 |
| "Kindle"(CC BY-NC 2.0) by Osbornb |
"As a woman I have no country. As a woman I want no country, as a woman, my country is the whole world."
(Three Guineas)
(Three Guineas)
Virginia Woolf is best known to scholars today as a feminist writer. She believes that there should be equality of sexes in social, political and economical issues. Virginia fought against the patriarchal restrictions not only in the literary world, but also in her daily life.
"While bookshelves only showcased spines with the names of male author such as Shakespeare, Woolf was secretly penning her thoughts on paper within her father's library. With works such as "A Room of one’s' own" that confront a male – driven society, Virginia Woolf declared the importance of a woman having her own personal space to pursue her creative power."
(Emily)
She raised her voice against the male domination till her end. Even at the most crucial time in the year 1928 when, women were all shut out of libraries and universities, people were denying them to get educate.
"Some of the most inspired words, some of the most profound thoughts in literature fall from her lips: In real life she could hardly read, could scarcely spell, and was the property of her husband."
(Woolf)
Virginia's ultimate message is for women to fight against gender –based societal restrictions and represent their independence, freedom and intelligence by pushing for an opportunity and a place to create. Whereas the A Room of One's Own is not only a physical room or space but it is the declaration for a political and cultural space for woman. Woolf believes that woman will not be marginalized for their gender, race, sexuality or identity if they can express their sexuality, imagination, talent and creativity and have open discussions about the issues woman face.
It can be seen that Woolf's A Room of One's Own is a major novel based on the theme of feminism. This theme is shown throughout almost all of her novels, and To the Lighthouse is no exception. Although it has been found that two of the novels largest characters are women only. Who are the exact opposites? One of them being Lily Briscoe; she is the one in whole novel who rejects Victorian conventions and decides to remain single throughout her life just not to be a victim of male dominating society. On the other hand Mrs. Ramsay; she is a woman who realizes that society and the people who live in it are extremely prejudice against the female sex but at the same time willing to idly watch and do nothing about it. Here in this novel Woolf tries to show the inner consciousness of women, the problems that are not only within society but also within women who are unwillingly making themselves seem less intelligent like example: In To the Lighthouse, Mrs. Ramsay does that, in order to make her husband feel more dominant but by doing so Woolf suggests that she also ends up destroying her individuality. There is a scene which shows that somewhere there is a feeling of regret in the character of Mrs. Ramsay because of her lack of education due to which she was unable to attend or participate in the conversation about politics, science, math and literature, then later in another scene when some of the guests go outside she also wanted to go but suddenly she refuses to do so in order to stay and be the devoted wife to her husband. Woolf’s thought of female dependency is appropriately justifying in the below quotation which has been taken from ‘Virginia Woolf’s Literary Themes of Feminism English Literature Essay.’ "Woolf shows how many women refuse to give themselves the slightest of pleasure without asking permission from their husbands first, and thus they force upon themselves an almost child – like dependency."
On the other hand in To the Lighthouse Woolf represented the world that two extremes like Mrs. Ramsay and Mr. Ramsay could never function successfully. Virginia represented the character of Mrs. Ramsay as the purely feminine who will do whatever her husband desires of her and Mr. Ramsay as the purely masculine but Virginia somewhere believes that to be a prosperous homo- sapiens one has to have traits from both. It has been stated in the above essay entitles ‘Woolf’s literary themes on feminism’ that:
Woolf creates the character of Lily who has both of these characteristics by being the one who unites the rational and the imaginative into the androgynous whole…She rejects Victorian conventions by refusing to marry; a ceremony that would, unfortunately, destroy any of the independence she had to that point. She also refuses to keep any type of relationships with men (except that of friendship) in order to not ‘compromise herself by either aiding insecure men … or indulging the ego of overweening men’.
To the Lighthouse is a good example of the theory called feminism especially in a role of Lily Briscoe who novel wanted to be get dominated by any one and this is the reason which leads her not to go for the marriage she always feels irritated when Mr. Tansley used to ask her about her paintings, because he believes that women don’t have mind.
"How is your sketching Mrs. Briscoe?"
(To the Lighthouse)
Lily always raised her voice towards any discrimination.
