Virginia Woolf\'s \"A Room of Her Own\":

Virginia Woolf's "A Room of Her Own": War, Independence, and Identity

"[a]s a woman, I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world" -Virginia Woolf

The Chinese character for "crisis" is a combination of the words "danger" and "opportunity." It is often the case that when people are faced with hardship, they experience inward, mental, changes as a coping strategy to continue thriving in a new environment. History is ridden with stories of human strength and persistence in the face of imminent danger, such as with Holocaust victims, or any near-death experience. The threat of death, say in times of war, has serious psychological effects on people: for instance, post-traumatic-stress-disorder is commonly attributed to individuals coming from a war-torn area. The effects of war and violence can also be seen in advancing the intellectual movements that have occurred during such times of strife. During the Interwar Period and thereafter, European intellectuals, such as Virginia Woolf, dealt with this constant fear of death with an immense will to live (Brombert no page number). In the catalyst that the World Wars of the twentieth century brought to society, this paper argues that patriarchal societies help promote feminism and other social improvements as a highly relevant issue of individual freedom and identity of women in society.

Woolf was a fore-runner of modern day feminism. She experienced first-hand the patriarchal horrors of war living in England, and desperately held on to the idea that one's life is worth living (Brombert no page number). As a women, this idea of living life to the fullest came under critical review; and Woolf wrote the widely-assigned college course material essay series entitled "A Room of One's Own," in which she expostulates that "a woman must have money and a room of her own" (Woolf no page number). Al-Joulan et al. note that:

[t]he word 'room' in the title is overloaded with sense, suggesting a place, a space, a location, and a position. It is not a house but a private domain in or a center of a house; self-protected and contained, secure, and dependent -though imprisoning, secluded, and isolated" (no page number).

Although the concept of a woman having her own income and property may be commonplace in the contemporary Western world, throughout human history, well into the twentieth century, women were considered "the second sex" to men (Gan no page number). From biblical stories and adages, to local government laws on marriage, property, and the like, Woolf took an avant-garde approach to the role of women in the family and society-at-large. "A room of her own" expanded the rights of women to personal expression and discovery from the mere confinements of one's mind into the physical world where tangible change could ensue. This capacity for women's thoughts and opinions to matter in the patriarchal, male-dominated world of business, politics, and society is one effect of the war that Woolf experienced. Indeed, Woolf, like many others, simply would not support remaining stagnate in a world that threatened to kill her; so she used the patriarchal system to improve her situation.

In the action of Woolf's revolting against the collapse of a peaceful world, many of her previous assumptions and nativities about the world were greatly altered. Woolf recollects on her once common practice of attending lunch and dinner parties, saying that:

[t]here was something so ludicrous in thinking of people humming such things even under

their breath at luncheon parties before the war that I burst out laughing, and had to explain my laughter by pointing at the Manx cat, who did look a little absurd, poor beast, without a tail, in the middle of the lawn (no page number).

Woolf's outward expression of awkwardness with a traditionally light-hearted, lively event perhaps shows her inward anxiety toward the length of her life with how to react to the ever-present patriarchal possibility of war. Furthermore, Woolf blames her discomfort on another source: the cat instead of the simple gaiety of the people. Woolf also begins ruminating on the cat who she places blame on, turning her attention further from the original cause of her out-of-place laugh, war, and onto a more relaxed subject. While it is Woolf's mind that switches thoughts, she has enough awareness of the action to write about patriarchy becoming the catalyst for necessary social change in "A Room of One's Own."

Woolf explores her fear of death more openly in symbolism and stream-of-conscious journaling, versus a straight-forward, direct approach to telling a story (no page number):

"I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse perhaps to be locked in; and, thinking of the safety and prosperity of the one sex and of the poverty and insecurity of the other and of the effect of tradition and of the lack of tradition upon the mind of a writer […] All human beings were laid asleep -- prone, horizontal, dumb"

(Woolf).

Using indirect references and abstraction, Woolf is able to write about her thoughts on death from behind a well-executed defense mechanism. The switch in artistic style, from reflective story-telling to personal stream-of-conscious, suggests that the stream-of-conscious mode created a more comforting writing and thinking style for Woolf than her other, more traditional, communicative modes. Drastically, readers see Woolf deal with fears of death indirectly, by focusing on an external excuse, such as with the previous cat example, into a picture that shows a near-obsessively morbid inner world. Indubitably, Woolf's representation of stifled human beings as "prone, horizontal, dumb" alludes to concepts of death, specifically of corpses and coffins, which also lay "prone, horizontal, dumb" (no page number).

