Entries from mayo 2013 ↓

Books:

Austen, Jane. Persuasion. London: York, 1999. Print.

Bell, Quentin. Virginia Woolf: A Biography. London: Hogarth, 1972. Print.

Black, Naomi. Virginia Woolf as Feminist. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2004. Print.

Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Essex: Longman, 1994. Print.

Greenblatt, Stephen (Gen. Ed.)The Norton Anthology of English Literature: the Twentieth Century and after. 9th ed.  New York: W. W. Norton, 2012. Print.

Mepham, John. Virginia Woolf: A Literary Life. Basingstoke [u.a.: Macmillan, 1993. Print.

Moers, Ellen. Literary Women. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976. Print.

Showalter, Elaine. A Literature of Their Own. London: Virago Press, 1982. Print.

Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One’s Own ; Three Guineas. London: Penguin Books, 1993. Print.

Woolf, Virginia. A Writer’ S Diary. Glasgow: Triad/Granada, 1983. Print.

Woolf, Virginia. Flush: Biography. London: Penguin, 1995. Print.

Woolf, Virginia. Mrs.Dalloway.  London: Penguin Books, 1996. Print.

URL’ s:

Feminism. English Dictionary & Thesaurus.  University of Cambridge, n.d. 16 May 2013.

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/feminism

«The Victorian Web: An Overview.» The Victorian Web: An Overview. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 May 2013.

http://www.victorianweb.org

Everett, Glenn. The Life of Elizabeth Barret Browning. The Victorian Web, April 2, 2002. 15 May, 2013.

http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/ebb/ebbio.html

Kathryn B. Stockton. Jane Austen and Feminist Critics. The Victorian Web, April 2, 2002. 15 May, 2013.

http://www.victorianweb.org/previctorian/austen/gender.html

 Melissa Lowes. Charlotte Brontë: A Modern Woman.  The Victorian Web, April 2, 2002. 15 May, 2013.

http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/bronte/cbronte/lowes1.html

Woolf, Virginia, Stanford Patrick Rosenbaum, and Virginia. Woolf. Women & fiction. Shakespeare Head Press, 1929. Web.

http://ftp.beitberl.ac.il/~bbsite/misc/ezer_anglit/klali/99_25.doc.

Other:

The Hours. Dir. Stephen Daldry. Perf. Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep. YouTube, 19 Dec. 2012. Web. 22 May 2013.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZJCVilXbjQ

Mrs. Dalloway. Dir. Marleen Gorris. Perf. Vanessa Redgrave, Rupert Graves. YouTube, 08 June 2012. Web. 22 May 2013.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w227rhzbQ_c

In this Second Paper, I have analyzed many interesting points in order to accomplish completely my aim: to investigate feminism in Virginia Woolf, through her works

First of all, I have entered into the mind and feelings of the author, reading diaries, biographies or letters, as well as her books. I have connected her life with feminist ideas successfully. Her life had a great effect in her works. Then, I’ ve organized chronologically these three works both historically and regarding her life.

Secondly, through the sections «Clarissa in Mrs. Dalloway», «Mr. Barrett in Flush» and «The essay of A Room of One’ s Own» I have analysed the three works, using only one character in Flush and Mr. Dalloway. Thus, I’ ve introduced them to the readers preparing three works from a feminist point of view.

After that, I have considered interesting points (in order to accomplished my aim in this Second Paper) the themes Women Writers and Androgyny. The first one is a theme in A Room of One’ s Own and Flush. The second one is explicitly talked by Woolf in her longest essay.

Also, I’ ve added information about two influences of Woolf: Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë, two English women writers in the Victorian Age, pioneers in feminism.

Therefore, after analysing all that, I’ ve reached the goal: feminism in Virginia Woolf through those three works. This parragraph is the meeting of all those points. Also, I have investigated about the discussion between feminism and androgynous mind as the topic that the authors wanted to transmit. So, after comparing Mrs. Dalloway, Flush and A Room of One’ s Own from a feminist point of view to Virginia Woolf’ s life and its consequence in her works and to the other themes of women writers and angrogyny, I conclude that this author and this novel is being studied nowadays because of their complexity and their mystery, as all great work. Regarding the discussion about what she wrote about, in my opinion, she proposed an androgynous mind as a strategy to combat inequealities between genres from a feminist point of view, of course.

