In Search of a Room: A Critical Analysis of Virginia Woolf's Essay

This essay presents a critical analysis of Virginia Woolf's 'A Room of One's Own,' a seminal work of feminist literary criticism. The essay explores Woolf's central argument that women need financial independence and a private space to foster their creative writing. It discusses Woolf's use of a fictional narrator, Mary Beton, to examine the historical and societal obstacles faced by women, including limited access to education, legal disadvantages, and societal expectations related to marriage and childrearing. The analysis covers Woolf's observations on the disparities between men's and women's colleges, the impact of wealth and poverty on intellectual development, and the historical representation of women in literature. It further examines Woolf's concept of the 'androgynous mind' and concludes by emphasizing Woolf's call for diverse voices and perspectives in literature, encouraging readers to challenge preconceived notions and support the creative endeavors of all individuals. Desklib is your go-to platform for accessing similar essays and study resources.

Running Head: ENGLISH COLLEGE WRITING
English College Writing
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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A critical analysis of Virginia Woolf's "In search of a Room of One's own"
Introduction
Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, published in 1929, is a major work of feminist
literary criticism (Woolf, 254). The piece was composed after she conveyed two addresses on
ladies and fiction. Woolf's article looks at the social, educational and economical inconveniences
women have come across all through history. It contains Woolf's acclaimed contention that a
lady must be economically equipped and must possess own room in order to compose fiction.
The article investigates the 'unsolved' issues of ladies and fiction to demonstrate how she reaced
the conclusion about the room and economic independence ("Norton Reader"). She utilizes the
fictionalized personality of 'Mary' [her alter ego], to get some answers concerning everything
that has ever been composed about ladies –ladies have been banished from going to class and
college, for example, or rejected by law for legacy, or expected to get involved in childrearing
and housekeeping, after marriage (Richter, 108).
Discussion
Virginia Woolf, while delivering a speech on fiction and women, discloses that she has
concocted "one minor point” that a lady must be economically equipped and possess her very
own room in the event that she is to compose fiction. Author declares that she will utilize an
imaginary narrator- Mary Beton to demonstrate how her contemplations on the lecture blended
with her everyday life.
Seven days prior, the narrator traverses a lawn at the imaginary Oxbridge University,
attempts to enter the library, and goes by the chapel. She is interrupted at each place and

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reminded that ladies are not permitted to do such things without men. She discovers a lavish
lunch at men’s university, while at Fernham, the ladies' college, the supper is ordinary. She later
strikes a conversation about how men's schools were patronized by rich men, and how supports
were raised with trouble for the ladies' college. Had the feminine gender been freely rich, maybe
they could have secured comparative extravagances for ladies. Nevertheless, the narrator
understands the hindrances the ‘fair sex’ confronted: working is at conflict with child raising,
and the ladies have been permitted to keep cash they earned, only for last forty-eight years. The
narrator contemplates the impacts of riches and poverty, on the brain and about the flourishing of
males and the destitution of females.
Narrator inspects the British Museum in London (Larsson, 142). She finds there are innumerable
books expounded on ladies by men, while there are not really any books by ladies on men. She
finds a huge number of conflicting cluster of men's conclusions on ladies. One male educator
who expounds on the lowliness of ladies, enrages her. Had he stated "dispassionately" she would
have given careful consideration to his contention, and not to him. She ponders upon why men
are so furious if England has a male centric culture, in which they have all the influence and
money (Squier, 2). Maybe possessing power produces outrage out of dread that others will usurp
one’s authority. She places that all through history, ladies have filled in as models of inadequacy
who expand the supremacy of men.
The protagonist is appreciative for the legacy left to her by her aunt (Jones, 25).
Presently, she reasons that since nothing can take away her cash and security, she requires not to
despise any man. She can now review art, with more prominent objectivity. The narrator
researches about ladies in Elizabethan England and gets bewildered by the fact that there were no
lady authors in that fruitful literary period. She accepts there is a profound association between

