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A Room of One’s Own 11/05/2009
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.
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)
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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).
Food and the cat’s 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).
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).The fictional narrator characterises 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’.
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.
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.
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)