'I do persist I am very stubborn'
(To the Lighthouse)
The above line has been said by Lily Briscoe to Paul Rayle, when it was struggling with her painting and trying to put perfection in it, on which Paul came and said it’s perfectly OK, why you are focusing so much on it. On which Lily replied that she is very stubborn and will struggle until she gets the perfection.
"Just because you have children and I don’t, you have a man who used to share your bed and I am not… But what you really share Mrs. Ramsay … you don’t raised to be one person it seems, you don’t believes half a person, do you?"
(To the Lighthouse)
The above lines of To the Lighthouse in which Mrs. Ramsay was saying poor to Lily Briscoe because of not having family and children on which Lily got annoyed and said she does not require anyone in her life she is happy to be on her own. She says to Mrs. Ramsay apart from having you don’t have anything else. She is rather as submissive wife who is having dominating husband.
She is totally against of the views which Mrs. Ramsay is putting or her, she does not consider herself poor, she believe in self sufficiency.
"I am not poor, you must not say that … just because we are not married, just because we don’t have a man to pamper and serve."
(To the Lighthouse)
Lily believes that no one can bring happiness in her life especially men. She is happy to be independent on her own.
"Suppose he (Mr. Ramsay) rejected you, what then, if you pushed up the front door and locked it what then you would starve."
(To the Lighthouse)
The above lines have been taken from a novel on To the Lighthouse in which Mrs. Ramsay and Lily Briscoe are having conversation with each other regarding their views on feminism and male domination. In which Lily raised a question to Mrs. Ramsay regarding her submissive attitude towards her husband. She wanted to say that she does not have any identity other than a name called Mrs. Ramsay if someday her husband put her in a room and locks the door then she will starve whole day.
Woolf wanted freedom in every essence of that word and thus made it almost a life's purpose to achieve it as stated in A Room of One's Own. ‘Virginia Woolf’s Literary Themes of Feminism English Literature Essay ‘says:
'Intellectual freedom depends upon material things, Poetry depends upon intellective freedom, and women have always been poor, not for two hundred years merely but from the beginning of time. Woman has had less intellectual freedom that the son's of Athenian Slaves … That is why I have laid so much stress on money and a room of one's own".
In the novel called Mrs. Dalloway once again Woolf has beautifully shown the theme of feminism. Clarissa Dalloway a protagonist played a role of feminist throughout the novel. She did not marry her ex suitor Peter Walsh just because some where she felt that he was not allowing her to do whatever she wants to do in her life, she believes that Peter is an orthodox personality, dominating her as always. This is the reason which leads her to go for Mr. Dalloway's who is an open minded person is allowing her to do whatever she wants. All though the character of Clarissa is portrayed as a suppressed woman somewhere readers can find the indications in the novel that same women were beginning to take on roles of power. For instance, Lady Bruton was a lady in a position of power.
Clarissa always believed that Lady Bruton doesn’t like her. The reason because somewhere Lady Burton has also played a role of feminist, instead of spending her time with Ladies, chatting with them. She was quite interested in spending time with men, having Luncheon with them talking about politics, society etc she also had a finger in some notorious intrigue of the eighties, which was now beginning to be mentioned in memories. Once again the above essay on ‘Virginia Woolf’s Literary Themes of Feminism English Literature Essay’ supporting this thought:
“Lady Burton's strong independence as a leader shows the movement towards tolerance of women being in power”.
Not only did Lady Bruton host this business luncheon with the gentlemen in attendance, but the moment Richard Dalloway asked if she would come to Clarissa's party, she wondered how Clarissa cold throws parties, she thought about parties and how they frightened her. So, the idea behind this is not only could a woman take on acts and responsibilities that were traditionally masculine, but she could also reject those that were traditionally feminine.
"Marriage in Mrs. Dalloway provides impetus rather than closure to the courtship plot, dissolved into a retrospective oscillation between two alluring possibilities as Clarissa to replay the choices she makes thirty years before."
(Thompson)
In the above lines expresses the fickle minded Clarissa who is always in her streams of consciousness and getting confused and somewhere having regrets not to marry peter her former suitor. She feels that if she would have married peter her life would have been more excited.
Comments
Post a Comment