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Virginia Woolf's Profession For Women

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Recommended: Individualism and conformity

Society imposes standards to a large mass, but its exclusiveness to fit into these ideals prompts conflicts. The conflict of man versus society is an external limitation to the characters in their battles against societal constructs such as gender roles and cultural/racial superiority; These constructs are present in the literary work, “The School Days of an Indian Girl” by Zitkala-Sa and “Profession for Women” by Virginia Woolf. In “The School Days of an Indian Girl” by Zitkala-Sa, the author struggles with integrating into Western culture while maintaining her native roots. Similarly, in “Profession for Women” by Virginia Woolf, the author faces difficulties in her profession as a writer because of gender role implications. Although society impose different standards upon Woolf and …show more content…

The basis of ethnic and gender superiority present conflict with identity when it represses the speakers’ individuality and urges reform. Society dictates the ideals and norms within its microcosm, and straying from its concepts suggest it as being deviant.In “Profession for Women” by Virginia Woolf, the author creates the fictitious antagonist “Angel in the House” as a discouraging entity that she must metaphorically kill in order to thrive as a writer: “Had I not killed her, she would have killed me. She would have plucked the heart out of my writing” (Woolf 39). The words “her” and “heart” are use to give life to the internal struggle that Woolf dealt through her writing and herself. The personification of Woolf’s doubts informs her audience that this identity conflict derived from an external source - society. Woolf’s consciousness shaped by society would suggest that it is not a woman’s role to “speak truth about her passions” (40). The fear of wandering from the gender construct and the judgement from her male peers hinders Woolf’s freedom to express her individuality as a writer. In “The School Days of an Indian Girl” by Zitkala-Sa, conformity take the

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