A Room of One's Own

3. Lorainne Sim asks why it is that, within the field of everyday life studies, women writers and voices have such a marginal presence when it comes to the question of the everyday, even while the concept of the everyday is so often tied to femininity. How does Woolf help us begin an answer to this question? Give specific examples.

The simple answer to this would be how Woolf brings up the conditions of relative intellectual and economic poverty in which women were once raised. This had a clear negative effect on women's ability to output significant work in philosophy and scientific studies. Her story of Shakespeare's imaginary sister is an especially poignant example of how the mere fact of womanhood is detrimental to one's ability to produce great fiction. The way which she describes the relative poverty of Fernham and Oxbridge, and the apparent pressures which she places onto Mary Carmichael as she is reading, seems to indicate the perpetuation of those conditions in ways that are less visible but still guide the judgement of women's works to the present day.

I also felt that nearing the end of the essay, Woolf's writing became increasingly heteronormative. It seemed like her characterization of men and women as requiring a duality of manly-woman and womanly-man was just another way of perpetuating existing stereoptypes about femininity and masculinity, and how we "should" be involving the specialties of the "other" in order to produce works with integrity. Surely there are more influences that deserve to be drawn from beyond the simple generalizations of gender binaries?

Woolf

Woolf's piece was very interesting to me, the way in which she constructed and presented her piece makes more interested in actually reading it because she writes her ideas and concepts as they are in that moment rather than write in your typical academic language. She tells her essay in more of a story format and she also made her piece somewhat more personal which makes the readers more easily relatable to her through her work.
I personally thought that Woolf's message was very powerful and persuasive. She talked about the difficulties that women faced back in her time because women were typically not able to voice their own opinions because they did not have their own space for those thoughts nor were they able to be educated on the everyday. Though now, women have come a long way and now we see many successful women writers and Woolf's piece is one to look back at for women who are studying or writing about this field.

Separate but unequal

Woolf is writing in a fictional, novelist style, which I think is a way to express everyday aspects of female academic life in a universalized way. That is, the fact that the narrator is basically anonymous may make it simultaneously easier for readers to recognize the ordinariness of her experience, and more difficult to reject her experience as unique to Woolf (and therefore inapplicable to the wider female condition). This is a very supportive technique because I think she's trying to convey the way in which the everyday disadvantages of women's lives prevent their emergence in academia, literature, culture. Without 'a room of her own,' the narrator is subject to all the distractions and interruptions of thought that female were especially subjected to. Without money, the narrator can't escape from the role demands of her gender or the intellectually stifling environment (e.g. of a shitty college), both of which are recognizably everyday aspects of a woman's life and therefore of their intellectual repression.

Woolf

Woolf takes a completely different approach to academic writing when producing a Room of One’s Own. When calling out the expectations for a typical scholarly lecture she is also undermining them. In my eyes, when she does this it calls out the ridicule of a typical scholarly lecture. I think that she does this for that reason and also because by doing this it explains why her lecture will be so different and why she is doing what she is doing. Obviously this writing is very different then most, I kind of like to think of it as a journal.  The reason I believe this is because she is explaining her thought process and going over every tedious detail as one might do in a journal. I think that this gives the audience a more intimate look into Woolf’s mind and really emphasizes the need for a creative being to have space. Therefore, making this lecture extremely powerful and meaningful when looked at through an open mind.

Answer to #2

When referring needing a space to one's own and money, Woolf is referring to the fact that women have been kept from writing because of relative poverty. Financial freedom will give women the freedom to write essentially. The writing to states that having a room was "out of the question" unless a family was "rich and noble." Furthermore, Woolf's father believed only sons should be sent to college, ultimately ridding girls of knowledge. The thought of a girl being intelligent enough to write is fictitious in itself because of this.

I believe the term "space" is used literally and figuratively. It is literal in the fact that many families and women in particular did not have space to write in the is private and thought provoking. Also, society did not leave much space for women writers to evolve.More figuratively, women were shut off and limited space to men.

A Room of One's Own

Woolf begins her lecture by calling out the conventions and expectations for scholarly lectures, while simultaneously subverting them. How would you describe what Woolf is doing here? What kind of writing is this? And how does it differ from traditional academic discourse? Finally, what is the effect of the way she presents her ideas?
I think the way in which Woolf casually subverts the expectations for scholarly lectures makes her essay seem more sound, more relatable, and more personal to her. The way in which the essay is written like a "journal" like we discussed in class (casual yet powerful and effective), elevates her topic on women and fiction. Her metaphor in the first chapter about the fish (which represents an idea) only to be disturbed by a man, is really humorous - she makes casual metaphors like this throughout her essay to show how men have overpowered her.

