Important Quotations Explained
1.
Call me
Mary Beton, Mary Seton, Mary Carmichael or any other name you please—it is not
a matter of importance.
This line comes from Chapter One, and its enigmatic and elusive
tone regarding the true identity of the narrator is maintained throughout the
text. Woolf and the narrator both struggle with the same issues, but they are
two distinct entities. The narrator is a fictionalized character—an invention
of Virginia Woolf—and she remains vague about her true identity. In this
quotation she even instructs the reader to refer to her by different names.
This lack of one “true” identity for the narrator gives A Room of One’s Own a sense of being universal:
the ideas apply to all women, not just one. The lack of one identity also makes
the narrator more convincing. By taking on different identities, the narrator
transcends one single voice, and consequently she makes herself a force to be
reckoned with. Her blasé attitude about something that is considered fixed and
important by most people—identity—makes her all the more intriguing.
2.
A woman
must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.
This phrase from Chapter One is perhaps the most famous line
from A Room of One’s Own, and it functions as the thesis of
the work. The phrase “a room of one’s own” has gained such a stronghold in our
culture that it has almost become a cliché. With this line, and the entire
book, Woolf has touched off one of the most important assertions of feminist
literary criticisms. The oft-held argument that women produce inferior works of
literature must necessarily be qualified by the fact of the circumstances of
women. Unlike their male counterparts, they are routinely denied the time and
the space to produce creative works. Instead, they are saddled with household
duties and are financially and legally bound to their husbands. By being
deprived of rooms of their own, there is little possibility for women to
rectify the situation. Even though this is clearly a historical truth, Woolf’s
assertion was revolutionary at its time. It recast the accomplishments of women
in a new and far more favorable light, and it also forced people to realize the
harsh truths about their society.
3.
One must
strain off what was personal and accidental in all these impressions and so
reach the pure fluid, the essential oil of truth.
This assertion, presented in Chapter Two, characterizes the
narrator’s initial mission in A Room of One’s Own.
She endeavors to find the absolutely essential truth and expose it, but over
the course of the text, the narrator comes to realize that no absolute truth
exists. She sees that the experience of each person and his or her life is
inextricable from his or her perceptions of reality. In other words, we cannot
remove the self, the historical period, or any other inherent biases from
someone’s opinion. Everything depends on everything else, and the kind of
person someone is absolutely influences everything he or she does—even the kind
of art he or she creates. This idea is connected to her argument that the
plight of women has influenced the dearth of good literature that they have
produced. The narrator fictionalizes A Room of One’s Own,
demonstrating this synthesis of fact and fiction.
4.
It would
have been impossible, completely and entirely, for any woman to have written
the plays of Shakespeare in the age of Shakespeare.
This passage in Chapter Three is one of the most significant
conclusions of A Room of One’s Own. While the more
common argument is that the lack of important, impressive literary works by
women proves that they are less capable than men, the narrator takes the
opposite approach. She chooses to examine her historical period and question
the context in which women are judged. What she realizes is that the playing
field is incredibly unequal. Given the circumstances of the treatment of women
of her time, there is no way they could have rivaled men in literary
achievements. The narrator invents the figure of Judith Shakespeare to illustrate
this point. She tells a story of a fictional twin sister of Shakespeare, who is
just as talented as her famous brother but, because she is a woman, her talent
leads to a very different end.
5.
Life for
both sexes—and I look at them, shouldering their way along the pavement—is
arduous, difficult, a perpetual struggle. It calls for gigantic courage and
strength. More than anything, perhaps, creatures of illusion that we are, it
calls for confidence in oneself.
Woolf presents this claim in
Chapter Two. She asserts this point amidst a discussion about the unequal
treatment of women by men. In this discussion, she cites men as the reason for
this—she believes that men have systematically subordinated women in order to
reinforce their own confidence as the more capable sex—but she does not blame
men for this. Rather, she sympathizes with men in their quest for confidence,
and she speaks of the importance of confidence in creating art. The lack of
confidence amongst women has led to the generally inferior quality of their
art. To Woolf, the anger in women about their plight as second-class citizens
is reflected in their writing. And yet, they persist. She relates the fact that
women continue to write even though they are actually lacking in confidence to
the way that people continue living their lives even when wracked by doubt
about their relevance in society. In this way, she depicts women as valiant.
For more detail/chapter wise analysis go to http://www.gradesaver.com/a-room-of-ones-own/study-guide/summar
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/roomofonesown/study.html
http://www.litcharts.com/lit/a-room-of-one-s-own/symbols/a-room-of-one-s-own
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