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Feminist Criticism In A Room Of One's Own

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Published in 1929, "A Room of One 's Own" by Virginia Woolf is deliberated the earliest major work in feminist criticism. This work of fiction scrutinizes on women’s capability of producing a high-quality literary work as well as, highlights on the restriction and limitations that female writers encounter. After deploying a number of fundamental causes on why there has been inadequacy in the number of female writers, Woolf fixes their minority status mainly to socio-economic factors, specifically their poverty and lack of privacy. She chants repeatedly throughout the novel that a woman must have five hundred pounds a year and a room of her own in order to write creatively. “A Room of One’s Own” is a depiction of a critique about women rather …show more content…

The visualization of the narrator’s thinking process is compared to the image of a ‘fish’. The fish is depicted as a living thing that is tangible yet slimy and difficult to clasp. Similarly, the significance of the narrator’s thoughts and the way she treasures it is clearly depicted as she keeps her thoughts protected so she could express it and write it down. However, her attempt to grasp and hold on to the thought is shattered by the beadle who is characterized as both the safeguard of the university and a man. This indirectly portrays the discrimination of women from pursuing their thoughts by man. The university is described as perfectly efficient and well-designed; it prospers from taking in funds and workmanship of male associates and male brains who continuously contribute to preserve it. While man is seen to have minimal obstacles in life, women on the other hand, are restricted from experiencing such luxuries. The narrator is not granted the space for incessant thoughts nor, she is allowed to enter the library unaccompanied by a male chaperon. This situation symbolizes the restrictions of women’s freedom in academic scope and in building ideas. On the whole, it implies that women need independence both financially and in terms of privacy to generate ideas and it should not be

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