Woolf continues her contemplation of the meaning of life in a patriarchal society behind the comfort of intellectual abstraction and philosophical stream-of-consciousness in a brief examination of time. In her prose, Woolf elucidates in metaphor that:

"[t]here one might have sat the clock round lost in thought […] the sudden conglomeration

of an idea at the end of one's line: and then the cautious hauling of it in, and the careful laying of it out? Alas, laid on the grass how small, how insignificant this thought of mine looked" (Woolf no page number).

Time comes into immediate consideration when one's death becomes a serious fear, as Woolf experiences in the bombing of London, and other atrocities of war. Woolf's ruminations of time, presented to readers as a "clock round lost in thought," point to her reverence for life as a whole, "laid on the grass how small, how insignificant this thought of mine looked" (no page number). Being confronted with the possibility of her own death made Woolf more conscious of the importance of people and situations outside of herself, i.e. "the big picture." While Woolf's deliberation of her "insignificance" may seem negative, her awareness of the significance of the outside world came from incessant patriarchal traditions and is critical to her emphasis of females needing physical freedom, as in "A Room of One's Own."

The entire experience of patriarchy in the violence of war made Woolf not only scared, but also mad, and therefore empowered. Woolf examines the changing world, as a result of these wars, and questions "[w]hy, if it was an illusion, not praise the catastrophe, whatever it was, that destroyed illusion and put truth in its place?" (Woolf no page number). The "catastrophe" that Woolf notes, being a generalized term for war in her poetic license, is the cause of the "illusion" in Woolf's world being "destroyed" (no page number). Woolf uses the horrible nature that war brings of pain and destruction to rebuild a healthier social setting than had previously been the norm. This ability to grow from any circumstance, such as patriarchal injustice, however blind, is an invaluable tool in personal and social amelioration.

The anger that Woolf feels from the degradation inflicted upon people from the war, and for fearing the end of her own life, becomes channeled in the feminist cries that "we [women] burst out in scorn at the reprehensible poverty of our sex. What had our mothers been doing then that they had no wealth to leave us? Powdering their noses? Looking in at shop windows?" (Woolf no page number). The focus of harsh reality and jaded cynicism that often defines the Modern literary genre is fully expressed in Woolf's sentiment, but is ultimately helpful in redefining not only her assumptions of women in society, but the Western world's view of women as well in patriarchal cultures.

In addition to Woolf's critical speech on earlier generations of women, she also criticizes the typical masculine exploits and habits that have led to her present anxieties and half-hearted repressed fears. For Woolf, since war has been usually initiated and fought by men, it is "viewed as a distinctly male folly. Woolf refers explicitly to the education of males in the arts of rowing, killing and acquiring wealth. Even fascism appears to her as a male aberration" (Brombert no page number). Thus, even the oldest social habits and events, such as sports and attitudes that promote over-powering another force, do not go unnoticed by Woolf. Indeed, it seems that the more commonplace an action is in society, the more scrutiny it is given by Woolf as a possible threat to her thriving. The "illusion" of a peaceful world, pre-war, is thus shattered by a grateful Woolf, who it seems would try to mentally and emotionally strengthen herself to better cope with a war-torn, patriarchal world.

Armed with anger, intelligence, and compassion, Woolf takes a historical stance and informs her reading public that:

Intellectual freedom depends upon material things. Poetry depends upon intellectual freedom. And women have always been poor, not for two hundred years merely, but from the beginning of time. Women have had less intellectual freedom than the sons of Athenian

slaves […] That is why I have laid so much stress on money and a room of one's own.

However, thanks to the toils of those obscure women in the past [...] these evils are in the way to be bettered (Woolf).