Woman and artist – either incomplete.                                                                                                                                                                                     Both credulous of completion.

                        Elizabeth Barret Browning.

When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even of a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet, of some mute and inglorious Jane Austen, some Emily Bronte who dashed her brains out on the moor or mopped and mowed about the highways crazed with the torture that her gift had put her to. Indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.

Virginia Woolf.

Virginia Woolf highlighted the woman writer Jane Austen on this paragraph, in A Room of One’ s Own. Woolf traces the rise of women writers, emphasizing in particular Jane Austen, the Brontës, and George Eliot. I will talk about Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte in connection with Virginia Woolf. So, both English women writers, Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte, were predecessors of Virginia Woolf in the matter of feminism. They were patterns to Virginia Woolf, that is, they influenced her.  

Jane Austen was a woman writer in the eighteenth century in Great Britain. She, who didn’ t go to the University, was pioneer in writing as a woman in a patriarchal society. Acoording to Ellen Moers, 

«Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story,» wrote Jane Austen. «Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands.» Now women seized the pen; and female self-consciousness brought heroinism to literature. As literary women have always been grateful to say, it all went back to the first heroine of letters, [Samuel] Richardson’s Pamela, not because of her virtue but because, as she says herself, «I have got such a knack of writing, that when I am by myself, I cannot sit without a pen in my hands»¹

And as the Victorian Web says: «Austen’s «heroines’ subordinate role in the family,…their dutifulness, meditativeness, self-abnegation, and self-control» are characteristic»² 

As an example of her ideas, the following sentence is from her novel Persuasion I think it reflects the idea: “I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.”³

Also Charlotte Brontë, an English writer in the nineteenth century, was pioneer as a feminist writer. As Melissa Lowes states, «Brontë, in her subtlety, wrote of simple women, who relied upon the respect of themselves, rather than society, to provide fulfillment in their lives. Through her characters, Brontë gave the gift of the modern woman, a woman determined to make her own way, and live her life by her own set of standards, dictated not by society but by herself, and herself alone.»⁴

Charlotte critized the use of sexuality to seduce men. In her most famous novel, Jane Eyre, we can read this fragment which shows her feminist ideas: “I do not think, sir, you have any right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience.”⁵

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Women require full access to economic and political rights in order to promote reforms that will use women’ s history and experience as a basis for reconstruction of the world shared by all human beings.¹

Feminism is the belief that women should be allowed the same rights, power, and opportunities as men and be treated in the same way.² It is an ideology whose aim is to get social, political and economic iguality between both women and men. In the 19th and the early 20th century, there were the most important movement in UK.

Virginia Woolf highlights women in her works – Mary Beton in A Room of One’ s Own, Mrs. Browning in Flush or Clarissa Dalloway in Mrs. Dalloway – depicting her thoughts, regards and feelings as in these cases. Nowadays, the writer is an icon in the feminism movement, because lots of writers have determined this. However, there are some people who defend that Virginia Woolf wasn’ t a feminist writer. Through my previous analysis – such as the character of Carissa or Mr. Barret, as well as my explanation about A Room of One’ s Own and the term of Androgyny -, I am going to investigate this. In other words, this section is the meeting of all sections, so its result will be determinant.

1. Feminism

In A Room of One’ s Own by Woolf, the author displays the readers a feminist ideology and an androgynous mind. Both ideas are very similar, but siffer a little. Feminism, as we just know, requires equal rights, power or oppotunities in female and male genre. Angrogyny is a strategy to accomplished feminist ideas. It seems to be an escape from the confontration between both genres.

We can observe too many examples of both ideas in the three works. Focusing on feminism, we will read first a passage of Flush: «If only Mr. Barrett could hear the tone in which she welcomed this usurper, the laugh with which she greeted him, the exclamation which she took her hand in his!»³ Virginia Woolf, through this fragment, shows us the superiority of men over women. Mrs. Browning, of course, has fewer rights than Mr. Browning. Through this sentence, the author critics the patriarchal society that opressed female genre.

According to Naomi Black, «The goal is more than just equality or equal treatment. Virginia Woolf belongs among the social feminists, because of her valorization of women’ s «civilisation» as a basis for social and political transformation.»⁴ Through this sentence, the writer is claiming the feminism in Woolf.

Sir William’ s heart thouh concealed, as she mostly is, under some plausible disguise; some venerable name; love, duty, self sacrifice. […] what it was really painful to believe – that the poor lady lied. Once, long ago, she had caught salmon freely: now, quick to minister to the craving which lit her husband’ s eye so oilily for dominion, for power, she cramped, squeezed, pared, pruned, drew back.⁵ 

In addition, the previous parragraph is another example of repressed women that Woolf portrays in the novel Mrs. Dalloway. Through these words, the writer criticizes again the established patriarchal society, therefore it is considered within feminism.

It is repeated in the following parragraph in A Room of One’ s Own, where Woolf demands the fact that men put women on pedestals where they are only allowed to do certain, preferably womanly things.

A very queer, composite being thus emerges. Imaginatively, she is of the highest importance; practically, she
is completely insignificant. She pervades poetry from cover to cover; she is all but absent from history. She
dominates the lives of kings and conquerors in fiction; in fact she was the slave of any boy whose parents
forced a ring upon her finger. Some of the most inspired words, some of the most profound thoughts in
literature fall from her lips; in real life she could hardly read, could scarcely spell, and was the property of her
husband.⁶

Finally, Quentin Bell, Virginia’ s nephew, supported that feminism in Woolf came from the sexual abuses which she suffered, so she was definitely feminist according her nephew. «This anxiety toward sexuality and the abhorrence of lust and aggression, which Virginia understandably carried within her, are painfully apparent in the complex natures of her characters.»⁷

2. Androgyny

One has a profound, if irrational, instinct in favour of the theory that the union of man and woman makes fot the greatedt satisfaction, the most complete happiness. But the sight of the two people getting into the taxi and the satisfaction it gave me made me also ask whether there are two sexes in the mind coresponding to the two sexes in the body, and whether they also require to be united in order to get complete satisfaction and happiness? And I went on amateurishly to sketch a plan of the soul so that in each of us two powers preside, one male, one female; and in the man’ s brain the man predominates over the woman, and in the woman’ s brain the woman predominates over the man. The normal and comfortable state of being is that when the two live in harmony together, spiritually co-ooperating. If one is a man, still the woman part of the brain must have effect; and a woman also must have intercourse with the man in her. Coleridge perhaps meant this when he said that a great mins is androgynous.⁸

Being as Virginia Woolf portrayed in her works the society in general, there are some reviewer that refuse that idea of feminism in Woolf. Acoording to their theory, the author criticizes both female and male genre. Her demand for equaly between women and men highlight, of course, but criticizing society, not only men. As the previous parragraph (which I have already used) presents clearly what the proposal by Virginia was: androgynous mind.

According to Elizabeth Wright, “Androgyny, for Virginia Woolf, was a theory that aimed to offer men and women the chance to write without consciousness of their sex – the result of which would ideally result in uninhibited creativity.”⁹ 

An example of those reviewers who support androgyny and refuse feminism is Elaine Showalter. She refutes Woolf’ s feminism. It is false, in her opinion, that Virginia was a feminist writer.¹⁰ Readers should see only in Virginia Woolf a portrait of the society, other of her topics, because the writer presents both female and male genres. Woolf displays an androgynous mind to combat inequealities.

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Androgyny is a term used to describe a person who has the characteristics of both masculinity and femininity, that is, hermaphrodite. This term has been used in feminism, too. Virginia Woolf defended androgyny as a strategy to end the inequality between men and women. Androgyny appears in her longest essay A Room of One’ s Own.

One has a profound, if irrational, instinct in favour of the theory that the union of man and woman makes fot the greatedt satisfaction, the most complete happiness. But the sight of the two people getting into the taxi and the satisfaction it gave me made me also ask whether there are two sexes in the mind coresponding to the two sexes in the body, and whether they also require to be united in order to get complete satisfaction and happiness? And I went on amateurishly to sketch a plan of the soul so that in each of us two powers preside, one male, one female; and in the man’ s brain the man predominates over the woman, and in the woman’ s brain the woman predominates over the man. The normal and comfortable state of being is that when the two live in harmony together, spiritually co-ooperating. If one is a man, still the woman part of the brain must have effect; and a woman also must have intercourse with the man in her. Coleridge perhaps meant this when he said that a great mins is androgynous.¹

According to Elizabeth Wright, «Androgyny, for Virginia Woolf, was a theory that aimed to offer men and women the chance to write without consciousness of their sex – the result of which would ideally result in uninhibited creativity.»²

In biological terms, Arduin, quoted by Sigmund Freud, states that “there are masculine and feminine elements in every human being; but one set of these – according to the sex of the person in question – is incomparably more strongly developed than the other, so far as heterosexual individuals are concerned.»³

Elaine Showalter agrees with Virginia regarding androgynous term. Showalter writes in her work  A Literature of Their Own that Woolf’s androgyny «represents an escape from the confrontation with femaleness or maleness».

Other critics support feminism as the main and unique idea in Woolf’ s essay. Therefore, Showater critics them.

Emphasizing the idea, I will highlight another paragraph of A Room of One’ s Own which is: “It is fatal to be a man or a woman pure and simple; one must be a woman-manly or a man-womanly. It is fatal for a woman to lay the least stress on any grievance; to plead even with justice nay cause; in any way to speak consiously as a woman. And fatal figure of speech; for anything written with that conscious bias is doomed death.”⁴

To sum up, the main topic in A Room of One’ s Own by Virginia Woolf is androgyny. So, there is a dualism in the essay: feminism versus androgyny.

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I have already analyzed the character of Elizabeth Barrett Browning in Flush: a Biography, as well as the longest essay of Virginia Woolf A Room of One’ s Own. Now, using both analysis, I am focusing on their main similarity, the theme of women writers.

On the one hand, Flush: a Biography is about the cocker spaniel Flush, the pet of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who is a real English woman writer in Victorian Epoque. On he other hand, A Room of One’ s Own is about the demand for better conditions to women writers: privacity, suitable economy, education and time.

First of all, Elizabeth Barrett Browning was a Victorian English woman poetess and Flush shows her life since the Barretts moved to 50 Wimpole Street in London, 1837, until Elizabeth is married, lived in Italy and had her son, that is, when Flush dies. In this section, it is important to highlight passages on the book which are connected with this theme.

Woolf depicts the time when Elizabeth was invalid in detail. She wrote and read, wrote and read, and only the same few people visited her each day. So, the poetess was a dependent person that always needs someone to feed, dress or clean her. And in A Room of One’ s Own the demand of the author, as I have just stated, is just independence: economic independence, privacity…

Edward Moulton-Barrett was Elizabeth’ s father. He made a great fortune from Jamaican sugar plantations. Woolf portrayed him as Mr. Barrett, an awful man who controls her daughter, as we can see through these words: «His eye at onse sought the tray. Had the meal been eaten? Had his commands been obeyed? Yes, the plates were empty. Signifying his approval of his daughter’ s obedience, Mr. Barrett lowered himself heavily into the chair by her side.»¹ It is clear what privacity in her life the character has: zero. Summarizing, Mrs. Browning is required to explain her activities, obey her father’ s orders, too. And it is just what Woolf criticized in A Room of One’ s Own, the men’ s control over women: theirs wifes or daughters.

Secondly, Woolf talks in A Room of One’ s Own about what women can or cannot do. According to John Mepham, «Once inside her room, with the door locked, the writer can still be obstructed. There are cultural and psychological obstacles to her work which she takes with her into the room. There are rules of decorum telling her what she can and cannot write about without giving offence.»² In Flush we can observe something about what Mrs. Browning couldn’ t do, although it is not to write. For example, it was forbidden amorous relationships with men: «If only Mr. Barrett could hear the tone in which she welcomed this usurper, the laugh with which she greeted him, the exclamation which she took her hand in his!»³. In fact, the real Mr. Barrett, Edward Moulton-Barrett, disinherited her because she got married without his permission.

To conclude, A Room of One’ s Own and Flush: a Biography are Virginia Woolf’ s works which have the theme of women writers in common. The first one is deeper and portrays the idea explicitly. The second one through a dog as a protagonist can’ t explain this idea very well, so it shows the issue superficially and it is implicit.

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