Connecting Woolf’s Feminist Principles Essay Example for Free

Connecting Woolf’s Feminist Principles Essay To some Virginia Woolf is a pioneer of feminism, to others she is a mere novelist whose works reflect the position of women within a society whose main discourse was aimed at female suffrage. What is certain is that today Woolf is known more for her literary works than for her essays on the inequalities between the sexes. Woolf, herself, helped found the division between her fiction and non-fiction writings by consistently belittling her political essays as a means to money while she referred to her novels as her true life’s work. Yet, in recent years, her two most well known non-fiction works, A Room of One’s Own (1929) and Three Guineas (1938) have been revived by intellectuals and labeled as inherently feminist works. This in turn has lead authors such as Rachel Bowlby to claim that the past review of Woolf’s work, in which there is a clear demarcation between the fantasy world of her novels and the very real world of her essays, is in fact misleading. Bowlby attempts to bring Woolf’s two worlds more closely together and in doing so supports the claim that the thread of early feminism is woven not only through Woolf’s essays but is in actuality deeply ingrained in her literary work. The aim of this essay is to take Bowlby’s analysis and apply it to two of Woolf’s works, one fiction and the other non-fiction, to determine if they are in fact more parallel than once was thought. By using Bowlby’s theory to discuss the common traits between the novel Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and the essay A Room of One’s Own (1929) many undeniableconnections will be made, validating that within both texts the determination for artistic creation and female independence that Woolf so idealized can be found. Bowlby’s Feminist Lens Rachel Bowlby in her essay A More than Maternal Tie: Woolf as a Woman Essayist (1997) attempts to characterize Woolf as an early feminist writer. By linking Woolf’s essays with her literary works she refutes the opinions of those intellectuals who see Woolf’s novels as quintessentially non-feminist. For Bowlby Woolf questions the patriarchical structure of society at the time in all of her forms of writing. Although the author does concede that there is a line to be drawn between the two. In her essay Bowlby makes clear first and foremost that Woolf marked her differing attitudes between her two works in multiple outlets, some of which were personal letters and correspondence. In fact, Bowlby claims that upon a first glance Virginia Wolf the essayist and Virginia Woolf the famous novelist appear to have little in common. She states that, â€Å"One is a key figure in the history of modernism, the other was principally a journalist, working to commissions for weeklies and other periodicals. One wrote for art, the other (much of the time) for money. One is Virginia Woolf, the other often published anonymously, in her many reviews for The Times Literary Supplement† (220). Woolf on numerous occasions referred to her essays as less important than her novels, which she often referred to as her life’s work (Bowlby, 1997, 220). Most importantly Woolf asserted on various opportunities that political arguments were well founded in journalistic writing but out of place in literature (Bowlby, 221). Despite this evidence Bowlby notes that Woolf’s writing style in both her essays and her novels shared various traits including the structure, constant deviations from the topic and the passionate undertone of the writing itself (222). Although she is quick to note that we should not â€Å"rush to the other extreme, and claim for the essays artistic value equal or superior to that of the novels† (Bowlby, 224) Apart from stylistic considerations Bowlby also notes other common traits most specifically Woolf’s fascination with literary ties. Central to Woolf’s novels are the ties that bind her characters together, whether they be social or family ties. Within her essays you can find similar ties. The most obvious of those presented in Woolf’s essays are the ties between writer and patron. Woolf uses the analogy of the relationship between mother and child to best describe the importance that a patron has for their writer (Bowlby, 224). Woolf also likened the relationship to that of twins claiming that it was a type of relationship that meant, â€Å"one dying if the other dies, one flourishing if the other flourishes† (qtd Bowlby, 224). Bowlby concludes that, Woolf, â€Å"among others, was interested in what kinds of connections might tie things and people together in new ways. Her essays, like her novels, try some out† (241). Woolf also made a strong paternal connection between her essay writing and the relationship with her father, Leslie Stephen. After her father’s death in 1904 Woolf, to a large extent carried on with his essay writing, publishing within a short time an article in a religious newspaper, The