Room of One\'s Own

¶ … Room of One's Own -- Magical Realism and the Power of Gender

A Room of One's Own is an extended essay based on a series of lectures Virginia Woolf gave at Cambridge University in 1928. It was published in 1929, and explores the way in which women are integrated into fiction and history, and offers an interesting juxtaposition on the literal and figurative manner in which society is traditionally dominated by patriarchal themes. In addition to the theme of education, literature, a woman's position within society, and gender sexuality; there is a subtheme of modernity and magical realism that permeates each set of examples and ties the work together -- with perhaps the magic being a way of relooking at the world through gender neutral glasses. Virginia Woolf herself was an English author, essayist and one of the foremost in modern literary work and especially feminist viewpoints. The famous dictum, actually from A Room of One's Own, is "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction," which says a great deal about the way that society seemed to view and oppress intellectual women. She was most active during the World War I years and up until depression and World War II simply overwhelmed her. In fact, On March 28, 1941, after a particularly nasty experience with the Blitz, Wolf filler her overcoat with stones and drowned herself in the River Ouse (Rose, 1986). The irony of her life in combination with the theme of magical realism can also be seen in her final letter to her husband:

Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier 'til this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that -- everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been (Rose, p. 243).

Woolf and Modernism - Modernism, in its most basic sense, is a reaction to romanticism and classicism; the strict rules of art and the overly emotive forms and themes so popular in the late 19th century. Romanticism began as a reaction -- not so much against anything concrete, more as a result of social moods of the time-period. In music it was a way to expand Classical "rules," harmonies, and forms of expression; in literature and poetry a broad range of reactions towards pieces that were too formal. As an artistic movement, then, romanticism meant many things, but focused on nature, the meaning and exploration of the self, the idea that it was permissible to bend the rules of society in order to engender self-actualization, and the freedom to challenge authority and reason. In music, this was epitomized in the world of Swan Lake, in poetry, the great romantics of Keats and Shelley. However, the turn of the century caused a break in the artistic work -- a tradition of emotions moving towards a more analytical approach to technique, logic, and a theme that challenges the world as being hierarchical, organized, and patriarchal. Instead, it is anti-elite, and all the trappings of society that seem to go with formal classical music or art, and is a celebration of the shocking. One could say it is intellectual art, but then that would imply that there was a larger purpose, something to learn, and something profound to think about, to analyze, that would change one's being by experiencing it (Humm, 2003).

Woolf and Magical Realism- One of the most interesting trends in modern literature is the combination of literary realism and the postmodern tradition. Literary realism, of course, focuses on the everyday cultural experience of everyday people who may, within their banal experience, do extraordinary things. The Postmodern movement, as a reaction to a number of 20th century trends, tends to be anti-establishment and looks for meanings hidden in the text, those meanings needing to be exposed and reflected through deconstructing that text (Perkins & Perkins, 2008).But what of the authors who tend to combine both genres -- those who are slightly anti-establishment, allow for deep contextual symbolism, but also find wonder in the everyday? Fortunately, that genre, and the combination of realism and postmodernism, has blossomed globally into a genre called magical realism. For the contemporary reader, magical realism is a genre in which magical, or some would say illogical, scenarios and events appear in a normal setting. The power of this genre seems to be the juxtaposition of the two elements -- magic and realism -- in that in an everyday, somewhat banal, setting; one does not really expect magic, the unexpected, the delightful, to happen without a logical explanation (Bowers, 2004). Contrary to many critical explanations, the basic idea of this juxtaposition is not simply to entertain, but as a genre to provide a greater insight into the possibilities of both the human and divine -- of the belief that not everything that happens can, or should, be explained rationally and that as advanced a being as we are, there are still things to learn about the universe. Witness a famous Arthur C. Clarke's "Third Law" -- "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" (thinkexist.com).

In Woolf's essays, the idea of mystery and magical realism are rife in small details about the characters: the various ways in which Jan Austen, the Bronte sisters, and even George Eliot used their gender to magically call forth literary themes that only they could write, but untold; in the lecture entitled "The Four Mary's" clearly alluding to the manner in which women writers existed in a kind of primal magical existence in which even the grace of a poem was an anomaly. However, it is most apparent in the guise of the fictional character, Judith Shakespeare, sister of William, that her combination of magical realism and alternative history come to place. The hopes and dreams of the adventurous, imaginative Judith but trapped in a world that would not even let her see. Judith is forbidden to pick up a book; and when she does not wish to marry, she is beaten and shamed into a loveless existence; trapped within the confines of women, finally committing suicide rather than living a life of such utter despair. The magic comes in what we might view as transference of Judith's angst and genius into the world of her brother's published works, and an exemplification of the way a woman's intellect was wasted. Yet, it is this very idea of transference, of magically Judith appearing and living through history within the prose of her brother that makes Woolf's view of magic so appealing.