a room of one's own 读书笔记

What makes a good female writer?

--A look into Woolf’s feminism attitude

As a so-called pioneer feminist and a real enthusiast for female writers, Virginia Woolf has always been deeply concerned with the fate of women and their emancipation. In the book A Room of One’s Own, she clearly presents the arduous battle towards women’s emancipation, the utmost state of which is to be a female writer in Woolf’s mind. So what exactly are those impediments that prevent women to be good writers?

The first thing Woolf mentions is the restrictions in the society, particularly those related to education. How disappointed and resentful she must be to be chased away from the lawn by a beadle and refused entry to the library unless accompanied by a fellow. But such social restrictions are just representations to some deep-buried reasons, concerning the poor image of women. Why are women poor? Woolf shouts out angrily. She becomes even more furious to find that “we burst out in scorn at the reprehensible poverty of our sex”. She goes on to seek for an answer and later we see her scolding our mothers for not leaving us a penny. What a good satire Woolf is making here! For the very reason why women are poor is that, instead of making money, they have had children. The long-stand stereotype from our society for women has tied women tightly that prohibits them to do anything other than bear and raise children.

All the practical elements in society for the last several centuries, marriage, family, economy, education, law and alike have been acting adversely towards women. Under such patriarchal control, it is almost impossible for women to settle down and write fiction. Although few succeeded in doing this, like Jane Austin and others, they were undoubtedly affected in their work as fail to express their genius “whole and entire”.Woolf’s answer to all these external obstacles is: go and have money. Whether it is inherited or winned by chance, a woman must have money to free herself from being inferior to man.

Money is sure very important, yet women still found themselves unable to write because they had no tradition to follow. It is useless for them to go to the great men writers for help because men and women think differently. They may learn a few tricks of them but the spirit of women fiction is nowhere to find. In the society where men are far superior over women, they must also come to monopolize the culture. Masculine hegemony in culture is the more eternal reason for this question. As only men have the right to create literature, they actually decide what women are like. This also accounts for the reason why the images of women vary greatly from evil to angel in literature. Woolf’s admonishment are that: kill the self-constrain buried deep in women’s heart and try to express out the true self. The most dreadful form of suppression is self-repression and self-surrender which may well happen in the masculine hegemony environment. And due to this, Woolf raised her second suggestion: find a room of one’s own. This room refers to both practical and symbolic meanings. Find a room of one’s own, shut down all the disturbances from the outside world, form those arrogant men and let the women’s heart fly and soar. Only by writing and writing can women elaborate their work and strive upward to be a good writer. Just as Woolf herself said when explaining the reasons for A Room of One’s Own: “I wanted to encourage the young women, they seem to get fully depressed.”

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