TOW #26: A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

            Born in 1882, Virginia Woolf lived spent most of her years during a time when gender discrimination was considered a norm. In 1928, Woolf was invited to deliver lectures at the two only women’s colleges at Cambridge, Newnham College and Girton College. These speeches later developed and edited into A Room of One’s Own, revolcing around the topic of Women and Fiction. Woolf’s sphere of influence not only affected those who listened or read the lectures mentioned in her book but also impacted both men and women of the role that gender plays in literary achievement.

            She begins by stating her these that “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction” (Woolf 4). She hopes to extend her comments and opinions to the unanswered questions that many have not seen be uncovered. Woolf describes a meal that her character had at “Fernham,” a made-up institution of the women’s college meant to generalize her story. She compares her meal to the one she had at a luncheon party the other day, saying “the lamp in the spine does not light on beef and prunes” (Woolf 18). She senses that with reduced privilege due to the fact that this dinner was meant to serve women in an academic institution comes a corresponding feeling of inferiority. As the conversation is more described as gossipy rather than profound, the narrator leaves and begins small talk with her friend Mary Seton. They become intrigued in their discussion of the founding of their women’s college, which they recall the discouraging effort to raise enough financial and political support. When comparing the founding of male universities, you can see a sharp contrast as male academic institutions have been supported generously since the beginning of its history.

            Woolf’s medium of fiction rather than an autobiographic story emphasizes the relationship between truth and fiction, as she quotes that “fiction is likely to contain more truth than fact. Lies will flow from my lips, but there may be some truth mixed up with them” (Woolf 4).