a-room-of-ones-own一个人的房间.docx

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) is a brilliant woman author in the English literary field during the 19th and 20th century. She is the pioneer among feminism critics. Her representative work A Room of Ones Own is widely considered “the first modern text of feminist criticism.” It is the first to expose and criticize patriarchy culture. She criticizes the inhibition of females from patriarchy culture and affirms the female literature tradition rejected by patriarchy society, finding a historical supporting point for female writing. She puts forward the idea that females should try to write from the dual - sex point of view without neglecting their own sex features, thus providing us greater value than those feminist critics excluding male writers. Then in my paper, I will try to analyze this work from the following aspects: instruction of A Room of Ones Own, feministic thoughts in A Room of Ones Own and the influence of her feministic thoughts in the literary field. First and foremost, A Room of Ones Own is based on a series of lectures she delivered at Newnham College and Girton College, two womens colleges at Cambridge University in 1928. It is the inspirational source for the fundamental queries of a female literary tradition and is also much appreciated in the present post-modernist or post-feminist time. In this book there are six chapters, in each section Virginia Woolf discusses the different aspects of the topic: women and fiction. In chapter one Virginia Woolf points out that western history so far has been the history of the patriarchy, a history written by men about men and for men. As daughters, wife, or mother, women have no equal rights and no economic independence. In chapter two, the topic is mens anger. The narrator of the book, goes to the British Museum to find out a series of questions, such as“whydid men drink wine and women water?”and the aunt,“Mary Baton”leaves the narrator a legacy of 500 pounds a year, and this legacy has its special hints. In chapter three, the narrator decides to investigate women in Elizabethan England, puzzled why there were no women writers in that fertile literary period. She believes there is a deep connection between living conditions and writing. In chapter four, the narrator makes up a story of Judith Shakespeare, supposedly the sister to the great Elizabethan playwright. Judith is full of adventurous spirit and rich imagination, but she is not sent to school, as her brother is, to learn grammar and logic. Finally her brother goes to London and becomes a great dramatist, while she dies and is buried at crossing roads. Actually the story is a miniature of the pathetic life of women, especially women of talent and ambition in the old days. In chapter five, the narrator thinks that the female writers, now given a better education, no longer need novels as a means of self-expression. She shows the readers an enormous change in the state of writing: an average female writer is finally able to write without anger or hatred, without a stifling awareness of her gender, with a standard “feminine” sentence as a model. In chapter six, the narrator opens with a story of a man and woman meeting on the street and she puts forward a term: androgynous mind. Also, A Room of Ones Own is a classic work about feministic thoughts. From this book, we can get to know the three major thoughts of Virginia Woolf: having a room of ones own, having their own way of writing, having their own voice and androgyny. Firstly, Woolf thinks that in the society of patriarchy during the Victorian period, women have been confined to the very limited sphere of domestic life, to be trained after the traditional model of femininity, and to bury themselves in the endless trivial housework, with no money, no rest, no private space, and no chance for self-realization. For example, Jane Austen did not have a study of her own, so she often finished her writings secretly in a corner of the living room. Every time when someone walked into the living room, she would hide her manuscripts immediately as literary writing was not an honorable career for women. Thus, Woolf makes the most famous statement: “ A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction,” and “ that it is necessary to have five hundred a year and a room with a lock on the door if you are to write fiction or poetry.” Besides, the room itself means not only a space; it is a metaphorical reference to a state of complete independence and freedom, where a woman can return to her real self. She can feel, think, and act as she likes without considering her own position and sex. Only in such a state of absolute independence and freedom can a woman create really great literature. Secondly, in A Room of Ones Own, Woolf employs the first narrator “I” to communicate with the audience the topic-women and fiction. However, “I” in this book does not refer to Virginia Woolf, but to Mary. “Mary” is not a specific individual, but refers to different types of women. Woolf fabricated a narrator, events, and places in order to discuss the creative talents of female writing and express her own points of view. In Woolfs day, if a woman wanted to express her opinions, she would face a number of obstacles. Thus, a fictional narrator is put into use. Meanwhile, this is also a revolt to the patriarchy of the society where women had almost no opportunity to express their opinions. Thirdly, the definition of “Androgyny” is one of the important thoughts of feminism and feministic criticism. Woolf defines the androgynous nature of the perfect human mind as two opposite and sexed presiding powers working in harmony. She describes the relation in the following simple statements: “In the mans brain the man predominates over the woman and in the womans 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-operating. If one is a man, still the woman part of his brain must have effect; and a woman also must have intercourse with the man in her.” The core of Woolfs androgynous aesthetic is sexual transcendence. While allowing