BI YE LUN WEN（20_ _届）英语伍尔夫《一间自己的房间》的女性主义解读A Feminism Reading of Virgina Woof’s ARoom of One’s Own内容摘要弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫是20世纪文坛上的一名杰出的女作家，她被尊为意识流小说的鼻祖之一，与乔伊斯、福克纳等意识流小说大师齐名。
同时，她又被尊为西方当代女性主义的“母亲”，她认为女性应该在经济上和精神上独立，并拥有自己的生活空间和精神空间。
此外，还要勇于表达自我的真实想法。
她认为女性主义的最终目的是消解两性之间的对立，以达到两者的和谐状态。
因此，她在《一间自己的房间》中提出了“双性同体”理论。
本文试图从女性主义角度解读《一间自己的屋子》，分析伍尔夫的女性主义思想，以期更好的理解文学中的女性主义。
伍尔夫的女性主义思想在21世纪的今天仍有极强的思考意义。
关键字：弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫；独立；空间；双性同体；女性主义AbstractVirginia Woolf is an outstanding woman novelist in 20th century. She has been regarded as one of the representatives of the stream of consciousness, enjoying equal popularity with Joyce and Faulkner. Meanwhile, she is regarded as the mother of modern feminism in the west. She thinks that females should be financially and spiritually independent and have their own living space and spiritual space. In addition, women also need to express themselves bravely and sincerely. She considers the final goal of feminism is to dispel the opposition between males and females and to reach a harmonious state. Therefore, she proposes the theory of androgyny in A Room of One's Own. This thesis tries to discuss A Room of One's Own from the angle of feminism, and analyze Woolf's feminism so as to seek a broader understanding of feminism literature in general. Studying Woolf still has a profound meaning in 21st century.Key words:Virginia Woolf; independence; space; androgyny; feminismContentsAbstract (ii)1 Introduction (4)2 What’s feminism (5)2.1 The etymology of the term "feminism" (6)2.2 T he definition of the term “feminism” (6)2.3 Virginia's concepts of feminism (7)3 Virginia’s feminist idea in A Room of One’s Own (7)3.1 Economic independence (8)3.2 Having a room of one's own (10)3.2.1 Living space (10)3.2.2 Spiritual space (11)3.3 Establishing female's value (11)3.4 The pursuit of androgyny (11)4 Factors leading to Virginia’s feminist view (14)4.1 Her parents’s influence (14)4.2 The Bloomsbury Group’s influence (16)4.3 Sexual Assault by her brothers (17)4.4 The Industri al Revolution and the Women’s Right Movement (17)5 Conclusion (18)Bibliography (47)Acknowledgements (18)1 IntroductionVirginia Woolf (1882-1941), is a famous woman novelist in the 20th century and she is one of the important modernist novelists. Meanwhile, she is one of the representatives of the stream of consciousness, enjoying equal popularity with Joyce and Faulkner. What's more, she is regarded as the mother of modern feminism in the west.Literary criticism of Virginia Woolf has proliferated since the1980s. Some critics appraise her works and some appraise her person; some analyze her work’s consciousness, and some analyze her feminism; some study her works from ethics, some from aesthetics, some from homosexuality, some from psychology. She is not only a great writer, but also a "forerunner, indeed the 'mother' of the contemporary Anglo-American feminism” as Zhu Gang describes. (Z hu Gang 2006: 342) As for her feminism, some criticize her feminism as an extreme type for they think her represented idea of feminism—androgyny means she intends to replace male value with female value; some criticize her deviating the feminism for they think she couldn't bear her own female identity, so she had to give up to the patriarchal society and swamped in the mud of utopian thought of androgyny; while the others praise it highly for it is an advancement in the stage of feminism's development.Xu Wei analyzes Woolf's feminism, both as a theoretical analysis of gender inequality and oppression, and as a political movement. Her paper analyzes that Woolf how to analyze the question of "women writing" in the theory and how to practice it in her writing. Woolf is concerned with the nature of womanhood. The focus on women characters in Woolf's fiction is central to much early feminist criticism, as well as non- or anti-feminist criticism. To an extent, "anger" and "androgyny" are the two terms most central to feminist debates on Woolf. Their centrality serves to further increase the importance of A Room of One's Own as the key text of Woolf's feminism and feminism's Woolf, for it is here that "anger" and "androgyny" are most fully discussed. And A Room of One's Own is seen by many critics to subdue and repress women's anger in favor of a more serene gender—transcendent or androgynous creativity. (Xu Wei, 2004: 38-39) Wu Qinghong tries to analyze, to show and to criticize Virginia's feminism in the development of western feminism. And she indeed did it, comprehensively andintensively. Her main viewpoint is that Virginia Woolf is the most important representative person in the history of feminism's development. Woolf's analysis on feminism corrected the shortage of feminism in 1890s to 1990s, which emphasized the equality between men and women on law. What's more, her feminism inspired the new feminist in 1960s and 1970s to deconstruct male's political and cultural supremacy and establish female's visual angle, which predicted the development direction of post-feminism in 1990s. (Wu Qinghong, 2005: 5) Ma Tingting draws a conclusion that Woolf's feminism is not a panacea for all women, but an occidental one with intense tendency of racialism.