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Virginia Woolf And Jean-Jacques Rousseau Analysis

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Inequality is defined as,” an unfair situation in which some people have more rights or better opportunities than other people.” Inequality comes in many forms, of which include gender, race, status, religion, wealth and etc. This paper aims to analyze both the ideas of Virginia Woolf and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and utilizing them to understand the origins of inequality and how it grew into dependency. First, a brief summary of the writer’s ideas will be given. Simultaneously, the paper will assess the strengths and weaknesses of each in terms of how they can help us understand inequality in contemporary Egypt and how to combat it. The paper will conclude with a comparison of which writer and how their ideas contribute to the understanding of inequality in the 21st centaury. Throughout A Room of One’s Own, the writer, Virginia Woolf, emphasizes the fact that women are treated unequally in her society which has led to the production, by women, of less prominent works in comparison to men. Woolf explains the difference in success between man and woman in two parts. She first explains that the values of women differ very often from the values of men, and goes on to say that in any case it is …show more content…

One can take a different approach to the matter of dependence. The idea of dependence should lead to the equality of man. When jobs become more specialized man feels the need to depend on another to achieve a common goal. The doctor in society depends on the plumber and teacher to raise the welfare of all. The student depends on the professor as well as the bus driver. Instead of assuming dependence promotes inequality, one should assume that dependence makes everyone in society better off. This idea is more theoretical than it is realistic, as man has learned to judge the other based on the type of work, the knowledge he has, the salary he gets and etc. Man has been able to internally judge society as a whole- putting it in a hierarchy of the better and the worse

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“The Dangerous Consequences of Growing Inequality” was written by author Chuck Collins in 2005. The main thesis of the essay was that a greater amount of inequality causes us to undermine the values of society, along with consequences that affect an indivual’s life. Collins expands on his main point by splitting up the consequences into different categories. To be more specific, he gives different examples on how the growing inequality impacts society, and more specifically, our culture, economy, social order, and democracy. Collins starts off by explaining how homes are affected when there is a change in the economy.

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After skimming through Volume 1 of The Norton Anthology Literature by Women, I noticed the reoccurring themes of patriarchy, women subordination, and the strength to be creative despite oppression. During the times that these literary pieces were written, women were constantly battling the patriarchy in order to get basic rights. During the earlier time periods, intelligence was seen as a sign of an evil spirit in a woman, resulting in miniscule amounts of literary works written by women. Women were not provided with equal spaces to creatively express themselves, as mentioned by Virginia Woolf. Moreover, they were not given the same publishing opportunities, many women either went anonymous or by a fake male name to have their works published.

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Women have always been depicted as subservient to men, they had to fight to get every right they have and yet, they earn seventy-seven cents to every dollar a man makes. These pieces urge the empowerment of women. Before reading these pieces, women came across as that one person who always stayed behind the scenes and let other people steal their work, not getting the recognition for anything they did. Now we see women are strong and powerful, just like some of the author of these pieces.

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Jean Jacques Rousseau’s On the Origin of Inequality among Men is one of the most important pivotal publications in history, especially when it comes to social development. From the origin of man to his present day, Rousseau explored and dissected the evolution of the conscience and social hierarchy of men. More specifically, Rousseau delved into the reasons why there is inequality among individuals in society today, notably the differences in individuals in different fields and the capability of individuals for a job. In my opinion, this publication is a social educational weapon for society today.

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662 Words | 3 Pages

Jean-Jacques Rousseau,an 18th century writer whose expansion into political and self-discovery literature became a portal for expressing his standpoint on human inequality, arguably set ablaze the beginning of the French Revolution. Rousseau promptly divides inequality into 2 extraneous categories in his Discourse on the Origins of Inequality among Mankind: natural and moral. Natural (also physical) inequality deals with the differences between men that are solely under the control of nature, such as weight, height, gender, appearance, strength, race, etc. Au contraire, moral inequality stems from differences spawned from greed and instinctual human behaviour, with causes and consequences such as unjust law systems, corrupt government structure, gender inequality, racism, etc.

