A Room of One's
Own
Study Guide by Course Hero
What's Inside
j Book Basics ................................................................................................. 1
a Main Ideas .................................................................................................... 1
d In Context .................................................................................................... 2
a Author Biography ..................................................................................... 4
h Key Figures ................................................................................................. 5
k Plot Summary ............................................................................................ 11
c Chapter Summaries .............................................................................. 13
g Quotes ........................................................................................................ 20
l Symbols ..................................................................................................... 23
m Glossary ..................................................................................................... 23
e Suggested Reading .............................................................................. 24
j Book Basics
AUTHOR
Virginia Woolf
YEAR PUBLISHED
1929
GENRE
Argument
AT A GLANCE
In 1928 established English author Virginia Woolf was invited to
lecture on the topic of Women and Fiction at Newnham
College and Girton College, two women's colleges of England's
well-known Cambridge University. The lectures she delivered
on this topic were collected, refined, and published in 1929 as
the six-part essay A Room of One's Own. Using a combination
of literary techniques—ranging from direct address of the
audience to following a fictional alter ego through the British
Library—Woolf builds a feminist argument. She begins with the
claim that to write, a woman must have money and rooms to
write in. That is, a woman must have financial independence
and a private space to call her own. Only then can she throw
off the anger at the social, political, and economic limitations
women experience as part of a society designed by men and
for men.
PERSPECTIVE AND NARRATOR
First-person author Virginia Woolf suggests that the audience
refer to the primary narrator in A Room of One's Own as Mary
Beton. However, Woolf does not consistently refer to her alter
ego as Mary Beton; the last name changes throughout the
essay. As a fictionalization, the narrator is able to visit fictional
places and interact with fictional people, but she speaks on
behalf of Woolf as an alter ego.
ABOUT THE TITLE
In the essay A Room of One's Own, Woolf concludes female
authors need money and rooms of their own to facilitate their
writing.
a Main Ideas
Fire of Genius
Genius is a fire that wants to grow but needs fuel. In Chapter 4,
Woolf says "great artists" confirm a truth that Nature allows
each person to know intuitively—the artist's craft allows the
"the fire of genius to become visible." Genius, with all of its fire-
like qualities—illumination, burning, consuming—is one of the
A Room of One's Own Study Guide
most important ideas in the essay. The genius of Shakespeare
and Jane Austen "consumed all impediments." Genius occurs
in some people—both men and women—but it needs a certain
environment and situation to become fully expressed. It needs
food, literally—good food, not prunes. It needs space—a room
in which to work uninterrupted. As a result, the history of
literature is dominated by men not because they had more
genius, but because they had the right environment for the fire
of genius to grow. Women, on the other hand, may be born
with genius, but may not live in situations that allow this genius
to feed and grow.
Destructive Patriarchy
The patriarchal system is harmful to both women and men.
Clearly, women are damaged by a system that is restrictive
and gives them little power over their own lives. But the
destructiveness of the patriarchal system goes beyond the
damage done to women. It creates a power imbalance that
leads to a separation between the sexes. This separation is
unnatural and leads to a feeling that the opposite gender is the
enemy. Women are angry at men because the men have the
power to block their efforts in writing. Men are angry at women
because women are becoming a threat. Women used to make
men feel superior and confident, but now women want more
power. Woolf's ideal is a world in which men and women live in
complementary peace with each other, and each person is at
peace with their male and female natures. A patriarchal system
hampers both of these things, and, therefore, has a destructive
effect on both genders. When male-female integration is the
goal, a system that separates them is detrimental.
Money Means Freedom
The necessity of money—enough to live comfortably and
independently—is at the center of Woolf's essay. In addition to
the titular "room of one's own," women writers need a steady
income in order for their ability to flourish. Mary Beton, the
fictional narrator of much of the essay, enjoys a comfortable
income thanks to an inheritance. Before she received the
inheritance, she had a number of uninspiring jobs to make a
living. But each time she spends her money, she feels a little of
the despair and shame of poverty fall away. This small life
lesson serves as a microcosm of the state of women. Poverty
is a hindrance to independence, and independence is essential
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In Context 2
to writing. Having money allows a woman freedom to give voice
to her genius.
At the end of the essay, Woolf encourages her audience to
strive for a room of their own and financial independence. This
step will act as a building block for future generations of
women writers who will have more access to money and
private spaces as they build on this legacy.
Essential Oil of Truth
In Chapter 2 the narrator says she wants to "strain off what
was personal and accidental ... and ... reach the ... essential oil
of truth." Throughout the essay, the importance of reaching the
truth is emphasized. Woolf is not just trying to argue a point.
She is trying to show her ideas contain truth. This is essential
to her call to action at the end of the essay where she urges
the audience to help build a foundation for future women
writers. A search for truth is very compelling.
Woolf wants to give her audience a "nugget of pure truth," but
to do this she employs fiction—an apparent contradiction. Yet
she claims fiction "is likely to contain more truth than fact." This
idea—that fiction can communicate truth in a way reality
cannot—is apparent throughout the essay. For this reason, she
creates a fictional alter ego, Mary Beton, to stand in for herself.
She also creates a cast of other fictional characters to play
roles in her narrative. Through these fictional characters, Woolf
can delve into the topic and drill down to the very core of truth
about women and fiction.
d In Context
World War I and Its Effect on
Gender Roles
World War I (1914–18) was unlike any conflict that came before
it, as the effort required a huge number of capable men and
women. While women's domestic roles were still valued, there
were other opportunities for women—including women of the
middle class—to enter what had been traditionally considered
male occupations, at least for a time. Women took over jobs
that had belonged to men when those men left to serve in the
A Room of One's Own Study Guide
military. Overall, about one million more women were part of
the workforce in 1918 than in 1914. Most worked in factories or
labored in fields, but a few became dentists or architects. In
addition, some women served in the military as nurses and
pilots.
When the war ended some women were eager to return to
their domestic roles. However, others found they relished the
challenges and opportunities of work outside the home, and
they resisted a return to so-called "normalcy." At the same time
some men who had been in combat took masculine pride in
their military roles, but many others were traumatized by their
experiences. Some of these men developed anti-war
tendencies that were traditionally associated with women,
such as a value for nurturing and caring for life. In addition, the
traditional household structure—which included a great
number of domestic servants—was evolving. There were fewer
jobs in domestic service, and women had to look elsewhere for
work. The years after the war created an inevitable tension
between social progress and nostalgic traditionalism. Woolf's
views in A Room of One's Own occur in the roughly 20-year
period between World War I and World War II (1939–45), in the
midst of this post-war tension. In Chapter 1 the narrator
considers how men and women's expectations of the world
have changed, thus fundamentally altering gender interactions.
Women's Suffrage Movement
in Britain
Women had been entering the workforce since the shift from
an agrarian to a manufacturing economy that occurred during
the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, but World War I
increased their numbers drastically. In the second half of the
19th century, groups of women advocated for suffrage or the
right to vote. Suffragists and suffragettes fought for women's
voting rights, although their tactics differed. Suffragists, who
were mostly middle-class women, took a more genteel
approach, preferring to use petitions and lobbying members of
Parliament. Suffragettes, on the other hand, were more
disruptive. These mostly working-class women were willing to
break laws and go on hunger strikes. At first women were
given the right to vote in some local elections, and in 1867
Parliament voted on an amendment that would give women
voting rights in all elections. While the amendment was
defeated, the fight was not abandoned.
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In Context 3
World War I put the women's suffrage movement on hold, as it
took a back seat to more pressing worldwide concerns. And
the desire for things to return to their pre-war state was a
powerful force that pushed many women back into domestic
roles following the war. But the seed had been planted, and in
1918 women over the age of 30 who were also property
owners were granted the right to vote. A movement to grant
younger women the vote followed, especially since these
younger women had done a great deal of the work in the war.
Women over 21 were given the vote in 1928, just one year
before A Room of One's Own was published. Woolf's essay
came on the heels of adding 15 million women to British voting
rolls, a time when women may have been looking to the future,
wondering what's next?
Modernism in Literature
Beginning in the late-19th and early-20th centuries, writers
began to focus on the unique inner lives of their characters.
The seeds of modernism grew quickly during World War I as
writers searched for new styles of writing to better express the
new world that was beginning to emerge. Along with Irish
writers Samuel Beckett and James Joyce and British writer
T.S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf wanted to explore this new way of
writing and thinking about the world.
Modernism left many traditional conventions of storytelling
behind. The narrative was often fragmented and conveyed
through a narrow point of view, evoking the inner experiences
of the narrator's mind with all of its associations and
inconsistencies. Associations between the narrator's inner
state and outer environment resulted in metaphors to describe
inner thoughts and experiences. Modernist writers often
approached the writing process self-consciously, inserting
their authorial voices into the narratives.
Although an essay, A Room of One's Own displays many of
these modernist characteristics. Woolf asks the audience to
follow along as she creates a fictional narrator and a fictional
setting. The inner experience of having a moment of realization
is connected to the external experience of seeing a pause in
London's traffic and a leaf falling, for example. The idea of the
merging of two genders in one brain is connected to the
external observation of a man and woman getting into a taxi.
A Room of One's Own Study Guide
Shared Ideas with Orlando
In 1928 about the same time Woolf was working on A Room of
One's Own, she also published Orlando, a novel dedicated to
her lover and friend Vita Sackville-West. In this novel, a young
nobleman and page at court falls in love with a princess. When
the romance ends, Orlando writes poetry and becomes
restless. He is sent to Constantinople as an ambassador. One
night, he falls asleep but wakes having changed into a woman.
As a woman, Orlando avoids several suitors and returns to
England, where he lives sometimes as a man and sometimes
as a woman.
Echoes of Orlando can easily be seen in A Room of One's Own.
In the essay Woolf argues the solution to the problem of
women's poverty is money and a room of one's own to write in.
But this solution is only practical because what is really needed
is for women to write without being constrained by their
gender. Woolf's ideal is a mind in which both male and female
elements coexist and work together. Thus, the character
Orlando is the physical embodiment of this merging of male
and female.
a Author Biography
Early Life
Virginia Woolf, born Adeline Virginia Stephen in London,
England on January 25, 1882, grew up surrounded by books.
Her father was Leslie Stephen—historian, author, critic, and
founding editor of the Dictionary of National Biography. Her
mother was Julia Prinsep Duckworth, model for Pre-Raphaelite
painter Edward Burne-Jones and niece of the photographer
Julia Margaret Cameron. Her wealthy London family raised
their eight children in the late-Victorian era, and young Woolf
educated herself through her father's library and private tutors
while her brothers attended prestigious schools. The bustling
city and the tranquil seaside town of St. Ives, Cornwall, where
the family vacationed, influenced the settings of most of
Woolf's novels.
Woolf's mother died unexpectedly when the author was 13.
Grief caused Woolf to have her first mental breakdown. Nine
years later she suffered another breakdown after her father's
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Author Biography 4
death. This time she attempted suicide and went to an
institution to heal. Woolf may have had manic depression or
bipolar disorder. Recurring episodes throughout her life put
Woolf in contact with at least 12 doctors, giving her insight into
their changing methods for treating mental illness. In her work
she would often write from the perspective of mentally ill
characters as well as examine psychiatry's failures.
Professional Life
Woolf began her career as a teacher and journalist. She
befriended intellectuals Lytton Strachey, Clive Bell, and
Leonard Woolf, whom she married in 1912. They formed the
core of the Bloomsbury Group, a circle of writers, artists, and
thinkers, which also included British novelist E.M. Forster,
British economist John Maynard Keynes, British painter
Duncan Grant, and Woolf's sister, Vanessa Bell. The group met
periodically from 1907 to 1930. In 1911 Woolf, unmarried, lived in
a house with other Bloomsbury Group males, a choice that
upset her family.
Woolf used both experimental and traditional styles in her
novels, beginning with The Voyage Out in 1915. Her varied
techniques led readers to call her "the multiple Mrs. Woolf."
Mrs. Dalloway, Jacob's Room, and To the Lighthouse are
Woolf's three major modernist novels (works that deviate from
classical or traditional forms) of the 1920s. She developed a
new aesthetic in these books, part of her goal to reform the
traditional novel. A committed feminist, Woolf wanted to put
the interior lives of women on the page. In 1928, as a result of
her success as a writer, she was invited to lecture on the topic
of Women and Fiction at Newnham College and Girton
College, women's colleges of Cambridge University. The
lectures she delivered on this topic were reworked into the
extended essay, A Room of One's Own, published in book form
in 1929.
Woolf had intimate relationships with women throughout her
life, most significantly with poet and novelist Vita Sackville-
West, whom Woolf met in 1922. Sackville-West was a
glamorous outsider, similar to Sally Seton in Mrs. Dalloway.
Although the women shared a deep emotional bond, neither
openly identified as lesbian. Woolf stayed married to Leonard
Woolf until her death in 1941.
A Room of One's Own Study Guide Key Figures 5