(Ma Tingting, 2006: i-ii) Wu Haixia probes the unique feminist thoughts of Virginia Woolf, which she thinks are quite different from most of the other feminists. It is clearly that since the appearance of feminism, the oppositions between men and women have been highlighted, and feminism is related to the marginalization of all women, with their being relegated to a secondary position. Most feminists hold their views that the social culture is a patriarchal culture. Woolf realizes that women are confronted with inequalities and exclusion in the patriarchal society. Woolf witnesses the efforts and achievements the feminists have made to get equal rights and positions with men, whereas she airs her view that the final goal of feminism is to deconstruct the binary oppositions between the two sexes. She presents her famous theory of "androgyny" in A Room of One's Own. She argues that androgyny is the best state of mind for writing, in which a writer can make perfect artistic expression. (Wu Haixia, 2007: ii)Woolf criticizes the patriarchal society in her works, and prompts us to reexamine the history of human by a female angle to create a new civilization. Her ideology and perception opens and enlightens the idea of feminism in many aspects. This paper tries to analyze Woolf's concepts of feminism through the reading of A Room of One's Own, to get a further understanding on feminism, which can also help deepen Chinese female’s comprehension of feminism.2 What’s feminismAt the very beginning of this paper, a basic question needs to be answered. That is what feminism is? In the academic circles of Europe and America, "feminism" generally refers to any activities to strive for and tick up for the right of females. It has several hundred years' history and has complex contents. Therefore, it is difficultto define it.2.1 The etymology of the term "feminism"The term "feminism" is derived directly from the Latin word fēmina,which means woman. This term and its derivatives originated in France during the late 19th century. The first person who called herself feminist was a French suffragette activist, Hubertine Auclert(1848-1914).She first used this term in her periodical called La Citoyenne in 1880.(Cai Qing, 2005: 3) However, although this term was used in her periodicals, it was not popular among women advocates who were rather moderate. Instead of "feminist", these women called their organization "feminine". It was not until the beginning of the 20th century when "feminism" became accepted by most women suffragette activists.2.2 The definition of the term “feminism”In broad sense, feminism can be defined as social movement, which takes eliminating sex discrimination and ending the oppression on women as its political goals. It also includes the revolution in ideology and culture which emerged from the process for pursuing its political goals. In this sense, feminists represent those who devote themselves in this movement sincerely, and any males and females who take part in the revolution of ideology and culture. In its narrow sense, feminism refers to a kind of methodology that regards and analyses a question in a gender perspective.Feminism now stands for a movement or philosophy that questions the unequal balance of power between men and women. Feminists fight for equality between men and women. The term "feminism" has become the name for the women's movement, the quest for social changes aimed at improving the position of women. Feminism is defined both as "the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes " and " organize activity on behalf of women's rights and interests".（Merriam-Webster, 2003: 461) Hence, the term feminism is not only about the struggle for political rights. It is a system of ideas and a social movement, directed towards opposing men's privilege of position and women's subordination. This term contains redistribution of power and recognition of sex equality.2.3 Virginia's concepts of feminismVirginia Woolf is not only a female writer, but also a pioneer of feminism. Her essential contribution to feminism is her perseverance that social and economic elements are critical to shape women's creativity and perception. According to her idea, women play a historical role to join in the creation of human civilization, especially the arts. What she emphasizes is that females should face the reality and think things that related to them instead of thinking things that concerned men. Therefore, she puts forward the idea that females should set up a literature of their own. To deal with the anger that appears in the process of writing and derives from the inequality between men and women, she proposes a concept of androgyny. An androgynous mind is the best state of mind for doing literary creation. However, it causes a heated debate among later feminists. Although it is controversial, she creates a bright future for females.Virginia's view of feminism is embodied intensively in the idea of androgyny. Androgyny has more than one meaning. It may refer to the anatomical coexistence of two sorts of sex organs in the same body; or else to the allegory of a form of spiritual perfection. In other cases, it is related to the explicit coexistence of male and female qualities in the same entity. (Wu Haixia, 2007: 23-24) To put it simply, androgyny means full balance and command of an emotional range that includes male and female elements. She thinks the final goal for feminism is to eliminate the opposition between males and females. Virginia's feminism includes economic independence, spiritual independence. Her analysis on feminism corrected the shortage of feminism in 1890s to 1990s, which emphasized the equality between men and women on law. What's more, her view of feminism inspired the new feminist in 1960s and 1970s to deconstruct male's political and cultural supremacy and establish female's visual angle, predicting the orientation of post-feminism in 1990s.3 Virginia’s feminist idea in A Room of One’s OwnA Room of One's Own is Virginia's representative work of feminism. In October, 1928, Virginia Woolf was invited to give two academic speeches by Cambridge University. One was in the Art Society of Newnham, the other was in the Gordon women college. The lecture topic was Women and fiction. The next year, she published a brochure,which was written on the basis of these two lectures. Quickly, the booklet amazed the world with a single feat at that time. Up to now, it has become the most famous work and has most readers compared to her other works. It is universally acknowledged as a declaration of western feminism.The work---A Room of One's Own can be divided into six parts. The first part describes an experience in Oxbridge University fabricated by the author, which shows an unfair treatment that females received in a patriarchal society. The second part represents a phenomenon that the author found a large amount of books about women's problems written by men in the England museum. What’s worse, one professor claimed absolutely in his marvelous work that female's intelligence, physical power and morality are all lower than males. In the third part, the writer sketches a hypothetical "Judith" Shakespeare, sister of William, who is as brilliant and promising as he, but her talent is undoubtedly buried by the patriarchal society. Woolf traced back to the females' rough process for getting in the literature arena in the forth part. Aphra Behn (1640-1689), a playwright, novelist and poet of England, who is the first English female to became a professional writer in 17th century. Then women writers began to feel proud and elated. However, most English women writers had to use males' name as pen names to relieve their social pressure during the 19th century. In the fifth part, the author points out that it is necessary to strengthen females' awareness of knowing the difference between males and females. Only in this way, she thinks, females can realize the true value of themselves. In the last part, Virginia agrees with Samuel Taylor Coleridge's androgynous idea, believing that a writer's creative soul should have both masculinity and femininity. In other words, a person is a bisexuality instead of a unisexuality. A person is androgynous. When full balance and command of an emotional range that includes male and female elements reached, these men writers or women writers can create great works.3.1 Economic independenceFemales are facing an economic problem. As is known to all, economy is the basis of living. Women lose their economic source, when the patriarchal society excludes them from the public work, which causes them sink in a poor state. In reality, what females are engaged in are human beings' personal production and all kinds of necessary house works to maintain many families’ functions. When women are doingthese, they use up their physical power, energy, and even sacrifice their lives. However, these are all done in the area of family. Their yields often cannot leave any tangible fruits. For example, the cooked food will be eaten up, the washed clothes will be dirty after wearing again, and children who have been raised up will leave home to get in their own world. Don't these household labors have any value? Is there anybody who pays them salary? Therefore, these natural, non-commercial labors are excluded from the social labor by the patriarchal society, because they are only related with personal family members and they cannot create value directly. Since the unpaid labor take up most energy of females, they lose their subject position in the society and lose the source of finance. Therefore, if females want to get rid of the disadvantaged status imposed on them by history and reality, they should strive for the economic position. Just like what Woolf says in A Room of One's Own, women should have revenue of 500 pounds every year. She considers that the main reason why there are so less women writers is that our mother is too poor. For example, if Mary's mother " had gone into business; had become a manufacturer of artificial silk or a magnate on the Stock Exchange; if she had left two or three hundred thousand pounds to Fernham, we could have been sitting at our ease tonight and the subject of our talk might have been archaeology, botany anthropology, physics, the nature of the atom, mathematics, astronomy, relatively, geography. If only Mrs. Seton and her mother and her mother before her had learnt the great art of making money and had left their money, like their fathers and their grandfathers before them, to found fellowships and lectureships and prizes and scholarships appropriated to the use of their own sex, we might...have looked forward without undue confidence to a pleasant and honorable lifetime spent in the shelter of one of the liberally endowed professions. We might have been exploring or writing; mooning about the venerable places of the earth; sitting contemplative on the steps of the Parthenon, or going at ten to an office and coming home comfortably at half-past four to write a little poetry." (Virginia Woolf, 2005: 576) They haven't learned how to make money, how to manage their own property. For thousands of years, women are handling house works and rearing children, while men are doing business for making money. While princes and aristocrats use their properties to build many schools and libraries, women are rejected out of the colleges; they are restricted in a small circle of family. They have no rights to receive education. As a result of being deprived of enjoying rights of owning their