Woolf also presents herself as a fictional character to the reader as "Mary Beton, Mary Seton, Mary Carmichael...". This is humorous yet powerful because Mary is a common named that may often be forgotten, that's why Woolf insists to be called whatever the reader would like to call her. 

Woolf also writes in order to remind the reader that they are reading a piece of fiction - the reader will not be able to forget that they are reading fiction because it is mentioned by Woolf so often. In a traditionally written fictional work, you instantly forget what you're reading may be true or not, because the characters in the book do not remind you that the work is fictional.  

woolf

3. Lorainne Sim asks why it is that, within the field of everyday life studies, women writers and voices have such a marginal presence when it comes to the question of the everyday, even while the concept of the everyday is so often tied to femininity. How does Woolf help us begin an answer to this question? Give specific examples.

By taking readers step by step through the myriad of hurdles that interrupt her train of thought, Woolf intimately and tangibly voices her everyday doubts about the way society works, especially for women. As Woolf proves, women writers were physically unable to have a voice due to the social structures of her time period. In regards to the space that Woolf says is necessary, women literally could not become writers without a space to expand their thoughts. At the time, men dominated every space, especially educational ones, prohibiting women from learning/becoming educated.

Everyday life studies are only recently starting to see women in the field because that is how it has been for every field of study. Women were not allowed a proper education for a very long time, so it makes perfect sense that they would not be present in the educational realm; even more to be significant and notable in it. Everyday life is even more of a struggle for women to converse about because their position in society was completely defined for them.

She uses the example of the meals they received at lunchtime to show how money was significantly more sufficient for men rather than women. Compared to the men's college, the women's college was sub-par. Along with the noticeably pitiful meal, the women at the college were not offered wine; furthermore, they did not converse with one another, co-create ideas, or learn from each other.  

Everyday life changes, especially for women and minorities, when the rules of society change. It is baffling that we are still fighting for women's rights with our modern wave of feminism; however, we have come a long way from the times of Virginia Woolf.

A Room of One's Own

Question #2

Woolf shows the importance of money through her own personal experience and through talking about resources. Woolf's father didn't want to spend the money to put her through school to get her an education, so she understands the important of wealth when it comes to being a writer or an artist. On page 29, Woolf says that "in the first place, to have a room of her own, let alone a quiet room or a sound-proof room, was out of the question, unless her parents were exceptionally rich or very noble", and Woolf is showing the importance of money here by stating that without money, women wouldn't have the resources (like a quiet room of their own) to work in. Woolf, in my opinion, is saying that poverty has deprived women of being able to be writers, and if they are given wealth then they will be able to write. One's own room is where they think and where they can explore their own mind, where they can create what they are trying to create. Without money, women won't have this privilege.

A Room of One's Own

This piece felt similar to everything else we've read this semester, yet somehow completely different. It had the observations about everyday life, yet they weren't laid out perfectly clear like they are in the more scholarly articles. The evidence is there, but it is less obvious and feels more real than previous works. The audience arrives at the intended conclusion, but it takes more thought on their part.

I think that this style of writing about the everyday is easier to read because it is easier to understand as a human being. The conclusions reached from this type of writing are more rewarding, in my mind, because it requires some effort from the reader and not just a theory being shoved down their throat.

A Room of One's Own

(Responding to Question #4)

I find it interesting the ways in which "A Room of One's Own" really speaks to everything we have discussed thus far in class about the everyday and what it means to live in the realm of the everyday.  I think that Virginia Woolf is able to access the everyday in ways which other scholars which we have read leading up to now cannot.  I think, first and foremost, she is able to do this because she talks about the everyday experience by literally narrating an everyday experience of her own.  In class discussion we often come back to this idea that the everyday is the thing which escapes, that thing which cannot be qualified or classified, or else it becomes something of significance, an event, which then can no longer exist in the realm of the everyday.  By discussing her experiences in this type of stream of consciousness, it is almost as if we are transported into Woolf's everyday realm without distinguishing it as such, therefore keeping its status as an everyday escaping event.  With scholarship such as the works of Lefebvre, De Certeau, etc., the goal is to define or classify our everyday experiences in order to better understand them, but how can we understand them at all without first disregarding them as significant, memorable experiences in the first place?

Woolf is careful in her writing to display her experiences as this rambling stream of consciousness in order to draw attention to the fact that this is how they would present in real life.  When we are in the midst of an everyday experience we are unaware, just as Woolf shows in her description of the tail-less cat for example.  The experience is memorable to her because it leads to thoughts about life and truth but the actual event of spotting the cat is presented almost as an aside rather than a plot point.