stands for women writers of the period, this conclusion

Later Life and Death suggests money and a private room are what women's fiction
needs.
Woolf slid into a deep depression in the 1940s. The deaths of
close friends, combined with a loss of faith in her own writing,
made her feel she had lost the capacity to create. In March
1941 Woolf wrote a final letter to her husband. She then made
Judith Shakespeare
several suicide attempts, culminating with her walking into the
Woolf creates Judith Shakespeare to explore the question of
River Ouse with her pockets full of stones on March 28, 1941.
why there are no great women writers from Shakespeare's

Leonard Woolf disregarded his wife's instructions to "destroy time. The essay traces Judith's life and how it diverged from

all my papers," and instead preserved Woolf's diaries, letters, her brother's. Both are gifted writers, but when Judith goes to

and unfinished novel, Between the Acts. British poet T.S. Eliot London to pursue her passion for theater, she is laughed at

wrote in Woolf's obituary, "With the death of Virginia Woolf, a and taken advantage of. Finally, pregnant and despairing, she

whole pattern of culture is broken." kills herself. This elaborate scenario helps to prove the point
that women cannot become great writers when faced with
these kinds of challenges. Men, on the other hand, have been

h Key Figures
Mary Beton
Mary Beton is one of the names Virginia Woolf suggests the
audience call her narrator, and it is the one that sticks.
Although Mary Beton has to be fictionalized because she visits
fictional places and interacts with fictional people as part of
the essay, she basically speaks for Virginia Woolf and can be
viewed as the author's alter ego. Mary Beton is also the name
of the narrator's aunt, who died and left her an inheritance. The
liberating experience of having this inheritance is one of the
reasons she concludes a woman writer must have money and
a room of her own.
able to allow their gifts to thrive. In order for the inherent
genius of women to become manifest in great works of
literature, they will need the financial independence and
privacy men enjoy.
Mary Seton
Virginia Woolf suggests three names for her fictional
narrator—Mary Beton, Mary Seton, and Mary Carmichael—but
ends up settling on Mary Beton. Mary Seton, then, becomes
the name of the narrator's friend at Fernham. The two discuss
the poverty of women, consider the difficulty in raising money
to attend a women's college, and rail against their female
ancestors for failing to leave them money.

