,
  blending nonfiction and fiction in order to
  express her ideas more completely.

3
Plot (first section)

• First section it traces the thoughts of a
  fictional narrator as she investigates issues
  confronting women, and women writers in
  particular. We follow her as she attempts
  (unsuccessfully) to enter the library at Oxbridge
  (fictional) and as she dines at the prestigious,
  misogynistic institution. We accompany her to a
  very different sort of dinner at the women's
  college at Fernham (fictional)

4
Beginning / ending

• But, you may say(Style)
• Woolf begins by presenting us with a problem
  having been asked to lecture on "Women and
  Fiction," she confesses to wondering what the
  phrase really means.Woolf begins (argument)
  "The title women and fiction might mean, and you
  may have meant it to mean, women and what they
  are like or it might mean women and the fiction
  that they write or it might mean women and the
  fiction that is written about them or it might
  mean that somehow all three are inextricably
  mixed together and you want me to consider them
  in that light" (5).
• Note the use of direct address to refer both to
  those who are sponsoring the lecture series and
  to the audience itself note also Woolf's
  willingness to raise questions as an effective
  opening tactic.

5
Truth and fiction

• Still considering her opening question, Woolf
  goes on to say that she will never be able to
  come to a definitive response, apologizing for
  being unable to offer "a pure nugget of truth to
  wrap up between the pages of your notebooks"
  (5). Truth and fiction Woolf in fact
  constructs a lecture which contains not one but
  many "nuggets of truth" and which challenges the
  reader to answer the question for herself.
• Woolf warns us that her exploration of this
  subject will be subjective and argues that
  "fiction here is likely to contain more truth
  than fact" (6). She therefore creates a fictional
  character whom she calls Mary and continues her
  first-person narration through "Mary's"
  voice.Mary explains that she is thinking as she
  sits on the banks of a river.

6
Thought

• Mary's narration includes the following
  commentary "Thought-to call it by a prouder name
  than it deserved-had let its line down into the
  stream. It swayed, minute after minute, hither
  and thither among the reflections and the weeds,
  letting the water lift it and sink it, until-you
  know the little tug-the sudden conglomeration of
  an idea at the end of one's line and then the
  cautious hauling of it in, and the careful laying
  of it out?" (5).
• Note the simultaneous use of poetic language (an
  image like "the sudden conglomeration of an idea
  at the end of one's line") and the continuation
  (or even extenuation) of the conversational tone
  (the way Mary interrupts herself with the phrase
  "you know the little tug," for instance).
  Inspiration Mary is discussing fishing as a
  solitary and leisurely activity and thus is
  suggesting it as metaphor for the whimsical
  nature of creativity. This metaphor underscores
  Woolf's premise that artists need quiet and
  freedom in order to follow their thought
  processes.
• Line line of thought, line, fishing-line

7
Inequality of Power (1)

• Absorbed in her thoughts, Mary begins to wander
  along the path. She realizes, when she is
  confronted by an indignant Beadle, that she has
  accidentally stepped off the path onto the grass.
  The Beadle is horrified by her transgression, and
  Mary meekly concurs, admitting that after all she
  is a woman and "Only the Fellows and Scholars are
  allowed here the gravel is the place for me"
  (7). She returns to the path but notes
  regretfully that her encounter with the Beadle
  has "sent my little fish into hiding" (6).
  Inequality of Power This incident can be
  interpreted both literally and figuratively it
  allows us to see that the rules of society keep
  women confined while men are allowed to wander
  about freely (Mary's acceptance of "her place" on
  the gravel is of course meant to be read
  ironically). Woolf also demonstrates, by
  continuing to employ the fish metaphor, the
  subtle but profound effect this situation has in
  inhibiting women's creative endeavors.

8
Inequality of Power (2)

• Engrossed in a new train of thought, Mary finds
  herself approaching the Oxbridge library. Here
  again, the natural progression of her thoughts is
  thwarted. As Mary opens the library door,
  "instantly there issued, like a guardian angel
  barring the way with a flutter of black gown
  instead of white wings, a deprecating, silvery,
  kindly gentleman, who regretted in a low voice as
  he waved me back that ladies are only admitted to
  the library if accompanied by a Fellow of the
  College or furnished with a letter of
  introduction" (9). Inequality of Power In
  this encounter Mary is denied entrance into the
  hallowed halls of learning solely on the basis of
  her gender. Because the library is a place of
  restricted access, it is a direct contrast to the
  "room of one's own" that is the subject of this
  essay.