It's refreshing, especially in a class which is centered around the everyday, to read scholarship which presents itself as a narration or story, as if inviting you to dive into the everyday experience rather than classify or categorize it.

Viginia Woolf Reaction

I think that Woolf's look into the everyday is fascinating because it is so different that the other people and works we have read. Woolf does not use an authoritative tone when talking about the issues of feminism and the everyday. She shies away from that tone as if she is trying to say that she is not the best person to speak about the issue. Instead, she writes in a way that is more personal and down-to-earth. It is a fictional narrative that she is telling while combining it with real issues. In doing this, she distorts the criticism of only showing her point of view because technically, she isn't. With talking about a fictional character, she is able to talk about the issues facing women more intently by talking herself out of the conversation.

We talked about the saying "fiction can show more of the truth than the facts." This is absolutely true. Fiction writers have always been using fictional worlds to comments about the issues facing our own. The book "If Beale Street Could Talk" is a perfect example. All of the characters are made up and the situations they go through did not technically happen, but the book gives fascinating insight into what African Americans had to go through during the 1950s. This is exactly what Woolf is saying. Fiction helps the reader understand the issue, at least in the author's perspective, by not having to deal with facts that could distort the truth.

Fictional Writing At Its Best--Virginia Woolf

“A Room of One’s Own” by Virginia Woolf

"A Room of One's Own" by Anais Woolf
http://www.artpistol.co.uk/art-gallery/room-ones-own

How is the everyday an important concern in Woolf’s work?  How does she provide access to the everyday in ways that differ or relate to works that we’ve read?

Virginia Woolf brilliantly explores the everyday life of women in the 1920s through a detailed and tedious account of her thought processes of the everyday that combines fictional storytelling with aspects of truth.  By approaching the topic of “women and fiction” in this manner, and I can only assume that the everyday life of women was not a subject that was highly accessible through the discourse of this time, Woolf manages to produce a persuasive means of communicating the truth behind the everyday sexist encounters and the oppression of women through a fictional character.  She makes it clear that the identity of the narrator is irrelevant, “call me Mary Beton, Mary Seton, Mary Carmichael or by any name you please--it is not a matter of any importance”, because her story is true and applicable to all women of her lifetime (Woolf 3).

Woolf’s poetic technique differs from other works we have read thus far because she does not give us philosophical writing, a literary analysis or a research study, but rather a stream of consciousness.  Fictional or not, the inequality within the thoughts she has and personal encounters she describes rings true for womankind in a way that many writers have not been able to access through alternative styles of writing.  Woolf writes with a certain directness and honesty, while recognizing the limitations of her individual perspective outright, that makes it incredibly difficult, nearly impossible, to refute or disagree with her argument in any way.  She states very explicitly that her ideas are conveyed strictly through opinion and personal sentiment and in no way is her writing developed from any sort of factual perspective, because “one can only show how one came to hold whatever opinion one does have” (Woolf 2).

An important connection is made regarding the relationship that women have with two distinct concepts: instinct and reason.  Although logic and reason would tell her that she should have the same rights as men and be allowed to walk on the turf, oppressive instincts overwhelm her thinking and send her walking on the gravel, where women belong.  How did it come to be that women instinctually feel inferior to men?  Is this still true today?

BLOG assignment for A Room of One's Own

Post by the morning of Thursday, December 3rd
Comment by the end of the day Frinday, December 4th


Please respond to one of the following questions about Woolf's A Room of One's Own. You may also write about any other aspect of the book, if you're so inclined.

1. Woolf begins her lecture by calling out the conventions and expectations for scholarly lectures, while simultaneously subverting them. How would you describe what Woolf is doing here? What kind of writing is this? And how does it differ from traditional academic discourse? Finally, what is the effect of the way she presents her ideas?

2. The central argument Woolf makes is that a writer, artist, or thinker needs a room of one’s own and money. Why is this her answer to the prompt “Women and Fiction?” How does Woolf defend this statement throughout her narrative? How does she evidence the importance of space? How does she show the importance of money?

3. Lorainne Sim asks why it is that, within the field of everyday life studies, women writers and voices have such a marginal presence when it comes to the question of the everyday, even while the concept of the everyday is so often tied to femininity. How does Woolf help us begin an answer to this question? Give specific examples.

4. Given your thoughts above, how is the everyday an important concern in Woolf’s work? How does she provide access to the everyday in ways that differ from or relate to works that we’ve read?