One's Own Room

Woolf, Virginia

Characters

Mary Beton -

Narrator

Mary Seton -

Mrs Beton's friend

Judith Shakespeare -

Fictional sister of Shakespeare

Mary Carmichael

fictional writer whose book is found in the library

"A woman must have money and a room of her own if she has to write fiction"

Essay -> 6 chapters Published in 1929

1. setting - Oxbridge -> Fictional college Mrs Beton had to present on "Women and Fiction" Visits Oxbridge - Beautiful campus Sat in a nearby garden; walked on the grass - was interrupted and was told she wasn't allowed, only for research scholars Dejected, goes to library. Not let in unless accompanied by a male. Ate at cafeteria, food was amazeballs unlike the one at Fernham

2. setting - Fernham College

   Women's college; stayed there compared between Fernham and Oxbridge; feels Talks to Mrs Seton; Seton says "This is how it is" Goes to Oxbridge, finds someone to accompany her; goes to the library finds no books by women authors she saw Elizabethan writers (male) writing about women She draws an ugly picture of a professor and says "It would have been impossible, completely and entirely, for any woman to have written the plays of Shakespeare in the age Shakespeare"

   "A cat can go to heaven but a woman can't be a writer" - reads this and becomes furious

3. She creates Judith Shakespeare, fictional sister of Shakespeare.
   Says even if she existed, she wouldn't have been popular. She would have been deprived of the same rights extended to Shakespeare just on the account of being a woman

4. Victorian Era - Why more novelists than poets? (female) Poets requires education; prose is easier Poems need finesse, rhythm, meter, etc Poems were dominated by men

5. Mary Carmichael - writer finds her book, only book written by a female author finds it unsatisfactory, riddled with errors and mistakes

   "Moving on to the shelves which book by the living. There are books on all subjects which a generation no woman could have touched"

6. Visiting London; hopeful about future of women will be financially independent will have their own room

Intellectual freedom depends on material things Poetry depends upon intellectual freedom And woman always have been poor, not for 200 years but from the beginning of time. Women have not had a dog's chance of writing poetry. This is why I am laid so much focus on money and a room of one's own.

Diving Deeper

• Begins with a but, asks a question
• psychological conditions encountered by women writers
• Hypothesizes about women need: i. Money ii. Room of One's Own
• analyzes diff bw male and female writers
• writer highlights men's anger against women affects their artistic production