Mary Carmichael
Virginia Woolf suggests three names for her fictional
narrator—Mary Beton, Mary Seton, and Mary Carmichael—but
ends up settling on Mary Beton. Mary Carmichael becomes the
name of the fictional female author of a mediocre novel, Life's
Adventure, that Mary Beton reads and analyzes. Mary
Carmichael stands in for female writers of Woolf's time, who
might not be great writers yet, but who are able to tell the
stories of women better than men. Mary Beton decides Mary
Carmichael's novel is not a work of genius, but it is a sign of
progress, and in time, with a room of her own and a little
money, she may write an even better book. Since Carmichael

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A Room of One's Own Study Guide
Full Key Figure List
Key Figure Description
Mary Beton is the fictional character
Mary Beton
who narrates most of the essay.
Mary Mary Carmichael is the fictional
Carmichael female author of a mediocre novel.
Judith Judith Shakespeare is William
Shakespeare Shakespeare's fictional sister.
Mary Seton is Mary Beton's fictional
Mary Seton
friend.
English writer Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold (1822–88) was the chair of poetry at
Oxford.
John Aubrey (1626–97) wrote a book
John Aubrey
of biographies called Brief Lives.
Jane Austen (1775–1817) is one of
England's most famous novelists,
Jane Austen
especially famous for her novels Pride
and Prejudice and Emma.
Scottish writer Joanna Baillie
(1762–1851) wrote poems and plays
Joanna Baillie
and is thought to have influenced
later Gothic and horror writers.
French novelist and playwright
Honoré de Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) wrote
Balzac La Comédie Humaine and Eugénie
Grandet.
English essayist and author Max
Max Beerbohm Beerbohm (1872–1956) was known
for his satirical writing.
English playwright and poet Aphra
Behn (c. 1640–89) wrote the poems,
Aphra Behn "A Thousand Martyrs" and "Love
Armed," in which appears the line
"Love in Fantastic Triumph sat."
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Key Figures 6
Currer Bell was the pen name of
Charlotte Brontë, who—along with her
Currer Bell
sisters—took a pen name ending in
"Bell."
English writer and archaeologist
Gertrude Bell (1868–1926) wrote
Gertrude Bell
Palace and Mosque at Ukhaidir and
The Arab of Mesopotamia.
Lady Bessborough (1761–1821),
Henrietta Frances Spencer, had
Lady
several extramarital affairs including
Bessborough
one with Lord Granville Leveson-
Gower.
Lord Birkenhead (1872–1930), also
Lord known as Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl
Birkenhead of Birkenhead, was a lawyer and
politician.
Sir Chartres Biron was in charge of an
Sir Chartres
obscenity trial involving Radclyffe
Biron
Hall's The Well of Loneliness.
Sir Archibald Bodkin (1862–1957)
Sir Archibald
helped to ban Radclyffe Hall's The
Bodkin
Well of Loneliness.
French military leader Napoleon
Napoleon
Bonaparte (1769–1821) became
Bonaparte
emperor of France in 1804.
Like her two sisters, Anne Brontë
(1820–49) was an English novelist.
Anne Brontë She wrote Agnes Grey and The
Tenant of Wildfell Hall. She wrote
under the pen name Acton Bell.
Like her two sisters, Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte (1816–55) was an English novelist.
Brontë She wrote the novel Jane Eyre under
the pen name Currer Bell.
Like her two sisters, Emily Brontë
(1818–48) was an English novelist.
Emily Brontë
She wrote the novel Wuthering
Heights. Her pen name was Ellis Bell.
Writer Sir Thomas Browne (1605–82)
Thomas
wrote on religious, medical, and
Browne
scientific topics.
A Room of One's Own Study Guide
Writer Oscar Browning (1837–1923)
was a fellow of King's College,
Oscar Browning
Cambridge and was interested in
education reform.
Victorian poet and playwright Robert
Robert
Browning (1812–89) was married to
Browning
poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
French essayist Jean de La Bruyère
Jean de La
(1645–96) was well known for his
Bruyère
essay "Caractères."
Member of Parliament Samuel
Sir Egerton
Egerton Brydges (1762–1837) was
Brydges
also a genealogist and writer.
Englishwoman Frances (Fanny)
Burney (1752–1840), also known as
Frances Burney
Madame d'Arblay, was an early
female novelist.
Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759–96)
often wrote his poems in the Scots
Robert Burns
language, and is known for the poem
"My Love is Like a Red Red Rose."
English novelist, essayist, and critic
Samuel Butler Samuel Butler (1835–1902) wrote The
Way of All Flesh.
A statue of Prince George, Duke of
Duke of
Cambridge (1819–1904), riding his
Cambridge
horse sits at Whitehall, London.
Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) wrote The French
Revolution: A History.
English poet and scholar Eliza
(Elizabeth) Carter (1717–1806) was
Eliza Carter
versed in classic literature and
linguistics.
English politician Sir Joseph Austen
Sir Austen
Chamberlain (1863–1937) won a
Chamberlain
Nobel Peace Prize in 1925.
English writer and poet Geoffrey
Geoffrey
Chaucer (1343–1400) wrote The
Chaucer
Canterbury Tales.
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Key Figures 7
English poet John Clare (1793–1864)
wrote about rural life in collections
John Clare
such as Poems Descriptive of Rural
Life and Scenery.
Cleopatra (c. 69–30 BCE) was the
ruler of Egypt at the time of Julius
Caesar, and her relationship with
Cleopatra
Marc Antony is the subject of
Shakespeare's play Antony and
Cleopatra.
Anne Jemima Clough (1820–92) was
Anne Jemima
a leader in the movement for women's
Clough
suffrage and education.
English Romantic poet and literary
Samuel Taylor critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Coleridge (1772–1834) wrote The Rime of the
Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan.
Emily Davies (1830–1921) was a
founder of Girton College, Cambridge,
Emily Davies
one of the women's colleges at which
Woolf was first invited to lecture.
Victorian-​era writer Charles Dickens
(1812–70) wrote many novels and
Charles
stories including Oliver Twist, David
Dickens
Copperfield, A Christmas Carol, and
Great Expectations.
English poet and priest John Donne
(1572–1631) lived during the time of
John Donne
Shakespeare and was known for his
religious poetry.
Lady Dudley, named Georgina
Lady Dudley Elizabeth Ward (1846–1929), was a
countess known for her beauty.
Lord Dudley, named William Ward
Lord Dudley
(1817–85), was the Earl of Dudley.
George Eliot was the pen name of
George Eliot English novelist Mary Ann Evans
(1819–80).
English writer and translator Edward
Edward FitzGerald (1809–83) is known for his
FitzGerald translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar
Khayyám.
A Room of One's Own Study Guide Key Figures 8

French novelist Gustave Flaubert Lucy Hutchinson (1620–81) wrote

Lucy
Gustave (1821–80) wrote Madame Bovary, a Memoirs Of The Life of Colonel
Hutchinson
Flaubert novel considered by many to be Hutchinson.
immoral.

Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen

Social anthropologist Sir James Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) wrote Peer Gynt and
James George
George Frazer (1854–1941) wrote the Hedda Gabler.
Frazer
well-​known The Golden Bough.
A fictional indignant man at Oxbridge
Novelist and playwright John Indignant Man shoos Mary Beton off the turf and
John Galsworthy (1867–1933) won the onto the path.
Galsworthy Nobel Prize in Literature in 1932 and
wrote The Forsyte Saga.
Anglican priest William Ralph Inge
Dean Inge (1860–1954) was a professor, author,
Elizabeth and dean of St. Paul's Cathedral.
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (1810–65)
Cleghorn
was an English novelist.
Gaskell
English writer Samuel Johnson
Dr. Samuel (1709–84) wrote poems, essays,
English poet, satirist, and author John Johnson literary criticism, biographies, and
John Gay Gay (1685–1732) wrote Trivia: or, the dictionaries.
Art of Walking the Streets of London.
English playwright, poet, and actor
English historian Edward Gibbon Ben Jonson Ben Jonson (1572–1637) lived during
(1737–94) wrote the six-​volume work Shakespeare's time.
Edward Gibbon
The History of the Decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire.
English politician Sir William (Jix)
Sir William Joynson-​Hicks (1865–1932) helped
German author Johann Wolfgang von Joynson-​Hicks ban Radclyffe Hall's novel The Well of
Johann Goethe (1749–1832) wrote Loneliness.
Wolfgang von philosophical and scientific works as
Goethe well as plays, poems, and novels,
among them the play Faust. Roman poet Juvenal, or Decimus
Junius Juvenalis (c. 60–c. 127 CE), is
Juvenal
the presumed author of a set of
Lady Granville Leveson-​Gower poems known as the Satires.
Lady Granville (1785–1862) was the wife of Lord
Leveson-​Gower Granville Leveson-​Gower and a
English writer John Keats (1795–1821)
prolific letter-​writer.
John Keats was a Romantic poet known for the
poem "Ode on a Grecian Urn."
Cecil Gray (1895–1951) was a Scottish
Cecil Gray
composer and music critic.
A fictional kindly gentleman tells Mary
Kindly
Beton she cannot enter the Oxbridge
Gentleman
Essayist William Rathbone Greg library unaccompanied.
William
(1809–81) wrote on political and
Rathbone Greg
social topics.
Author Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936)
Rudyard Kipling famously wrote The Jungle Book and
Feminist Jane Ellen Harrison Just So Stories.
Jane Ellen (1850–1928) was a classical scholar
Harrison who authored books on Greek
English writer Charles Lamb
archaeology.
(1775–1834) was an essayist who
Charles Lamb
collaborated with his sister Mary on a
Roman poet Horace (65–8 BCE) retelling of Shakespeare's plays.
Horace
wrote Satires and the Ars poetica.

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A Room of One's Own Study Guide
English poet and author Walter
Walter Savage Savage Landor (1775–1864) wrote a
Landor volume of dialogues called Imaginary
Conversations.
Journalist and author John Eric
Langdon-​Davies (1897–1971) wrote
John Eric
about his experiences in the Spanish
Langdon-​Davies
Civil War as well as A Short History of
Women.
Biographer and literary critic Sir
Sidney Lee (1859–1926) wrote the
Sir Sidney Lee
biography Life of William
Shakespeare.
English writer Violet Paget
(1856–1935) used the pen name
Vernon Lee and wrote books on
Vernon Lee
aesthetics, including The Beautiful: An
Introduction to Psychological
Aesthetics and The Poet's Eye.
English playwright and poet
Christopher Marlowe (1564–93) lived
Christopher
during Shakespeare's time and is
Marlowe
known for his Tragical History of
Doctor Faustus.
Mrs. Martin represents the more
realistic Englishwoman—"aged thirty-
six, dressed in blue, wearing a black
Mrs. Martin
hat and brown shoes"—as a contrast
to the more glamorous version of
women found in fiction.
English philosopher and economist
John Stuart Mill (1806–73) co-​wrote
John Stuart Mill
the essay The Subjection of Women
with his wife Harriet.
English poet John Milton (1608–74) is
John Milton best known for his epic poem
"Paradise Lost."
English novelist Mary Russell Mitford
Mary Russell
(1787–1855) wrote a five-​volume work
Mitford
of fiction entitled Our Village.
English poet and artist William Morris
William Morris (1834–96) helped establish the Arts
and Crafts movement.
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Key Figures 9
Austrian composer Wolfgang
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–91) wrote the
Amadeus well-​known Requiem in D minor and
Mozart several operas, including The
Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni.
English writer and literary critic John
John Middleton
Middleton Murry (1889–1957) was
Murry
married to writer Katherine Mansfield.
Italian politician and fascist leader
Benito
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) became
Mussolini
prime minister of Italy in 1922.
English writer Margaret of Newcastle,
or Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of
Margaret of
Newcastle-​upon-​Tyne (1623–73),
Newcastle
published her writings under her own
name instead of a pen name.
Cardinal John Henry Newman
John Henry
(1801–90) was a poet and writer
Newman
known for his theological works.
Although English nurse Florence
Nightingale (1820–1910) famously
Florence
transformed nursing, she also wrote
Nightingale
on other topics such as the role of
women.
Dorothy Osborne, also called Lady
Dorothy Temple, (1627–95) wrote letters to
Osborne her future husband, Sir William
Temple, which were later published.
Roman poet Ovid (43 BCE–17 CE)
Ovid wrote Metamorphoses and Ars
amatoria.
American writer Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (1809–49) wrote fiction and poems
filled with suspense and horror.
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) was a
Alexander Pope poet and satirist famous for The Rape
of the Lock.
Writer and literary critic Sir Arthur
Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-​Couch (1863–1944)
Thomas Quiller- edited the Oxford Book of English
Couch Verse and wrote The Art of Writing,
quoted in Woolf's essay.
A Room of One's Own Study Guide
English essayist Thomas de Quincey
Thomas de
(1785–1859) wrote Confessions of an
Quincey
English Opium-​Eater.
Playwright Jean Racine (1639–99)
Jean Racine was a French author known for
writing tragedies.
English essayist and literary critic Sir
Sir Walter
Walter Alexander Raleigh (1861–1922)
Alexander
was chair of English Literature at
Raleigh
Oxford University.
English portrait painter George
George Romney (1734–1802) was known for
Romney his portraits of aristocratic and
famous persons.
English poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel (1828–82) was a painter and a
Rossetti member of the Pre-​Raphaelite
Brotherhood.
English poet Christina Georgina
Christina Rossetti (1830–94)—sister to Dante
Rossetti Gabriel Rossetti—often wrote
romantic and religious poetry.
Swiss philosopher Jean-​Jacques
Jean Jacques
Rousseau (1712–78) popularized the
Rousseau
idea of the "noble savage."
English writer John Ruskin
John Ruskin (1819–1900) wrote about his interest
in art in his volume Modern Painters.
George Sand was the pen name of
George Sand French novelist Amantine-​Lucile-
Aurore Dudevant (1804–76).
Sappho (c. 610–c. 570 BCE) was an
Sappho ancient Greek poet of the Island of
Lesbos.
English actor and writer William
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) is one of
Shakespeare the most famous playwrights and
poets in history.
Percy Bysshe Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
Shelley was an English Romantic poet.
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Key Figures 10
Murasaki Shikibu (c.978–c.1014) was
Murasaki the pen name of a female Japanese
Shikibu novelist and poet who wrote Genji
monogatari (The Tale of Genji).
Anglican priest Laurence Sterne
Laurence (1713–68) was a novelist who wrote
Sterne The Life and Opinions of Tristram
Shandy, Gentleman.
Swedish playwright and poet August
August
Strindberg (1849–1912) wrote the play
Strindberg
Miss Julie.
An unshaven fictional student in
Student Chapter 2 studiously takes notes next
to Mary Beton in the British Museum.
French composer Germaine
Tailleferre (1892–1983) was the only
female member of Les Six, a group of
Germaine
composers that also included Darius
Tailleferre
Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, Arthur
Honegger, Georges Auric, and Louis
Durey.
English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Alfred, Lord (1809–92) was poet laureate for
Tennyson much of Queen Victoria's reign and is
well known for The Lady of Shalott.
English author William Makepeace
William
Thackeray (1811–63) wrote satirical
Thackeray
novels.
Scottish poet and playwright James
James Thomson (1700–48) wrote The
Thomson Seasons and the lyrics to "Rule
Britannia."
Author Hester Lynch Thrale
Hester Lynch (1741–1821) was known as a patron of
Thrale the arts and was friends with Dr.
Samuel Johnson.
Russian writer Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) wrote the novels War and
Peace and Anna Karenina.
George English historian George Macaulay
Macaulay Trevelyan (1876–1962) wrote History
Trevelyan of England.
A Room of One's Own Study Guide
Florence Nightingale's sister Frances
Frances
Parthenope Verney (1819–90) wrote
Parthenope
Memoirs of the Verney Family during
Verney
the 17th century.
Roman poet Virgil (70 BCE–19 CE)
Virgil
wrote the epic poem Aeneid.
English playwright John Webster
John Webster (c.1580–c.1632) lived during the time
of Shakespeare.
Rebecca West (1892–1983) was the
Rebecca West pen name of feminist and author
Cicily Isabel Fairfield.
English poet Lady Winchilsea
(1661–1720) was a countess and one
Lady Winchilsea
the first female poets to publish in
England.
Professor von X is a fictional author
and professor created by Woolf to
Professor von X represent male authors in general,
especially those who write about the
various ways women are inferior.
Z is a fictional man whom Mary Beton
calls the "most humane, most modest
Z
of men," but who calls Rebecca West
an "arrant feminist."
k Plot Summary
Chapter 1
Virginia Woolf has been asked to give a lecture on women and
fiction and begins by discussing her thought process about
how to approach the topic. After some thought, she concludes,
"A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to
write fiction." She invents a fictional persona, "Mary Beton,"
who will narrate a series of events and the thoughts they
inspire, so the audience can follow the train of thought that led
to her conclusion.
Mary sits on the bank of a river in Oxbridge (an imaginary
men's university akin to Cambridge or Oxford) thinking about
"women and fiction." After a while, she rises and begins to walk
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Plot Summary 11
across the grass. A man gestures to her she should stay on the
path—not walk on the grass. She visits the library, but a
gentleman at the door tells her women are not allowed unless
accompanied by a Fellow or in possession of a letter of
introduction. She goes to an elaborate luncheon and enjoys
wonderful food and drink. Dinner is at Fernham, a women's
college, and it is terribly plain in comparison. This contrast
leads to thoughts about the wealth of men and the poverty of
women.
Chapter 2
In a new setting—London—Mary now explores the questions:
"Why was one sex so prosperous and the other so poor? What
effect has poverty on fiction?" She goes to the British Museum,
and finds many books written by men about women. Some of
the topics question whether women can be educated, have
souls, or are divine. One book makes her very angry: The
Mental, Moral, and Physical Inferiority of the Female Sex. She
realizes men often put women down because they are used to
having all the power and having women prop up their self-
image. Now, with the women's rights movement, men's
confidence and power are threatened. This makes them
uncertain, and thus they try to regain superiority through logic.
Mary has lunch at a restaurant, and pays with her own
money—money she inherited from her aunt. She thinks back to
what it was like to have no money and considers the power
and freedom having her own money has given her.
Chapter 3
Mary investigates the question of why women in Elizabethan
times—the time of Shakespeare in the 16th century—wrote
nothing. She concludes Elizabethan women had no money of
their own, were forced into marriages, and did not have the
training or experience needed to become a writer. She invents
a fictional sister for Shakespeare, a woman named Judith with
the same gift and drive as her brother. While William went off
to school, married, had a child, and went off to London to seek
his fortune, Judith stayed home, was betrothed, and ran away
to London to avoid the marriage. In London, her interest in
theater was thwarted, and she was taken advantage of. Unable
to express her gifts, she killed herself. Therefore, it would have
been impossible for a woman in Shakespeare's time to write
A Room of One's Own Study Guide Plot Summary 12

