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Women and The Novel

English writer Virginia Woolf deals with this subject in her book, ‘A Room of Her Own.’ The title can have a variety of meanings for us, such as - women and what they are like, or, women and the novels they write, or, women and the fantasies that have been written about them. Or maybe these three meanings are inextricably linked. This is how Woolf deals with the subject, warning us that she won’t reach any particular conclusion or present us with a grain of unadulterated truth to copy down into our notebooks. All she does is give us her opinion about a subject without attaching too much importance to how she expresses it. In other words, she says that to be able to write novels or poems a woman requires money and a room where she can bolt the door. As you see, this leaves the main problem concerning the true nature of women and the true nature of the novel unresolved.

What she does do, however, is show us how she came to form this opinion. She doesn’t promise to reveal any truth to us because she knows that any issue or subject related to the sexes is apt to cause controversy. She presents the subject from different points of view but in general develops it as follows:

1 She begins by asking questions, then decides to investigate what men have to say about women in their books. Upon reading them she finds that men write with intense fervor about the mental and physical inferiority of women.

2 She goes back to the sixteenth century, around the time of Elizabeth I - a fertile epoch for literature when women wrote nothing. She describes how women lived in that century and presents us with the following inconsistency: that although women did not write novels or poetry they were principal characters in the novels of great poets and writers who portrayed them as significant people with character and individuality.

3 The third point deals with what would have happened to a talented woman if she had wanted to be an artist during the sixteenth century.

4 Before concluding her theme, Woolf says it is essential in creative work that the artist (whether man or woman) should have an androgynous mind - basing this idea on a statement by Coleridge.

Anger

In the beginning Virginia Woolf ponders over many questions. Why is one sex so prosperous and the other so poor? What effect does poverty have on novels? How many books are written each year about women? How many of them are written by men? Why are men so much more attracted to women than women are to men? She sought the answers to these questions in books written by men about women. In these books, woman’s mental and physical inferiority was mentioned. However, what she found in all cases was an element of rage expressed in different forms: satire, resentment, curiosity, passion, censure - and anger.

Why were these men so upset if, at the time they wrote their books, England was under patriarchal rule and they had all the power, money and influence? When they wrote about the inferiority of women what really concerned them was their own superiority. Life for both sexes is strenuous and complicated and perhaps the most important thing to help us face it is self-confidence. How do we nurture this quality that is so valuable? By thinking that others are inferior to us. Here we see how enormously important it is for a patriarch – who must govern and conquer – to believe that half the human species is by nature inferior to him. Throughout the centuries women have been mirrors gifted with the magical power of reflecting an image of man that is double its natural size. Such mirrors are indispensable.

A Queen in Literature, a Slave in Reality

The second issue raised deals with “the novels never written by women in the sixteenth century.” In sixteenth century England women wrote nothing, while one man out of every two was liable to compose a song or a sonnet. But - even though they didn’t write, women shone like beacons in the works of all men. One would envision them as very significant, multi-faceted persons - of as much consequence as men. But these were women of literature. In reality women of that time were kept locked away, or pushed around and beaten. From this, a very strange and confused being emerges. Some of the most inspired words and deepest thoughts emanate from her lips - in literature. In real life - she could read, but barely knew how to write and was considered the property of her husband.

The Fate of a Brilliant Woman in the Century

What would have happened to a talented woman in the sixteenth century? Virginia Woolf says she’d have refused to marry the young man chosen by her parents; she would have run away from home and gone to London; she’d have shown up at the theater door and told the director how much she wanted to become an actress and he would have laughed in her face. An intelligent, talented woman born in that century would have gone crazy after running into so many difficulties. She would have committed suicide or ended her days in a solitary house in the countryside away from anyone else - half witch, half sorceress, the object of fear and ridicule. A woman with a talent for - let’s say - poetry, was a hapless individual in conflict with herself - all her circumstances including her own instincts were at odds with the mental state necessary for unleashing her intellectual powers

Creative Work and the Androgynous Mind

Before concluding the subject of women and the novel, Virginia Woolf refers to the work of creation and quotes one of Coleridge’s statements about great minds being androgynous. That is to say, in a man’s case it is a masculine mind with feminine elements and in a woman’s case a feminine mind with masculine elements. Perhaps a uniquely masculine or feminine mind is not creative. On the other hand, the point at which this fusion occurs is when the mind becomes completely fertile and utilizes all its faculties. Of course, Coleridge meant by this that the androgynous mind is resonant and absorbent, that it conveys emotion without constraint, that it is naturally creative, incandescent and intact. But if the writer is merely male or female without this androgynous quality, his or her work is ill-fated and will not survive - for anything written with this conscious bias is doomed to die. No matter how brilliant and effective, powerful and masterly it may appear for a day or so - it will wither and fade by evening.

In closing Woolf says, “You need five hundred pounds a year and a room of your own to be able to write novels or poems. I say this because intellectual freedom depends on material things – and poetry depends on intellectual freedom.”

What would have happened to a talented woman in the sixteenth century?