Guardian. Bowlby claims that Woolf saw the essay along paternal lines (228). She claims that, â€Å"If novels, as opposed to non-fiction, seem to be the area where Woolf more freely departed from paternal standards of writing, this is related also to the fact that the essay was her fathers genre: a man of letters par excellence, Leslie Stephen did not write creative literature† (233). This may have been a reason for which Woolf so clearly demarcated between the two. In fact we could claim that Woolf wrote her essays with patriarchy and masculinity taking the forefront, while in her novels they were merely the omnipresent backdrop to the feminine world she wrote within. Mrs. Dalloway Needed a Room of Her Own: Testing Bowlby While Bowlby provides ample examples of Woolf’s writing to back up her thesis the further investigation of two of Woolf’s most renowned texts, Mrs. Dalloway (1924) and A Room of One’s Own (1929) will serve to highlight some of the feminist traits shared in her essays and her literary works. A Room of One’s Own highlights the position of women writers and intellectuals within a system where men held the purse strings of education. The essay is based on Woolf’s lectures at the women’s college of Cambridge University in 1928 and woman artists and their financial struggle are at the core of the essay. Woolf questions whether it is possible for a woman to produce a quality of art as high as Shakespear’s. She contends that the limited financial means of women artists are to blame for women’s poor artistic record throughout history. In fact Woolf placed such importance on financial independence and women having a room of their own that she wrote, â€Å"of the two-the vote and the money-the money, I own, seemed infinitely more important† (Woolf, 1929, 37). At the heart of the essay is the belief that the artistic tendencies in women are as strong as they are in men. Given the right atmosphere they can only flourish. We can see this untapped potential in Mrs. Dalloway whose love of life and art are constantly referred to in the novel. The very nature of Clarissa’s social gatherings present the deviation of her artistic nature into acceptable pursuits. Littleton (1995) claims that Clarissa’s artistry are key to understanding her character. He states that, â€Å"Woolf is concerned, before anything else, with the absolutely private mental world of a woman who, according to the patriarchal ideology of the day as well as her own figure in the world, was not imagined to have any artistic feeling at all†(37). Clarissa’s very enjoyment of the world around her shows her artistic sensibility. At the opening of the novel Clarissa goes to buy flowers and her intense enjoyment of the busy world around her shows a sensibility to life in all its forms (Woolf, 1924, 4). Her irritation for Miss Kilman is instantly forgotten as she enters the flower shop and appreciates the beauty, scents and colors around her (13). It was enough to, â€Å"surmount that hatred, that monster, surmount it all; and it lifted her up and up† (13). It would be useful to use a quote from A Room of One’s Own to describe what is happening to Clarissa: â€Å"Who can measure the heat and passion of a poets heart when it is caught and tangled in a womans body? † (83). Indeed, to Woolf, Clarissa is an artist in her own manner and her natural artistic intuition can not be smothered by societies expectations. Nourishment of the female artist, or the lack there of, is clearly present in Woolf’s literary and non-literary works. While Clarissa’s proper artistic ambitions are well nourished in her organization of social gatherings where delicious food is in abundance it is interesting to note that the physical nourishment given to female intellectuals at female colleges is commented upon in Woolf’s essay. Upon describing the poor fare at female colleges Woolf asks, â€Å"Why did men drink wine and women water? Why was one sex so prosperous and the other so poor? † (25). The possibility and the danger of a reversal of the sexes is evident in the relationship between Clarissa and Septimus Smith. While Clarissa does the unacceptable and does not show her grief as is expected in a woman, Septimus takes on distinctly feminine traits of the time and lets his grief overwhelm him, eventually committing suicide, whereby the doctor chastises him for being a â€Å"coward† (105). Woolf clearly shows the possibilities of a female taking on a masculine trait, thereby showing the possibility of a reversal of roles. As Septimus hallucinates on his dead friend he is reduced to tears and great emotion in his mourning. He raises his hand, â€Å"like some colossal figure who has lamented the fate of man for ages in the desert alone . . . and with legions of men prostrate behind him he, the giant mourner, receives for one moment on his face the whole† (105). These types of emotions were more suited to female mourning supporting Woolf’s view that the roles of men and women within society could be crossed over.