Extended Essay By Virginia Woolf

The following sample essay on Extended Essay By Virginia Woolf reveals arguments and important aspects of this topic. Read this essay’s introduction, body paragraphs and the conclusion below. Virginia Woolf one of the most influential modernist writers. Feminism, writing, independence and self-realization are the main themes of her extended essay A Room of One’s Own. This essay became one the most recognized works by Virginia Woolf. This extended essay is a deep insight into her own life experience and investigation of the place of the woman  at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Originally A Room of One’s Own appeared as an essay based on Woolf’s lectures written for woman’s collaged at Cambridge University in 1928. These lectures became a reflection on the role of woman in fiction. In her essay, Woolf tried to understand if woman was able to produce quality fiction same as men did.Her writing is not only a description of events that happen in the external world but also an attempt to penetrate into inner world of her characters.

Her modernist prose contains a lot of layers of meaning and can give a lot to the readers, who are ready to dedicate time and effort in uncovering these layers of meaning. In contrast to other writers, Woolf does not always follow usual elements of the plot structure and this can sometimes make her writings hard for comprehension. At the same time she uses her own devices and techniques, which help readers to get through the complexities of text and understand everything put there by the author.

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Woolf’s research is based on historical investigation and comparison of male and female participation in the cultural process through the centuries. Three planes of the narration investigate three kinds of relations between women and art. First of all she defines women and their social, political and cultural roles during different times of human history.

Secondly she investigates the fiction, written by women. In the forth chapter of her essay Woolf analyses writing of Anne Finch, Margaret of Newcastle, Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen. Finally she comes to the conclusion that women had to adjust to male domination and change their literary style in order to correspond to the male writing community. Woolf distinguishes only Jane Austen’s ability “to write as women write, not as men write.” The third type of relations investigates prose and fiction, written about women.The phrase  “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction” could perfectly be regarded as a thesis of her work. The study of conditions, necessary for any female to become a successful fiction writer can perfectly fit in this small phrase. This thesis is reflected in the title of the essay. It is evident that for Virginia Woolf writing becomes a mean to express female independence.

Comparing conditions men and women had for their self-realization, she finally comes to the conclusion that women have been suppressed thought the centuries and did not have enough freedom to disclose their potential. Words about money and own room seem pragmatic and down to earth, especially when talking about art, but Virginia Woolf proves that financial factors and social opinion became serious obstacles, which prevented woman from occupying same position as man did. In the third chapter of her essay she creates an  imaginary character of William Shakespeare’s sister – Judith.  Woolf argues that “no woman can write the plays of Shakespeare.” Thought the comparative analyses Woolf proves that Shakespeare’s sister would have had no chance to become as popular as her brother did because of social attitudes towards woman.Woolf’s style and artistic devices are used in order to attract the readers’ attention to the problems described.

The contrast in attitude to education of male and female became a bitter disappointment for the author. It is evident that education is a basement of future carrier. Education is a guarantee of future prosperity of the nation. That is the reason Woolf pays scrupulous attention to different attitude to male and female education. Minor detail, such as “not good” dinner at the women’s college becomes a very bright symbol of attitude to female education. Comparing bad food in female educational institutions with riches of the men’s colleges Woolf makes important conclusions about educational system in general. Comparing money spent on male and female education Woolf came to the conclusion that poverty of female collages can be explained by low status of woman.Two last chapters are of the book sound much more optimistic.

Woolf finally assumes that number of female writers grew during the last time and according to her investigation the number of female writers approximately equals to the number of male ones. She regards this as a good sing and believes such a change to be a way to equality and “the unity of the mind.” Woolf’s manifesto to all women is expressed in her words “Shakespeare’s sister live in you and in me, and in many women who are not here tonight, for they are washing up dishes and putting the children to bed.” These words express her philosophical credo and call to all women to express themselves.“Stream-of-consciousness” technique, one of the peculiar features of Woolf’s modernism perfectly serves the author’s purpose and helps to penetrate into the thoughts of her characters.  External and internal events are not always connected in the narration. Internal and external events form two framings of the narration and readers get into two parallel realities of her writing, which exist at the same time.  Very often these two realities overlap but not in the way we got used to.

Minor event in the external world can cause rich reactions of the and give push to the new turn of events.Such structure of the essay makes it sometimes difficult for comprehension but at the same time it gives the readers insight into the work of human psychics. While reading the essay it is important to remember that it deals not only with the events and human reactions to them, but also studies the work of human physics and consciousness. Our consciousness is constantly changing. All our past experience influences the way we perceive present reality and this happens to Woolf’s characters. Stream of consciousness is not the only technique used by Woolf. She uses a lot of methods in order to make her message understandable for the audience. Woolf uses unconventional plot and structure in order to fulfil her main purpose – make her readers think about important issues, such as freedom and place of woman in the society.

The extraordinary structure of the sentences also serves the author’s purpose. Long sentences contain a lot of different grammatical structures, subordinate clauses, and parenthetical phrases. Such sentence structure makes it more difficult for comprehension, it creates an effect of uncertainty. We do not see a simple description of events and linear narration we got used to but we see a succession of associations, which appear in the mind of the characters.  Despite the sentences are hard to understand, they all have perfect grammar structure and comas, hyphens, semi comas etc and so they can help to find the way trough the stream of consciousnessWoolf’s writing became an impartial investigation of the role of woman in the society. Despite the subject of her research was difficult and controversial, Woolf managed to present impartial view and shed light to the different aspects of the phenomenon investigated.