ownproperty, females' desires for making money are constrained. The thousands of years' influence of patriarchal society places women in a penniless position.Women began to walk out of the household in 20th century. Thus, many women writers sprung up. We can see that for the latest hundred years, the appearance of many women writers are concerned with the rights women have achieved, especially the acquirement of economic right, which plays an important and positive role in art creating. Woolf herself also admitted that she and her sister obtained all their father's books after their father's death, so she could start her writing career. In A Room of One's Own, the narrator also repeatedly says that but for her aunt's 500 pounds' heritage, it might have been hard for her to break away most women's fate---working hard in the household or going out for earning money to keep the pot boiling. All in all, females should be independent in the economy.3.2 Having a room of one's ownVirginia said that “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." (Virginia Woolf, 2005: 555) It has been discussed that females should be financially independent. Now, it turns to a room of one's own. Having a room of one's own not only indicates that females should have their basic living space, but also means that females should have a comparatively free spiritual space.3.2.1 Living spaceIn the past, women were restrained in a small room, being busy at doing trivial house works all day. It was not uncommon that their works would be suspended. What's worse, they had to hide their works quietly to avoid being scoffed. Jane Austen is a good example in A Room of One's Own." For she had no separate study to repair to, and most of the work must have been done in the general sitting-room, subjecting to all kinds of casual interruptions. She was careful that her occupation should not be suspected by servants or any persons beyond her own family. Jane Austen hid her manuscripts or covered them with a piece of blotting-paper." (Virginia Woolf, 2005: 604) Therefore, having a living space for one's own plays an essential role in females' creation.3.2.2 Spiritual spaceMany women writers were born in rich families. They had money and their own living spaces. However, they depended on their parents so much that they didn't go out for traveling to broaden their eyes. They did what their fathers asked and even married to who their fathers picked for them. When they were children, they were subjected to their fathers; when they were married, they were obedient to their husbands; when they were old, they complied with their sons. It is just like the three cardinal guides and the five constant virtues as specified in the ancient Chinese feudal ethical code. Women never had their own minds and their own spiritual space, they were not spiritually independent. Woolf pays more attention to the influences of patriarchal society on women's writing.3.3 Establishing female's valueWoolf finds that women's writing hasn't had their own tradition. Therefore, she proposes that females should set up their own value. To create females' literature or other careers, they have to take two times adventures. First of all, killing the "angel in the house", to be ourselves. Here, the "angel in the house" represents the stipulations that imposed on women by social norms and ideology of traditional culture. It also refers to females' conscious compliance to this oppression. They even turned patriarchal oppression and forbidden into their self requests and self-conscious actions. Facing this, Woolf realizes that the only way is to kill it, otherwise "she will kill me, she will dig out my heart of writing". The second adventure is to express truly the physical experience of ourselves. Women's requests suffered an extreme suppression and twist in the patriarchal society. According to Woolf, the consciousness that how a man will look at a woman who expresses her own real lust disturbs a female writer's imagination and damages her creativity. Therefore, expressing one's own real idea becomes an important means to remove the patriarchal ruling.3.4 The pursuit of androgynyAndrogyny is Woolf's social and literary ideal, but its premise is getting rid of the two sexes inequality and opposition, and the discrimination on females. Many feministsare unwilling to accept this viewpoint. For example, Elaine Showalter points out that "Woolf's androgyny is a female writer's reaction to her crag-fast condition". (Zhugang, 2006: 355) It is a utopia imagination of an ideal artist. Although it is quite controversial, it is a revolt to the creative standpoint of literature which regards male value as the unique standard. It is an initial deconstruction to the binary opposition of sex. It has a great influence on the generation of subsequent feminism theory and its criticism.Androgynous mind is central to Woolf's feminism. She defines it as "a mind that is reason; that transmits emotion without impediment; that is ceaselessly creative; incandescent; undivided. In fact one goes back to Shakespeare's mind as the type of the androgynous, the man-womanly mind." (Huangzhong, 2005: 23-24) Simply speaking, androgyny means full balance and command of an emotion range that includes male and female elements. She thinks that an androgynous mind is the best state of mind for doing literary creation.Woolf proposes at the beginning that "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." (Virginia Woolf, 2005: 555) However, she also points out that the economic problem is not the only element that impacts women's writing. A placid