plays. Gifted women would have become outcasts, suicides, or
prostitutes, as there was no way for them to obtain the things
they needed to become a writer. The work of Shakespeare
shows evidence of "a mind ... incandescent, unimpeded," but a
woman at the time would never have lived in circumstances
that allowed the development of this kind of mind.
masculinity because women are demanding their rights and
want to live more equitably with men. This has made women's
writing poorer because they are in opposition to the womanly
part of their own minds. She concludes, "It is fatal for anyone
who writes to think of their sex."
Setting the persona Mary Beton aside, Woolf reasserts a
woman must have "five hundred a year and a room ... if [she is]

Chapter 4 to write fiction or poetry." She encourages the women writers

in the audience to make money and have a room of their own.
This will lay a foundation for future generations, so that
The idea that any woman would be able to have "a mind ...
someday Judith Shakespeare will truly be born, and will write
incandescent, unimpeded" in the 16th century seemed
works of genius, drawing upon the legacy of all the women
unbelievable at the time: Rich women could write a little,
writers who came before her.
perhaps. But as time went on, women writers began to emerge,
and some even made money. This gave legitimacy to writing as
an acceptable occupation for women. By the 19th century
several women novelists were recognized for their literary
contributions. Writers like Jane Austen perfected the kind of
writing that depended on keen observations and interactions
between people in sitting rooms. But even so, many of this
generation of women writers showed signs of anger and
struggle against their limitations, and this detracted from their
writing.

Chapter 5
Mary moves on to the writing of her own time. She invents an
imaginary author, "Mary Carmichael," and gives commentary on
Carmichael's book Life's Adventure. She notices the sentences
do not flow well, her scenes do not proceed in order, and
overall the book is not sublime. But the book has potential, and
given enough money and a room of her own to write in,
Carmichael might become a great writer, or at least a better
writer.

Chapter 6
Mary wakes up the next day, and as she watches the people in
the street, she observes two people, a man and a woman, get
into the same taxi. This becomes an image of what she thinks
needs to happen in the mind in order to produce great writing.
The male nature and the female nature—both present in the
mind—must coexist peaceably together. As British poet
Samuel Taylor Coleridge asserted, a great mind is
androgynous. However, men have doubled down on their

