A room of one's own: dwelling and autonomy

¶ … Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf [...] significance of Woolf's essay in relation to the theme of the course. Woolf's essay is more than a treatise on women writers, it speaks to the core need in everyone to have some sort of space they can call their own. The basic need for a dwelling resides in everyone, but even more, most people need to have a place that is theirs alone, where they feel safe, secure, and without restrictions. Woolf needs a room like this to create her writing, but everyone needs a place they can call their own, it is a basic human craving that has been with humankind forever.

Dwellings today mean much more than simple residences or hometowns. Modern American dwellings are larger than ever before, and people are spending more money on upgrading their homes than ever before. This obsession with large, fancy homes says much about American culture and society. Today, homes are more than dwellings that give us shelter, they are indeed for many a way to show off their success and abilities. Now, dwellings truly do affect us mentally, psychologically, and spiritually, and not always in positive ways. They indicate how society has become more monetarily successful but more disenfranchised from each other than ever before. Neighbors do not know each other, yet they feel compelled to have the finest home, the most beautiful landscaping, and the most expensive SUV parked in the driveway. Dwellings have become more than shelter and safe haven, they have become a status symbol. Woolf needed only one room, rather than a mansion, but today, one room would never be enough to induce the creative spark in many people. That indicates how important dwellings have become in the American landscape, and how much they say about American society and culture.

They also indicate how dwellings can become obstacles to development. While the houses get bigger, the feeling of neighborhood has been shrinking. Neighbors are afraid of each other, and install elaborate alarm systems, burglar alarms, and gates and fences to keep others away. Woolf was afraid of different things, as she notes in her essay, "it is worse perhaps to be locked in" (Woolf). These formidable dwellings do seem to keep people locked inside with their security systems, central air conditioning, and Internet connections to the rest of the world. Woolf longs for simpler things, such as "deep armchairs and the pleasant carpets" (Woolf), that are comfortable, rather than showpieces, while our modern dwellings are models of technology and innovation. But, are they really comfortable spaces where we feel safe and creative? Today, our dwellings represent many things about families and how they appear to others, but they also symbolize how appearance is more important than just about anything else in society. Modern dwellings are all about the outside, and what goes on inside does not seem to be nearly as important. Thus, our dwellings have gained so much influence over our lives that they have taken on lives of their own. They are more than sanctuaries, they have become museums to excess and consumerism, and they do not represent the havens Woolf longs for with a room of her own. Instead, they represent the opposite - showy residences that shut people out and lock others inside, stifling creativity, openness, and friendship.

Woolf "dwells" on the subject of women and fiction because it is the focus of her essay. However, for her, it was more than that. Because she was in a minority group, she found it difficult to let go of the fact that women authors did not write as much, and were often seen as inferior during the time of her career. This is important for several reasons. Woolf dwelled on the subject so much that others began to see the inequity of the situation, including why most women of her time lived in poverty. Money, she felt, was crucial to the ability to write, because it gave the woman the freedom to pursue her writing career. Woolf dwelled on this subject because it mattered to her, and she would probably be dismayed to learn that women are still the most affected by poverty around the world. Woolf dwells on things she would like to see change or get better, and so do many other women. However, society has not learned from all these lessons, and there are still things that women need to dwell on and change. Poverty is one of them.

Throughout the essay, Woolf discusses how inequitably women writers have been treated all through history, and how they have been made to feel unwelcome in those places that could be the most comforting. For example, she creates a character "who regretted in a low voice as he waved me back that ladies are only admitted to the library if accompanied by a Fellow of the College or furnished with a letter of introduction" (Woolf). Her inability to enter the library points out the inequity of men and women throughout history, but more importantly, it indicates why a "room of one's own" is so vital in the creative process. For many years, women writers were not welcome in the male dominated world of writing, and because of that, they were shut out from some of the most comfortable and comforting dwellings - libraries. Because of this, Woolf felt women must create their own comforting and creative spaces that would allow them the freedom to create and experiment in comfort and safety. If the dwellings of other writers were off limits, then they had to create their own safe spaces.

Woolf continually dwells on her feminism, as well. She writes, "Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt, that you can set upon the freedom of my mind" (Woolf). She was an early feminist who knew the potential of women, and of female thought. That is why she is concerned with providing women the right resources to aid in their creativity. Her needs were simple. Five hundred pounds a year from her aunt was all she needed to be free. Today, it seems women need much, much more, and that all seems to come back to what dwellings represent in our society. In Woolf's time, dwellings served a purpose, but were not the showpieces they are today. She even speaks of her "little" house and how cozy it is to write there.

She believed that if a woman only had five hundred pounds, her own space, and the time to write, that in one hundred years women would be writing the finest of fiction. In that anyway, her essay seems to be true. While poverty still affects more women than men, more women are writing, and being taken seriously. However, the dwellings of today have placed even more demands on women, leaving them far less time to be creative and fulfilled. Most women today work, even if they have families, because they must help to support them. Five hundred pounds would no longer support their needs, and they still would not have the time to write, even if they had their own space. Thus, the consumerism of today still keeps women on a different scale than men, and seems to point out the perpetuity of Woolf's essay.