9
Economics, power, and sexual inequality

• Returning to the grounds, Mary continues to
  stroll around the campus, admiring the tranquil
  beauty of the old buildings. She considers the
  centuries of labor that must have gone into the
  construction and maintenance of such a monumental
  institution. She imagines "an unending stream of
  gold and silver" (11) flowing from the purses of
  the men who first built it and from the pockets
  of the alumni who gave back generously to their
  alma mater. Inequality of Power Here Woolf
  investigates the root of the inequality between
  the sexes the money which built the institution
  came from men, and so the university itself
  belongs to men and is designed to serve their
  needs. (Link between economics, power, and sexual
  inequality).

10
Food and the cats question

• Mary then dines at the college and offers us with
  a description of the food and drink provided.
• Mary exclaims not only over the meal but over the
  effects it has upon the mood of the party as
  well "And thus by degrees was lit, halfway down
  the spine, which is the seat of the soul, not
  that hard little electric light which we call
  brilliance, as it pops in and out upon our lips,
  but the more profound, subterranean glow, which
  is the rich yellow flame of rational intercourse"
  (12).
• Enjoyment of the finer things in life can elevate
  not only the physical but also the intellectual
  senses, simultaneously demonstrating an awareness
  of the interrelationship between one's
  environment and one's thought processes.This
  pleasant reverie is interrupted when Mary looks
  through the window and spies a Manx cat on the
  lawn. She notes that without a tail, the cat
  looks "abrupt and truncated" (13), and she likens
  its awkwardness to the mood she senses in
  post-war society. She thinks back with nostalgia
  to the grace and romance of pre-war culture and
  quotes from the flowery and ecstatic poetry of
  Tennyson and Rossetti. As she walks home alone,
  she compares the work of these earlier poets to
  the poetry of her contemporaries and regrets that
  writers are no longer able to evoke the rapture
  of bygone days.She speculates on the cause of
  this change and wonders, "when the guns fired in
  August 1914, did the faces of men and women show
  so plain in each other's eyes that romance was
  killed?" (16).

11
Shifting of the I

• Woolf arrives home in time for dinner at Fernham
  but complains that this meal falls pitiably short
  of the luncheon served in the afternoon. She
  accepts the "crude" and "homely" meal with the
  understanding that it is not her place to judge
  what is, after all, adequate fare. She maintains,
  however, that "The human frame being what it is,
  heart, body and brain all mixed together, and not
  contained in separate compartments . . . One
  cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one
  has not dined well" (19). Although Woolf had
  introduced a fictional narrator, in this section
  she reverts back to her own voice, characterizing
  herself as a guest of Mary Seton. Over the course
  of the essay Woolf moves back and forth from one
  identity to the other without explanation.
• Modernist experiments with narrative
  point-of-view the masculine I.

12
Fernham

• Having speculated on the considerable endowments
  that must have supported Oxbridge over the
  centuries, the narrator now considers what sort
  of contributions could have been responsible for
  the institution of Fernham. She is told (by her
  fictional counterpart, Ms. Seton) that this
  women's college, which was the only one of its
  kind in Great Britain, was scraped together in
  1860 after many meetings, petitions, and
  fundraisers. Inequality of Power Mary Seton
  adds, "It was only after a long struggle, with
  the utmost difficulty, that they got thirty
  thousand pounds together. So obviously we cannot
  have wine and partridges and servants carrying
  tin dishes on their heads" (21).
• By reminding us of the difficulty fundraisers had
  in opening the women's college, Woolf is
  highlighting the economic limitations that women
  were subject to in her time and suggesting that
  this financial hardship prevents women from
  enjoying the kind of inspiring luxuries, i.e.,
  "amenities," she believes essential for creative
  stimulation.

13
Poverty / literature

• Woolf exclaims that this example is enough to
  cause one to "burst out in scorn at the
  reprehensible poverty of our sex" (21). She then
  tries to determine what social conditions might
  be responsible for such financial limitations.
  Initially, she considers whether women's relative
  poverty is due to idleness or to the
  responsibilities of raising children. She then
  remembers that even if a woman had been able to
  raise children and amass a fortune at the same
  time, until recently the laws would not have
  allowed her to keep that wealth in her own name.
  She concludes this section by asking the reader
  to consider "what effect poverty has on the mind
  and what effect wealth has on the mind" (24),
  drawing our attention to her premise that women
  will not be able to rival men in the fields of
  literature until they are able to enjoy the same
  social and economic advantages.

14
In / Out tradition

• and I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked
  out and I thought how it is worse perhaps to be
  locked in (24)
• and, thinking of the safety and prosperity of the
  one sex and of the poverty and insecurity of the
  other and of the effect of tradition and of the
  lack of tradition upon the mind of a writer (24)