Virginia Woolf was asked to speak about women and fiction, these extended essays were the result. The writing in these essays is quite like her fiction: descriptive, perceptive and fair. Woolf argues that women in literature have been more than often portrayed by men. She compares these fictional women with real women living throughout time and illustrates how the fictional portrayal of them brings women to centre stage while the historical reality shows them largely ignored. She also shows that women were only shown in relation to men and never as themselves. As well as this, Woolf also shows that even when women were portrayed by women it was done within the expected role of a woman as fair and virtuous.
Another facet of the book shows the beginnings of women writing fiction. As Woolf stipulates at the beginning "a women must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." Woolf looks at women authors including Jane Austen, George Eliot and Currer Bell and shows how their lives were limited by their gender. It can be seen from this that women will only be able to write fiction freely when they are free from financial and societal bounds.
This is a brilliant read and shows a side of Virginia Woolf that is not always clear in her fiction. It is a fairly easy read and makes a good argument about femininity and feminism in general.
No comments:
Post a Comment