There is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.
A classic work of feminist literature, this book explores the issue of women’s place in society. Specifically, that they have faced a scarcity of opportunities – this book raises the question of what women could achieve if they were given the same opportunities as their male colleagues.
Woolf argues that centuries of financial and educational disadvantages have inhibited women’s creativity. She uses vivid storytelling to paint a picture of what challenges women faced in pursuing their own creative work and comes to the conclusion that women must have money and their own room, their own space, both physically and intellectually, in order to create.
I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.
Woolf’s writing style is clever, thought-provoking and powerful. Although it was sometimes difficult for me to follow, this book inspired me and intrigued me to learn more about this incredible writer. I can’t wait to read more of her works and I regret not having known her properly before.
Click here to read 41 Of The Most Powerful Virginia Woolf Quotes
Title: A Room of One’s Own
Author: Virginia Woolf
Year First Published: 1929
From Goodreads:
“A Room of One’s Own” is an extended essay by Virginia Woolf. First published in 1929, the essay was based on a series of lectures she delivered at Cambridge University in October 1928.
While this extended essay in fact employs a fictional narrator and narrative to explore women both as writers of and characters in fiction, the manuscript for the delivery of the series of lectures, titled “Women and Fiction,” and hence the essay, are considered non-fiction.
The essay is generally seen as a feminist text, and is noted in its argument for both a literal and figurative space for women writers within a literary tradition dominated by patriarchy.