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A Room of One's Own Study Guide
c Chapter Summaries
Chapter 1
Summary
Virginia Woolf has been asked to give a lecture on women and
fiction, and she has titled this lecture "A Room of One's Own."
She begins by discussing her thought process about how to
approach the assigned subject and explains her chosen title.
At first, she wondered about the meaning of "women and
fiction." Had she been asked to lecture on women, or female
fiction writers, or men's fiction writing about women, or all
three? Rather than come to a grand conclusion about these
large and complex topics, however, she decided to focus
instead on a related, yet smaller, issue. She has concluded, "A
woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to
write fiction." The lecture will walk her audience through the
thought process that led to this conclusion. It is possible, Woolf
allows, that "The ideas ... behind this statement ... have some
bearing upon women and some upon fiction."
To help guide her audience through her thought process,
Woolf is going to use "all the liberties and licenses of a
novelist" to tell the story of the preceding two days, in which
she gave deep consideration to "women and fiction." She
invents a fictional self, inviting the audience to call this fictional
self, "Mary Beton, Mary Seton, Mary Carmichael," or any other
name.
Mary Beton begins her story. It is a lovely October morning,
and she sits by the banks of a river in Oxbridge, burdened by
the enormity of the question of "women and fiction." A small
thought occurs to her, and after a while this thought tugs at
her mind and becomes both exciting and important. She rises
and walks quickly across the grass, but just as quickly a man
with an expression of indignation on his face also rises and
gestures urgently to her that she should stay on the path and
not trample the grass. She has an idea of visiting the library,
where several famous manuscripts are housed, but a kindly
gentleman at the door tells her women are not allowed unless
accompanied by a Fellow or are in possession of a letter of
introduction.
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Chapter Summaries 13
Angry, Beton considers what to do next. She hears the music
of an organ coming from the chapel and watches as the
congregation walks inside for a service. She considers how the
great university was constructed, so long ago, with the wealth
of kings and queens, and how it endures based on the wealth
of businessmen and merchants.
Beton's contemplation is interrupted by the luncheon bell.
Luncheon is a grand affair, full of decadent food and plenty of
wine, and infused with a sense of peace, goodwill, and leisure.
She catches a glimpse of a Manx cat with no tail, however,
which pauses and seems to "question the universe." This
breaks the mood for Beton, and she imagines a past luncheon,
not unlike the present one. She senses there is some intangible
difference between the past luncheon and this one. She finds
part of an answer in the romantic love poems of British poets
Alfred Tennyson and Christina Rossetti, which seem to echo
what men and women hummed to themselves at luncheon
before the war.
Dinner is at Fernham, a women's college, and it is plain and
uninspiring, consisting of prunes and custard among other
things. Afterwards, Beton again thinks of the treasure of kings
that allowed Oxbridge to be built and the wealth of generations
that had added to its richness. She compares this with the way
the women who founded Fernham had to struggle to get
enough money for a women's college. This thought makes her
angry, and she rants about "the reprehensible poverty" of
women. She wonders why they did not go into business and in
doing so leave plenty of money to found grand universities and
fund fellowships dedicated to women. She realizes if their
foremothers had been in business, they would not have had
families. Furthermore, only for the last 48 years have women
been able to keep the money they earn. Late into the evening,
Beton continues to think of the "safety and prosperity of the
one sex and ... the poverty and insecurity of the other."
Analysis
A Room of One's Own is an argumentative essay that makes
the claim that "A woman must have money and a room of her
own if she is to write fiction," and then uses several fictional
narratives to walk through the supporting reasons. The
opening chapter of this extended essay introduces the
structure, narrator, claim, and important symbols that will
develop the argument. Woolf begins speaking for herself, as if
giving a lecture to a group of women writers. This is a reminder
A Room of One's Own Study Guide
the printed version of the book was originally a series of
lectures given to female university students. She will circle
back to this at the very end of the essay, as if returning to a
frame story.
In fact, this essay is nearly as much a work of fiction as it is a
novel—the main difference being that the fictional narrative
supports an argument, rather than a plot or character arc.
Within the frame story, Woolf will provide her audience with a
fictional narrator, usually called Mary Beton, and a number of
other fictional characters—Professor von X, Mary Carmichael,
and others. These characters help her explore aspects of the
lecture topic of "women and fiction" and ultimately prove that
women writers must have money and a room of their own.
Several symbols are introduced in this opening chapter, and
the ideas they represent can be traced throughout the essay.
One, of course, is Oxbridge. The land was once marshland, but
over time and "with infinite labor the grey blocks ... were poised
in order one on top of another." This building process becomes
a metaphor and a symbol of the great legacy of literature
written by men. In contrast, the women have no such legacy,
and they are only now beginning to make their own
foundations and their own buildings—both literal and
metaphorical. This contrast continues as the narrator eats at
both Oxbridge and at Fernham, the women's college. The food
is sumptuous at Oxbridge, but meager at Fernham, and the
prunes and custard of Fernham become a symbol of women's
poverty.
Finally, it is important to notice the number of distractions and
interruptions in Mary Beton's narrative. She is intercepted by a
man as she walks across the grass of Oxbridge. Another man
blocks her path at the door of the Oxbridge library. Her
thoughts are interrupted by a Manx cat whose lack of a tail
makes her consider what she herself lacks. These kinds of
interruptions continue throughout the essay and represent the
many interruptions women writers have historically endured
due to family and social responsibilities. That women are
constantly interrupted is, later, used to explain why women
turned to writing novels. But the interruptions also help make
the case that a woman writer needs a room of her own where
she may work uninterrupted.
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Chapter Summaries 14
Chapter 2
Summary
The scene shifts to London. It is still fall, and the audience is
asked to imagine a room with a window, and in the room, a
table with a piece of paper that reads, "Women and Fiction."
The previous day at Oxbridge had prompted questions, among
them: "Why was one sex so prosperous and the other so
poor?" and "What effect has poverty on fiction?"
Beton goes to the British Museum—which once contained the
British Library—to find answers. She discovers there are plenty
of books written about women, mostly by men—men with
degrees and men with no apparent credential other than being
men. She also discovers there are no books about men written
by women. Waiting for her book choices to be delivered to her
stall, she considers a new question: "Why are women ... so
much more interesting to men than men are to women?"
Beton's books arrive and she takes pages of notes covering a
great variety of men's opinions about women. The opinions are
sometimes contradictory. The men can't seem to agree on
whether women can be educated, have souls, are divine, or a
host of other questions. She is overwhelmed, and in her
distraction, has unconsciously drawn an angry and ugly portrait
of Professor von X engaged in writing his monumental work
entitled The Mental, Moral, and Physical Inferiority of the
Female Sex. This book, in particular, has made her very angry.
Beton realizes, too, there is a kind of anger in the attitude of
the male writers toward the women they write about. She
puzzles over the exact nature of the men's anger as she has
lunch at a nearby restaurant. Looking through a newspaper,
she becomes even more intrigued by men's anger—since it is
quite clear men hold all the power. Yet, the anger she had
perceived in the books about women was real. She concludes
men's "anger" is really their way of protecting their own power:
"When the professor insisted ... upon the inferiority of women,
he was concerned ... with his own superiority." Furthermore,
she reflects on how this general truth explains why men are
angry at feminists. "Women," she notes, have acted as
"looking-glasses possessing the ... power of reflecting the
figure of man at twice its natural size." The self-confidence this
has given men over the centuries has been essential to them,
as has the inferiority of women.
A Room of One's Own Study Guide
Beton's thoughts are interrupted by the arrival of the
restaurant bill, which she pays, using money inherited from her
aunt. She had been informed of her aunt's passing around the
same time women were given the right to vote. The money
came as a great relief because the odd jobs she had prior were
difficult and did not pay well. When she spends money now,
she is reminded of the fear and bitterness she felt during that
time in her life and how having money has caused those
feelings to ebb.
Returning to her home, Beton sees people going about their
jobs and tasks, and she thinks about how, in the future, women
will cease altogether to be "the protected sex."
Analysis
This chapter proceeds as Mary Beton—Woolf's alter ego and
narrator of the fictional narrative embedded in this
essay—goes to the library to find answers to her questions.
Unlike the Oxbridge library, which she was not allowed in, she
is welcome in the British Museum and its library. In Chapter 1
Mary used her own observations and perspective to begin
asking questions. She noticed a contrast between men and
women and wanted to find out more, so she consults books to
gather knowledge. She wants to "strain off what was personal
and accidental ... and so reach ... the essential oil of truth."
While this is a worthy goal, objective truth is not what she finds
in the books.
Disappointingly, the books do not contain a great deal of
objective truth. Rather, Beton finds they are filled with anger,
which in turn causes her to become angry. To explore this
"fact" of anger, she invents a fictional male author, Professor
von X, who has written a book about why women are inferior to
men in every way. She considers the way men and women
related to each other before the women's right's movement
and how they relate now. She concludes that men are angry
because their superiority is being questioned and challenged.
This superiority is something they had taken for granted and, in
fact, had been very useful to them, as it bolstered their
confidence and allowed them to take risks they might not have
taken otherwise. Despite the fact she claims to be angry,
Beton's tone as she analyzes this situation is objective and
reasonable. She admits, "Life for both sexes ... is arduous,
difficult ... It calls for gigantic courage and strength," and men
had been used to finding this courage in their feelings of
superiority over half of the population. She further admits this
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Chapter Summaries 15
confidence in superiority has been useful: "Without that power
probably the earth would still be swamp and jungle."
However, despite its usefulness, the confidence men have in
their superiority is ultimately destructive. A strongly patriarchal
system is inherently self-defeating because it places both the
powerful and the powerless at its mercy. The men had power
and wealth but "at the cost of harboring in their breasts an
eagle ... forever tearing the liver out." Now the truth of this
flawed system is becoming more evident, as the hidden "eagle"
is becoming more visible.
The search for truth—the stated purpose of Beton's fictional
foray to the library—is ultimately not found in any of the books.
It is arrived at through intuition, from the surfacing of some
subconscious knowledge. In Chapter 1 Woolf explained that
fiction often reveals greater truths than reality. Here, she ends
up finding the "essential oil of truth" not in books but in her own
subconscious mind. She draws an angry Professor von X and
senses in her drawing both his anger and her own. Thus
art—fiction or drawing—reveals more truth than history. An
image might contain a fact dozens of nonfiction books cannot
hold. This is a very important idea that surfaces again in the
final chapter, as an image sparks the narrator's moment of
insight into the solution to her problem. "Yet it is in our idleness,
in our dreams," she says, "that the submerged truth sometimes
comes to the top."
Imagery is very important to understanding the ideas in Woolf's
essay, including the image of London as a large, impersonal
machine made up of individual parts. "London was like a
machine," she notes, "We were all being shot backwards and
forwards on this ... foundation to make some pattern." This idea
of a pattern hidden in the seemingly unrelated movements of
people suggests her search for truth means finding an
underlying pattern to human behavior. It also foreshadows the
moment of insight she gains in Chapter 6.
Chapter 3
Summary
Beton still hasn't solved the puzzle of the effect of poverty on
fiction, nor does she completely understand why women are so
poor relative to men. She wishes for some "authentic fact." She
decides to approach it from another angle: Why, in the time of
A Room of One's Own Study Guide Chapter Summaries 16

