This space if open for a discussion of the rest of Woolf's A Room of One's Own. To what extent does Woolf offer Shakespeare's sister's example as a way of saying that women are "locked in" their own bodies?
How did women come to enter the world of woman and fiction through the art of fiction rather than poetry?
Why does Shakespeare have an incandescent mind?
And what is truth?
Woolf uses the fictive example of Shakespeare’s sister to portray women’s deprivation in society. Women are locked in their bodies because they are not offered an education, are not encouraged to study, are brought up to raise children and take care of the household; hence, they cannot develop their literary genius. Using Shakespeare’s sister as an example is brilliant because it proves exactly to what extent women were powerless: if women were as genius as Shakespeare, their work would be anonymous, and they wouldn't be recognized. This is why, Woolf explains, Shakespeare’s genius cannot come from servile people because they are uneducated, too distracted, and too busy with labor to focus on literature.
ReplyDeleteWoolf’s room of her own is the time she spends writing fiction. When she writes, she feels powerful because she conveys her grievances about the social inequalities she suffers. Women in the seventeenth century wrote fiction rather than poetry because it required less concentration and less literary knowledge. Women at this time were constantly distracted and interrupted by household technicalities; they did not have the luxury of an office like the men did. Therefore women neither had the right nor the time to create works half as convoluted and precise as Shakespeare’s--poetry. Even Shakespeare’s sister was incapable of it simply because she wasn’t a man.
Women are locked into their place in society. They are discouraged to study and work. Their only purpose in life is to be objects of entertainment (such as women portrayed in Jane Austen novels). There is nothing women can do to escape these confinements of society. They are locked into their fate. Furthermore, they cannot rebel, or express their complaints, keeping their thoughts and misery locked in as well. The metaphor “to be locked in,” expresses women’s inability to be free.
The reverse is applicable to men. Shakespeare is incandescent: when he his heated, he emits light, and because he is a man, he does so without trouble. He faces no obstacles, so his writing is flawless. Woolf believes it is thanks to his unconstrained condition as a man that he produces such amazing works. Such success could not have come from a woman. Though Shakespeare is undeniably talented, we cannot disagree with Woolf that he was especially lucky to be born a man.
Finally, when tangled in a woman’s body the poet is frustrated of his injustice, hence is heated and violent. The poet, like any person, is messily entangled in a woman’s body because it is difficult for him to get out of it and live fairly. The poet tangled in, is locked in. How can he focus on poetry therefore, when he has, as a woman, so much more to worry about? How can he be anything but heated and violent when he realizes the unfairness he succumbs? Hence, women write fiction because it offers them an escape. Though it is a more ludicrous or "simple" genre, fiction may be women's only way to be heard.