A Room of Ones Own
Virginia Woolf's class bias can be seen as one that is towards the wealthy upperclass. Throughout her narrative she places stress upon the fact that "intellectual freedom depends upon material things. Poetry depends upon intellectual freedom. And women have always been poor, not for two hundred years mearly, but from the beginning of time." How now can a woman gain the material things necessary for intellectual freedom? The same way anyone of us gains materials, by purchasing them with pure unadulterated cash. How is one to gain
Woolf's word choice plays a crucial role in establishing the long lasting control and bondage that women were subjected to by the men. The women of the upper luxury class have always had much more things at their disposal when compared to what the lower class women had. " This is an exaggeration because she doesn't say 'some women' or 'many women', but instead 'women' in general and we are left to assume, yes, assume, that she me means all women, and the truth of the matter is that only women belonging to the middle and lower class have been considered poor. this wealth? Well there are two possible ways, one requires for you to labor endlessly for the rest of your life (an unachievable task during the times for women due to the fact that they simply had no time for outside labor and the law prohibits them from gaining any income outside of their husband's) and the other method is for you to be "born into wealth" (only the few, the proud, the rich). In the passage mentioned above you see an exaggeration of fact when Woolfe declares, "women have always been poor. Woolf sees the wealthy upper class as the only group of people that have a chance at becoming literary masters because the middle and poor classes simply have no way of attaining the necessities for intellectual freedom. When you consider the two diverging roads, the second one seems more likely to lead to your destination, the intellectual freedom granted through material things for which you have been searching for.
Common topics in this essay:
Virginia Woolf's,
intellectual freedom,
women poor,
lower class,
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