Virginia Woolf example essay topic
And one must conclude that it would be a thousand pities if it were hindered or wasted. for there is nothing to take its place (87). All of her life, Woolf struggles with this sadness that threatens to overwhelm and annihilate her. In many ways, her thoughts are an attempt to challenge the unearned privileges of men who are permitted to explore the outside world. Moreover, in contrast to the world of nature, is another symbol of domesticity in the cloistered and confined home for Louise Mallard. In her own room, she looks through the open window.
Mrs. Mallard indeed has what Woolf stresses is so important, yet it is only a temporary and eventually insufficient refuge. She leaves it as she must, to rejoin her sister downstairs, and in unlocking the door, she paradoxically confines herself to the prison of her own home. Now death is her only salvation. Instead of "soaring free like the birds' (The Story of An Hour 31), Louise escapes the only way open to her. But this women, similar to so many of her time, is an atypical heroine, and her adventures, are contrary to the typical male heroic. Consequently, this era of repressive spirit provided material for female authors to discuss the anger that has been sealed off by men.
By the end of the 18th century, the novel came to be seen as a powerful educational tool for young women. Woven into the narrative of Virginia Woolf's internal experiences are the threads of her comments on a women's external capabilities. "I thought about how unpleasant it is to be locked out, and I thought about how worse it is worse perhaps to be locked in (A Room of One's Own 25). In this crucial passage, Woolf emphasizes her prescription for change: she prophecies that although men are the sources of power in society, they are extremely threatened by the emergence of female writers in their disciplines, for only then will the truth surface. She looks forward to the golden age when women will have what " so long has been denied to them – leisure and money, and a room to themselves' (27). Moreover, Woolf praises and admires Jane Austen, for her gift of writing and her circumstances match eachother completely.
But in particularly, if Jane Austen suffered in any way, Woolf suggests that " it was the narrowness of life that was imposed upon her. It was impossible for a women to go about alone What genius, what integrity it mush have required in face of all that criticism, in the midst of that purely patriarchal society, to hold fast to the thing as she saw it without shrinking' (75). Jane did endure and shattered all the criticism that undermined her writing. She looked at her judges and laughed at them, and continued to write.