and healthy state of mind is also necessary. The narrator takes Lady Winchester as an example in the 4th chapter of A Room of One's Own. She was noble both by birth and by marriage; she was childless; she wrote poetry. Her mind was disturbed by alien emotions like fear and hatred, so her poems showed traces of that disturbance:How we are fallen! fallen by mistaken rules,And Education's more than Nature's fools;Debarred from all improvements of the mind,And to be dull, expected and designed;And if someone would soar above the rest,With warmer fancy, and ambition pressed,So strong the opposing faction still appears,The hopes to thrive can ne'er outweigh the fears.Yet it is clear that could she have freed her mind from hate and fear and not heaped it with bitterness and resentment, she could create pure poetry as follows:Nor will in fading skills compose,Faintly the inimitable rose. (Virginia Woolf, 2005: 599-600)Charlotte Brontěmay be another example. As we all know, she is an brilliant English novelist. However, Woolf finds that there is a certain shrillness arising out of her works. Although Woolf thinks that she is more genius than Jane Austen, her anger makes her books "deformed and twisted" (Virginia Woolf, 2005: 606). There is no doubt that a woman writer would become angry in a man-dominated society. She expresses her dissatisfaction in her famous work---Jane Eyre: “Women are supposed to be very calm generously: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer..." (Virginia Woolf, 2005: 606) As a consequence," She will write in a rage where she should write calmly. She will write foolishly where she should write wisely. She will write of herself where she should write of her characters. She is at war with her lot. How could she help but die young, cramped and thwarted?" (Virginia Woolf, 2005: 606)On the other hand, Jane Austen had been constantly disturbed when writing Pride and Prejudice. Therefore, Woolf thinks that the environment should have influenced her and she would write a better one if there were no disturbances. To Woolf's surprise, when she "read a page or two to see, but I could not find any signs that her circumstances had harmed her work in the slightest." (Virginia Woolf, 2005: 605) She thinks that because Austen wrote "without hate, without bitterness, without fear, without protest, without preaching. That was how Shakespeare wrote." And "when people compare Shakespeare and Jane Austen, they may mean that the minds of both had consumed all impediments; and for that reason we do not know Jane Austen and we do not know Shakespeare, and for that reason Jane Austen pervades every word that she wrote, and so does Shakespeare. (Virginia Woolf, 2005: 605)What is the difference between these two groups of examples? We can see that in the last chapter of this essay. The narrator gets the inspiration when she sees a very ordinary sight out of the window: a girl and a young man are coming down the street, meeting at the corner and getting into a cab. Then she sketches a plan of the soul so that "in each of us two powers preside, one male, one female; and in the man's brain the man predominates over the woman, and in the woman's brain the woman predominates over the man. The normal and comfortable state of being is that when the two live in harmony together, spiritually co-operating. If one is a man,still the woman part of his brain must have effect; and a woman also must have intercourse with the man in her. (Virginia Woolf, 2005: 623-624) She thinks that perhaps what Coleridge meant when he said that a great mind is androgynous.4 Factors leading to Virgini a’s feminist viewVirginia Woolf is a productive writer and a great feminist, but first of all she is a social being, so her ideas can not be separated from the factors leading to her feminist view. As a result, it is far from enough to know about her and her work only by knowing her talents and achievements. Her parents and the Bloomsbury Group are of great influence on her writing and her feminist ideas. Besides, there are sexual assault by her brothers, the Industrial Revolution and the Women’s Right Movemen t.4.1 H er parents’ influenceVirginia Woolf was born in a literary family. Her father was the distinguished Victorian author, critic and Alpinist, Sir Leslie Stephen (1832-1904), editor of the Cornhill Magazine (1871-82), of the Dictionary of National Biography (1882-90) and of the Alpine Journal (1868-72), who counted Thomas Hardy, Henry James and George Meredith among his friends (Jane Goldman, 2008: 3). Her mother was Julia Prinsep Stephen (1846-95), who was born Julia Prinsep Jackson, in India, the daughter of John and Maria Jackson. Her maternal grandmother, and Woolf’s great-grandmother and namesake, was Adelin (1793-1845), daughter of Antoine Chevalier de L’Etang and Thérèse Blin Grincourt,who married James Pattle (1775-1845) of the Bengal Civil Service (Jane Goldman, 2008: 4). There is no denying that her parents exerted great influence on her thinking. She was born in a large and well-to-do family, with learned father and mother, intelligence and wide social connection.Her father, Leslie Stephen, a widower, had married Julia Jackson in 1878. Between them they already had four children; after they got married, they had another four children: Vanessa, Thoby, Virginia and Adrian. This family was a typical patriarchal family of Victorian time. In the family, the patriarchs were in charge of everything, owing unassailable powers, capable of enforcing everything upon women. There is evidence in the article of Virginia Woolf and Leslie Stephen: History and。