Knowing history is one way that people can learn from past mistakes, so as to rework one's life approach, and experience further growth and development. By researching history, Woolf embarks on that essential aspect of feminism that attempts to better life for all people, not just women. Not only is Woolf giving others the opportunity to improve their everyday lives, but she too gives "thanks to the toils of those obscure women in the past" that give hope to individuals who do not know how social "evils are in a way to be bettered" (no page number). Similarly to Woolf's deep appreciation for the world as a whole, that which is outside of herself, the rise to feminism, from limiting patriarchal social norms, attempts to supersede the Western world from negative to positive habits.

Despite the crashing of patriarchy's historically common events of extreme violence and intermittent threat of death, Woolf maintains an element of sentimentalism, which defines the Modern genre and the spirit-of-the-time. "A Room of One's Own" shows the gambit of human emotion, swinging from an indifferent sort of hopelessness to a reoccurring nostalgia that eventuates into a peaceful, inner strength and stability. Reflecting on another dinner party, Woolf writes that:

the wineglasses had flushed yellow and flushed crimson; had been emptied; had been filled.

And thus by degrees was lit, half-way down the spine, which is the seat of the soul, not that hard little electric light which we call brilliance, as it pops in and out upon our lips, but the more profound, subtle and subterranean glow which is the rich yellow flame of rational intercourse. No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself (no page number).

Not only is Woolf's memory positive in nature, but the way she writes is also highly poignant in such a way that persuasively moves readers to follow along in her daydreaming pursuits. As a reader, you want to be at that dinner party, you want to have those friends, you want to feel that deeply satisfying sense of peace and contentment. Woolf's differentiation between two different kinds of happiness, the first, which "pops," "brilliance," and "the more profound" happiness, a "subtle glow […] [and] rational intercourse, with "[n]o need to hurry"; and, unlike the first happiness, the latter happiness has "[n]o need to sparkle" (no page number). The predominance of Woolf's philosophy that there is "[n]o need to be anybody but oneself" marks Modernism as separate from the traditional, patriarchal system, and paves the way for future feminist theory and work.

One of Woolf's most remarkable influences as a Modernist and early feminist is the way that her logic is poignantly rendered into self and socially empowering diction. While she tells readers that women and men ought to better their own lives, Woolf so too becomes exceptional at effective communication, essentially helping to inspire others in ways of feminism. She so deliberates that:

if we have the habit of freedom and the courage to write exactly what we think; if we escape a little from the common sitting-room and see human beings not always in their relation to each other but in relation to reality; and the sky. too, and the trees or whatever it may be in themselves; if we look past Milton's bogey, for no human being should shut out the view; if we face the fact, for it is a fact, that there is no arm to cling to, but that we go alone and that our relation is to the world of reality and not only to the world of men and women, then the opportunity will come and the dead poet who was Shakespeare's sister will put on the body which she has so often laid down" (Woolf no page number).

This courage to be strong and empowered internally when the external world is out of one's control is essentially what Woolf seems to espouse in this call to "profound," "rational," "no need to hurry" disposition. As Woolf contests in her out-of-place laughs, awkwardness, and truths explored behind the safety of abstract stream-of-consciousness, acquiring this inner peace is difficult when the world proves to sometimes fight human existence with violence and war. The one constant in life that remains parallel to the threat of imminent death for Woolf is hope. In the beginning of this address, Woolf preps readers with the recurring inclusion of "if": "if we have the habit of freedom and courage," "if we face the fact"; by saying "if," Woolf gives her readers a choice to choose a better life for themselves (no page number).

As a result of her empowering rhetoric, Woolf reintroduces the practice of philosophically reassessing normative social traditions. In later social movements, such as Postmodernism, intellectuals furthered Woolf's interest in notions of space and personal freedom. Renowned twentieth century philosopher Michel Foucault postulated that "space is neither neutral nor innocent but invested with power, as space becomes a means of disciplinary force and surveillance" (Gan no page number). In fact, "Woolf's prescient phrase ["a room of her own"] highlights an increasing awareness of the importance of spatial privacy to modern women" (Gan no page number). Feminism ultimately seeks to ameliorate everyday life for everyone, apart from gender, nationality, social status, etcetera. One can clearly see how Woolf fostered this sort of humanitarian, non-prejudiced social standard through her appreciation of the world-at-large.

Furthermore, Woolf was extremely politically and socially creative: she created many possible options for women to gain the freedom that she saw lacked from society (Stavely no page number). While this specific idea did not materialize: