Virginia Woolfs Narrative Technique in A Room of Ones...

Like most uneducated Englishwomen, I like reading. Can these words really belong to Virginia Woolf, an uneducated Englishwoman who knew half a dozen languages, who authored a shelfs length of novels and essays, who possessed one of the most rarified literary minds of the twentieth century? Tucked into the back pages of A Room of Ones Own, this comment shimmers with Woolfs typically wry and understated sense of humor. She jests, but she means something very serious at the same time: as a reader, she worries about the state of the writer, and particularly the state of the female writer. She worries so much, in fact, that she fills a hundred some pages musing about how her appetite for books in the bulk might be†¦show more content†¦We asked you to speak about women and fiction - what has that got to do with a room of ones own? Woolf asks, anticipating her audiences bewilderment at the title of her work. It has to do, she explains, with women writers need for money and personal space. But it can only be properly explained through fiction. I am going to develop in your presence as fully and freely as I can [my] train of thought...making use of all the liberties and licenses of a novelist, she explains. One can imagine that this statement only further perplexed Woolfs original audience of female undergraduates in 1928. But Woolf is adamant here. She has no desire to rehash remarks about the usual suspects of womens literature. Jane Austen, George Eliot, the Bronte sisters - these women will eventually be mentioned, but Woolf is no historical surveyor. She writes modernist novels; naturally, she will write about women and fiction in that same modernist, novelistic mode. But the fictional form of A Room of Ones Own indicates more than Woolfs predilection for the novel as a writer. Rather, prose fiction has been the tendency of successful female authors since their historical emergence. Woolf, who notes later that the finest male write rs compose with the unconscious bearing of long descent, knows that her gender has no Shakespeare, no Milton, no Keats. Nor have women had their hands in biography,Show MoreRelated Analysis of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own Essay1678 Words   |  7 PagesAnalysis of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own Throughout history, female artists have not been strangers to harsh criticism regarding their artistic works. Some female artists are fortunate to even receive such criticism; many have not achieved success in sharing their works with the world. In Virgina Woolf’s third chapter of her essay â€Å"A Room of One’s Own,† Woolf addresses the plight of the woman writer, specifically during the Elizabethan time period of England. Woolf helps the readerRead MoreAnalysis the Use of Stream of Consciousness in Mrs Dalloway8784 Words   |  36 Pages May 8th , 2009 Abstract As one of the representative writers of novels of stream of consciousness, Virginia Woolf has made important contributions to the development of the technique of stream of consciousness by confirming her own original literary views through the design of a unique structure of stream of consciousness in one of her masterpieces—Mrs. Dalloway. Virginia Woolf constantly breaks through the tradition and works hard for the innovation throughout her life. Mrs. DallowayRead MoreEssay about Clothing and Gender in Virginia Woolfs Orlando1045 Words   |  5 PagesClothing and Gender in Virginia Woolfs Orlando In her novel Orlando, Virginia Woolf tells the story of a man who one night mysteriously becomes a woman. By shrouding Orlandos actual gender change in a mysterious religious rite, we readers are pressured to not question the actual mechanics of the change but rather to focus on its consequences. In doing this, we are invited to answer one of the fundamental questions of our lives, a question that we so often ignore because it seems so very basicRead MoreEssay on The Bloomsbury Group1644 Words   |  7 Pagesof the most important aspects of the Bloomsberries were Literature and Art. All members of this circle of intellectuals were vastly incorporated with both of these aspects as well as a few others. The most well recognized writer of this group was Virginia Woolf. The Bloomsbury Group is a popular collective designation for, a number of English intellectuals prominent in the first quarter of the 20th century, all of whom were individually known for their contributions to the arts or to the socialRead More Mrs. Dalloway2643 Words   |  11 PagesI. Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf, was published on May 14, 1925 in London, England. The novel follows Clarissa Dalloway and a variety of other characters throughout the span of one day in their lives in 1923 London. Woolf utilizes a narrative method of writing. With the novel’s structure, the narrator possesses the ability to move inside of a character’s mind and compose her thoughts and emotions immediately as events occur throughout the day. The novel’s main character, Clarissa, is a middle-agedRead MoreAnalysis Of The Poem Little Red Cap Essay1885 Words   |  8 Pagesinjustices of female representation in the past. This silence is evident in the Bible verse, ‘Let yo ur women keep silent in the churches,’ (I Corinthians 14: 34-37) and Virginia Woolf’s concept that â€Å"Anon †¦ was often a woman [who could not otherwise get the respect of male counterparts].† (Virginia Woolf, 1928, A Room of One’s Own. PAGE). These are only two examples of how females have been largely disempowered by the male constraints of literature. In recent history feminists have deemed it necessaryRead More Aphra Behn and the Changing Perspectives on Ian Watt’s The Rise of the Novel6049 Words   |  25 Pagesother competing novels and novelists who helped create or challenge the tradition. (p.231) Margaret Reeves, a little more sceptically, argues that â€Å"The remarkable success of The Rise of the Novel is due in large measure to the coherence of the narrative and its aesthetic achievement as a story of generic birth, growth and fulfilment† (p.32). Watt’s long term relevance and popularity is founded at least partly on his clarification of two key assumptions within literary criticism; firstly, that theRead MoreRhetorical Analysis Of Harold Pinter s The Room 9709 Words   |  39 Pagespsychosomatic impact on the modern man. The murder of Riley in the play The Room, the persecution of Stanley in the play The Birthday Party, the dumbwaiter’s order to Ben to kill his partner, Gus in the play The Dumbwaiter, the electric shock treatment given to Aston in the play The Caretaker, the torture meted out to Victor, his wife and his son in the play One for the Road, and the act of prohibiting the mountain people from speaking their own language in the play The M ountain Language are some of the manifold