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Woolf and other artists are able to use the censorship and hardships that they encountered in order to gain motivation which is reflected in Woolf’s main argument of her work. Throughout history, women have been viewed as intellectually inferior to men, and, as such, the writing of women has been largely discouraged and censored. Woolf and other revolutionary female writers were able to use this discrimination as an obstacle that their writing had to overcome. Her argument comes from the fact that it is extremely difficult for women to write great works when they are struggling to survive in their daily lives which shoves art into the back of their minds. Woolf claims that “these difficulties [indifference and material circumstances] were infinitely

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However, in the process of persuading upper class women in addition to the men who overhear, she constructs and perpetuates a rigid class system, in which only the moneyed listeners may achieve. Continuing to contemplate in the beginning of her essay, Mary says, “I thought how it is worse perhaps to be locked in; and, thinking of the safety and prosperity of the one sex and of the poverty and insecurity of the other and of the effect of tradition and the lack of tradition upon the mind of a writer” (24). Once again, she is addressing the few literature upper class women who didn’t meet the model Mary describes. In her cogitation, she reveals the detriment caused by poverty and lack of resources. However, she fails to acknowledge the ability of success to arise out of such adversity.

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From the outset, literature and all forms of art have been used to express their author’s feelings, opinions, ideas, and believes. Accordingly, many authors have resorted to their writing to express their feminist ideas, but first we must define what feminism is. According to the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, feminism is “the belief that women should be allowed the same rights, power, and opportunities as men and be treated in the same way, or the set of activities intended to achieve this state”. As early as the fifteenth century is possible to find feminist writings. Centuries later, and although she never referred to herself as one, the famous English writer Virginia Woolf became one of the greatest feminist writers of the twentieth

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Though these three systems have different advantages and disadvantages, the lack of government intervention causes capitalist economies to be the strongest. With little to no interference from the government, natural forces of supply and demand are present, allowing exchanging of goods and services to frequently occur which contributes to the growth of the economy, competition is not limited, causing companies to become more productive and innovative, and all citizens are encouraged to work hard in order to become wealthy. Although there is inequality amongst the people, capitalism makes personal growth in wealth achievable for all people, and unlike communism or socialism, allows people to earn the lifestyle they desire with hard work. Winston Churchill exemplified this idea through saying, “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of

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1. Introduction Income inequality has grown significantly during this past decades and this phenomenon continues to increase over the years. This problem is constantly discussed in the daily news all around the world. Several consequences of this increase of inequality between people leads to economic problems such as high unemployment rates, lack of work for young people, fall of demand for certain product. The gap between rich and poor is increasing, the rich are richer and the poor are poorer as a result politicians and economists try to adopt certain policies in order to reduce this gap.

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Do you know that Shakespeare is not the only gifted writer in his family? This mysterious member exists in the English writer Virginia Woolf’s imagination. In her famous essay “Shakespeare’s Sister,” Woolf uses the hypothetical anecdote of Judith Shakespeare as her main evidence to argue against a dinner guest, who believes that women are incapable of writing great literature. During the time when Judith is created, women are considered to be naturally inferior to men and are expected to be passive and domestic. Regarding her potential audience, educated men, as “conservative,” Woolf attempts to persuade them that social discouragement is the real cause of the lack of great female writers without irritating them by proposing “radical” arguments.

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1763 Words | 8 Pages

INTRODUCTION The discussion of gender and sexual representation in literature has ancestral references that go back to the classical period of Greece. There we can find works like The Bacchae tragedy of Euripides and Lysistrata comedy of Aristophanes. However, it was not until the XVIII century that a systematic insurgency of women's rights began, headed by Mary Wollstonecraft. In 1792, this British author publishes A vindication of the rights of woman, which discusses that women must have an education commensurate with their position in society.

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This novel is also autobiographical. Throughout history, women have been locked in a struggle to free themselves from the borderline that separates and differentiate themselves from men. In many circles, it is agreed that the battleground for this struggle and fight exists in literature. In a

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1248 Words | 5 Pages

One of the most significant works of feminist literary criticism, Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One`s Own”, explores both historical and contemporary literature written by women. Spending a day in the British Library, the narrator is disappointed that there are not enough books written by or even about women. Motivated by this lack of women’s literature and data about their lives, she decides to use her imagination and come up with her own characters and stories. After creating a tragic, but extraordinary gifted figure of Shakespeare’s sister and reflecting on the works of crucial 19th century women authors, the narrator moves on to the books by her contemporaries. So far, women were deprived of their own literary history, but now this heritage is starting to appear.

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Virginia Woolf: Shakespeare’s Sister In the essay “Shakespeare’s sister” Virginia Woolf asks and explores the basic question of “Why women did not write poetry in the Elizabethan age”. Woolf sheds light on the reality of women’s life during this time and illustrates the effects of social structures on the creative spirit of women. In the society they lived in, women were halted to explore and fulfill their talent the same way men were able to, due to the gender role conventions that prevailed during this era. Through a theoretical setting in which it is it is imagined that William Shakespeare had a sister (Judith), Virginia Woolf personifies women during the sixteenth century in order to reflect the hardships they had to overcome as aspiring writers.

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