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living conditions and imaginative outcomes. She peruses a history book, discovers that ladies
had few rights in the period, and finds no material about middle-class ladies. Woolf envisions
what sort of life 'Judith Shakespeare', a splendid, skilled sister of Shakespeare, might have lived
(Friedman, 30). Inferring that she would have been so obstructed and thwarted by patriarchal
society, so tormented and split by her own particular opposite impulses, that she must have lost
her wellbeing and rational soundness.
The narrator sarcastically asserts that no woman of the time would have possessed such
genius, because masterminds like Shakespeare, is not conceived among working, uneducated,
servile individuals. Nevertheless, some sort of intelligence might have existed among ladies at
that point, as it exists among the common laborers, despite the fact that it never gets recorded.
The author contends that the challenges of composing are intensified for ladies, who are
effectively despised by the male foundation. She says the psyche of the artist must be
"incandescent" like Shakespeare's, with no impediments. She contends that the reason people
know so minimal about Shakespeare's brain is on account of the fact that his work is devoid of
personal feelings of resentment and demonstrations of hatred and hostilities. Absence of
individual dissent makes his work unbound and unhampered.
The author goes through verses of certain Elizabethan women, and finds that outrage
towards men and instability damage their writing. The writer Aphra Behn was an exception; she
possessed "freedom of the mind" (Ratcliffe,36). The nineteenth century middle class lady was
prepared in the craft of social perception, and the novel was a characteristic fit for her abilities
and therefore the age produced novelists like Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, Charlotte Bronte and
George Eliot (Snaith, 45).

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The narrator views Carmichael as a true descendant of the above-mentioned female
writers. She finds Carmichael’s narrative style uneven, probably it is a resistance to the flowery
writing associated with women. Narrator peruses and finds the possibility of association between
two ladies in Carmichael’s writing, which she believes is path-breaking in literature, as formerly
connections have been established only between man and woman. Moreover, the protagonist
believes that women writers should portray men in literature, yet the protagonist still trusts that
every sex is constrained in its learning of the other sex. The narrator claims that creativity of men
and women are different in nature and consequently their writings must also be different. The
author deduces that psyche contains both a male and female part and the two should live in
concord. She arrives at this conclusion from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s concept of ‘androgynous
mind’. Wiiliam Shakespeare was possessor of such a mind.
The fact must be noted that Woolf did not express a supposition on the relative worth of
the two sexes, particularly as writers, since she does not accept such a judgment is conceivable or
alluring (Woolf, 26). However, her readers might be lead into believing that she laid excessive
emphasis on material things, and that the psyche ought to have the capacity to defeat poverty and
absence of privacy. She explains the matter, as to why she demands that composition by women
is vital. As an ardent peruser, the excessive manly writing in every genre has disenchanted her of
late. She urges her readers to act spontaneously; she further urges her readers not to have any
preconceived notion about anything or anyone.

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Conclusion
Thus, it may be concluded from the above discourses that Woolf states that writing and
history is male build that has underestimated ladies. Woolf disproves the broadly held
supposition that women are mediocre scholars. It is likewise an issue of gendered esteems,
author demands. Woolf states that in the writing of 1920s the manly esteem won. The author
sarcastically comments that this is an immaterial book, since it deals with the sentiments of
ladies. Woolf concludes her writing with a request to the people, to compose a wide range of
books, irrespective of the triviality of the subject. Author further believes that Judith Shakespeare
would again return, if everyone worked for her cause.

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References
"Norton Reader." Nortonreader.com. N.p., 2018. Web. 21 Feb. 2018.
Friedman, Susan Stanford. "A Room of One's Own in the World: The Pre‐life and After‐life of
Shakespeare's Sister." A Companion to Virginia Woolf (2016): 189-201.
Jones, Clara. "Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and the Problem of Inherited
Wealth." Influence and Inheritance in Feminist English Studies. Palgrave Pivot, London, 2015.
20-33.
Larsson, Lisbeth. "Trials and Tribulations—To the Lighthouse, Orlando, A Room of One’s Own,
The Waves and Flush." Walking Virginia Woolf’s London. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2017.
139-168.
Ratcliffe, Krista. Anglo-American Feminist Challenges to the Rhetorical Traditions: Virginia
Woolf, Mary Daly, Adrienne Rich. SIU Press, 2016.
Richter, Harvena. Virginia Woolf: The Inward Voyage. Princeton University Press, 2015.
Snaith, Anna. Virginia Woolf: public and private negotiations. Springer, 2016.
Squier, Susan Merrill. Virginia Woolf and London: The sexual politics of the city. UNC Press
Books, 2017.
Woolf, Virginia. A room of one's own and three guineas. OUP Oxford, 2015.
Woolf, Virginia. The Essays of Virginia Woolf, Volume 5: 1929-1932. Random House, 2017.