Queen Elizabeth I, "when every other man, it seemed, was

capable of song or sonnet," did women write almost nothing?
Analysis
She notes how very interesting and intelligent women appear
This chapter begins with many questions: Why are women
as characters in literature and poetry. In reality, however,
poor? Why did they not write? What were their lives like? Did
women were treated poorly, beaten, locked up, and subject to
they have rooms to themselves? These questions stem from
the whims of their fathers and husbands. "[A woman] pervades
the previous chapters, in which the narrator considers why
poetry from cover to cover; she is all but absent from history,"
women's colleges have such bland food while men's have such
she concludes.
lavish feasts. A major tenet of this essay is that money is
What was the life of an average Elizabethan woman? They had essential to women's writing. The issue of women's poverty is a
no money of their own, and they married "whether they liked it thread that can be followed throughout the entire book and
or not." Beton recalls an old gentleman saying no woman could forms an important part of its conclusion. The other questions,
have written the plays of Shakespeare, and she agrees: "It it turns out, are related. Women did not write because they
would have been impossible ... for any woman to have written ... were not financially independent. Their lives were
Shakespeare in the age of Shakespeare." To support this characterized by the limitations of being financially dependent
assertion, she creates a thought experiment—Judith on men.
Shakespeare, the Bard's gifted (fictional) sister. William went to
In consulting the library full of books to find answers, Beton
school to study Latin, literature, grammar, and logic. He met a
realizes something important. One is that female characters in
woman, married, and had a child. He went to London and got
books are vastly different from women in real life. In fiction
work as an actor and "lived at the hub of the universe ... and
they are fascinating and vivacious. They speak and take action.
even getting access to ... the queen." Meanwhile, Judith was
In history, they are barely a presence at all. This lack of
not sent to school, nor was she taught Latin or logic. She
information about the stories of women is what leads Beton to
stayed home and was eventually betrothed to a neighbor.
invent one—the story of Judith Shakespeare. Judith's story is
Attempting to avoid the marriage, she ran away to London. She
based in part on the few details found in history books, in part
was as gifted as her brother, and loved the theater as he did,
on Woolf's own imagination, and, of course, on her own
but she was told women did not act and was laughed at. She
experience as a woman. Woolf takes the few facts recorded in
eventually became pregnant and killed herself.
the history books and extrapolates on them, but her ideas
It would have been impossible for a woman in Shakespeare's seem to carry weight. The reader is carried along with her very
time to write plays as he did, but this does not mean girls were believable line of reasoning.
not born with genius and creative gifts. Look for these gifted
This chapter is also the most well-known of the book, and it is
women among the insane, the suicides, the outcasts of the
frequently excerpted as a standalone essay. This is due to the
16th century.
fact it has an inner cohesiveness and the compelling nature of
What conditions are required for a person to write a work of its main feature—the comparison between William and Judith
genius? It is an almost impossible task in itself, and the Shakespeare.
"material circumstances" of a person's life constantly work
One remarkable feature of this chapter is its tone. The
against it: "Dogs will bark; people will interrupt; money must be
previous chapters have carried a tone of bemusement, which
made; health will break down." For women, the material
readers may regard as exaggeration for effect. Beton
difficulties of life are increased exponentially. In the 16th
approaches these questions logically even when she knows
century a woman would not have a room of her own or any
the answer. The narrator seems so perplexed about why
peaceful place to exercise her gift. In the 19th century a
women are poor and did not write. In this chapter, the author's
woman is constantly snubbed, lectured, and forced to prove
true voice breaks through. It is clear the statement that a
herself—a constant barrage of opposition that saps her
woman could not have written the works of Shakespeare
creative energy. Creative work requires there be no obstacles.
rankles her. She seems to marvel at the question of why
As an example, the work of Shakespeare shows evidence of "a
women did not write, noting it would be "extremely odd" if a
mind ... incandescent, unimpeded."
young woman, married off as a teen and launched into a life of
mothering and serving her husband, did, in fact, write

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A Room of One's Own Study Guide Chapter Summaries 17

something great. The answer is painfully obvious, and her angry about their limited situation. These things held them
sarcastic tone emphasizes this. back.

