Daniel Im

IB Lang 11

Moosman 3

10/26/20

Virginia Woolf/ A room of one’s own: Shakespeare’s Sister

Women during the age of Shakespeare had a lot of limitations and was practically

impossible to write plays at the time. Shakespeare was a very talented writer who learned a lot of

things of literature and was taught in schools. However, Shakespeare’s sister wasn’t allowed to

go to these schools and learn even though he was talented like her brother. She didn’t have the

chance to learn grammar and logic like her brother and only rarely got to read his brother’s

books to read. She was always asked and told to do things an ideal woman was to do and their

role at the time. Even though his parents are strict, they were kind and cared for her but wasn’t

the best in her father’s eyes. One time, she was told to marry someone she didn’t like and had no

choice so she screamed and complained about it leading to her being severely beaten for her

father. She broke her father's heart and soon, ran away from home to London at the age of not

even seventeen. She tried to get into the theater business when she ran away but was basically

denied. After trying and failing, one manager, Nick Greene, took pity and let her in. However,

she basically had “children” with this man and with the amount of violence and hate, she ended

up killing herself.

This is an example of how women were discriminated against back in the day. The writer

of this article thinks that Shakespeare’s sister’s suicide was reasonable becasue of how she

wasn’t able to do what she wanted and was forced to do things she didn’t want and even when

she does somehing, if its revolutionary or very good, a man would just get the credit. The only
time women get real credit and recognition was being a witch or something bad like that.

Basically, discrimination was huge and had a big role in what women did but also what they

don’t do. It is possible that Shakespeare’s sister could have done legendary things but is dead.

Reflection

It makes me kind of sad to realize that in real life, even now, discrimination exists over

something you can not choose. Especially during the olden days. Women would have these

revolutionary ideas or add new and insane things to science or literature or politics or anything

else. I also realized that in the article, almost all of Shakespeare’s sister’s significant actions were

heavily influenced by men in her life. Having to be beaten by her father because she didn’t want

to marry this boy, couldn’t get a career going because male managers wouldn’t accept her, and

eventually killing herself because of how men treated her. All these men have a huge

significance in her life and influenced all these actions she took. She had no female people that

influenced what she did showing that at her time, men really only had influence on the

community. This is sad for me to think about how females were limited from many things for

such a long period of human existence just for being a female, which is something that one

doesn’t have choice over especially during those times.