Chapter 4 Analysis
As Beton peruses the books on the shelves of the library, she
traces women's writing from where the essay left off in
Summary Chapter 3—the time of Shakespeare—to the 19th century. Little
time is spent on the quality of the writing, although Beton does
Of course, the idea that any woman would be able to have "a
offer some criticisms of its value, such as, "Clearly her mind
mind ... incandescent, unimpeded" in the 16th century is
has by no means 'consumed all impediments and become
ludicrous. Perhaps a rich lady, with free time, might have
incandescent.'" Rather, "it is harassed and distracted with
written something, but even her writing would likely be
hates and grievances." For the most part, she focuses on the
disturbed. A woman writer would likely have viewed men as an
circumstances in which these women were writing. She
enemy because they can block her from writing. She would
describes the small rooms they wrote in, harried by one
have to content herself with sharing her writing with friends.
interruption after another. She describes the way they are
Women writers from the time were not educated to make use
made fun of and spoken to by men. She describes how, even
of their genius, and so it poured out in chaotic ways as the
by the time of Jane Austen and George Eliot, women writers
writers spiraled into insanity. Some kernels of their ability can
were not taken seriously and often hid their work. Jane Austen
be seen in their letters, but this is not the same as writing
would cover up her writing whenever anyone came in the room.
fiction.
George Eliot hid behind a male pen name in order to publish
Mrs. Aphra Behn, a 17th century "middle-class woman with all without ridicule.
the plebeian virtues of humor, vitality and courage," was a
In addition, women writers were not able to experience life in
writer who proved a woman could make money writing. And
the varied way that produces material usually needed for
this was significant because it opened a door for women in the
writing a great work. Beton uses the example of Russian writer
18th century who might not have been financially independent,
Leo Tolstoy to show how the physical freedom of men gave
but who could use the extra money. And because money
them more options for writing. In particular, men were allowed
"dignifies what is frivolous if unpaid for," women's writing
to have sexual relationships and were not ostracized. In
gained a little legitimacy.
contrast, women who had sex outside of marriage were
By the beginning of the 19th century, there were far more shunned and were even more limited in their interactions with
books written by women. Unlike previous generations of the world. Tolstoy, however, could live "freely with this gypsy or
writers, who were mostly poets, these women wrote novels. with that great lady" and have all sorts of other experiences
Perhaps novel writing is an easier form of writing to do amidst that could be used in novels. Thus, the double standard
interruptions and a lack of privacy. Or it could be their regarding sexual activity also served to give male writers an
experiences, among people in the sitting rooms of their homes, advantage.
led them to novel writing: "The literary training ... a woman had
Beton links women's writing to their circumstances in very
in the ... nineteenth century was ... in the observation of
small, concrete ways. For example, she theorizes women were
character." Jane Austen, one of these novelists, even managed
able to write novels because they could be written in short
to write a really good novel. The narrator cannot "find any signs
spans of time between interruptions. In addition, their role in
that her circumstances had harmed her work in the slightest."
society—which required them to notice and interpret unspoken
Austen's "gift and her circumstances matched each other
social cues—honed in them skills of observation. They were
completely." Other women of the time were not so fortunate,
able to describe subtle interactions between people in ways
and their novels show signs of discontent or of promise and
that felt realistic. The trouble with this kind of women's writing
genius that could have been even greater. They tried to write
is that very few women were completely satisfied and suited to
like men, were ostracized because of sexual practices, or were
the role society demanded. She uses the example of Jane

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A Room of One's Own Study Guide
Austen—who was able to write without thinking of her gender
simply because she was by nature perfectly matched to her
situation—to show that this was an exception, not the rule. Of
all the women novelists writing in this era, only one escaped
the limitations of gender. This is a step above the previous
generation, but a very small one.
Overall, the progression of women's literature is one of forward
motion, even if it is at a snail's pace. This is presented as both
an encouraging and a discouraging thought. At the end of this
chapter, Beton has arrived at the early 20th century—her own
time.
Chapter 5
Summary
Beton now speaks about writing in her own century. She notes
that women now write more than just novels and that women
do almost as much writing as men. She invents an imaginary
author, "Mary Carmichael," and analyzes her book Life's
Adventure. She observes the sentences do not flow well, her
scenes do not proceed in order—the author has broken the
sentence and the sequence. However, Carmichael has every
right to do this if she "does them not for the sake of breaking,
but for the sake of creating." So she reads on. She comes to
the sentence, "Chloe liked Olivia," and realizes women usually
do not like each other in literature. They are jealous of each
other or are shown in love triangles with men—and always in
relation to men. But in Carmichael's novel, two women are
friends and colleagues and share a laboratory in which they
work together on medical research.
Many great male writers had "some need of and dependence
upon certain persons of the opposite sex." These men surely
got more from women than just sex. Men and women both
have creative power, but women's creative power "differs
greatly from the creative power of men." Women writers, like
Carmichael, are better suited to tell the stories of women than
are men, but they can also help to present a more complete
picture of men by writing about men from a woman's
perspective.
Mary Carmichael's novel, the narrator concludes, is not a work
of genius. But she does not view men as an "opposing faction"
as writers before her had done. She only has a tinge of the fear
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Chapter Summaries 18
of previous women authors. She writes "as a woman who has
forgotten that she is a woman." In time, with "a room of her
own and five hundred a year," Carmichael may write an even
better book.
Analysis
In this section, Beton invents another Mary—Mary Carmichael,
author of the mediocre Life's Adventure. Carmichael and her
book provide a lens through which Beton can assess the
current state of women's writing. She evaluates Carmichael's
writing's merits—sentence structure, plot, coherence—in light
of her predecessors, such as Jane Austen. She finds things to
criticize and finds the prose lacking overall. Yet she finds
things to praise. For example, Carmichael's writing is mostly
free of the consciousness of gender previously found in
women's writing. It also describes relationships—between
friends or work colleagues—not found in other novels, either
those written by men or those by women. These observations
can be interpreted as Woolf's assessment of the state of
women's literature at the time. It is in transition, just as
women's roles in society are in transition.
Carmichael's life and potential also contain a hopeful message
for women writers. Although her work is not wonderful, it has
potential. Carmichael, given the opportunity to write another
book, might greatly improve. Again, Carmichael represents all
of women's literature. Just as she might improve if she has 500
a year and a room to write in, so will women's literature
become better over time, as long as women writers have
financial resources and a space to call their own.
Notably, this chapter focuses on—and praises—the differences
between men and women. Women can see things men cannot
see, and vice versa. Women and men can develop relationships
in which they draw some creative spark form each other. In
fact, she suggests more genders would be even better: "If an
explorer should ... bring word of other sexes ... nothing would
be of greater service to humanity." Yet at the same time, these
differences should not cause men and women to see each
other as the "opposing faction." It is not differences between
men and women that are problematic, but their antagonism.
This recalls the idea in Chapter 2 that men's writing about
women is full of anger because they are used to being in
power and having women support them, and they do not like to
see this power challenged. Anger between men and women is
fostered by a power imbalance, and this, ultimately, is bad for
A Room of One's Own Study Guide
everyone.
Chapter 6
Summary
Beton wakes up the next day—the day after reading all those
books, October 26, 1928—and notices London doesn't seem to
care much about women and fiction, or even about
Shakespeare's plays, for that matter. Suddenly, as she
watches the people in the street, there seems to a pause
during which a leaf falls and the river flows as if carrying
people along in its current. In this pause, she notices two
people, a man and a woman, get into the same taxi. This
coming together seems very different from the way she has
been thinking—about the genders being separate, and about
her mind as separate from the rest of existence. This leads her
to conclude the genders were meant to work together, and,
furthermore, each person has both a man's nature and a
woman's nature: "In each of us two powers preside, one male,
one female." She contemplates English poet Samuel Taylor
Coleridge's assertion that the great mind is androgynous.
Beton opens a book by a male author, and she is at first
comforted and at home in the directness of its sentences and
the confidence of its tone. But she quickly tires of it. She thinks
male authors, now so very aware of and defensive of their
maleness due to the women's movement, are beginning to
have less androgynous brains. "Men ... are now writing only
with the male side of their brains," and their writing is poorer
for it.
To wrap up her thoughts, Beton concludes, "It is fatal for
anyone who writes to think of their sex." At this point, Beton's
part in the essay concludes, and Woolf explains that Beton has
shown her thoughts as to why a woman must "have five
hundred a year and a room ... to write fiction or poetry." Woolf
rejects any thoughts about weighing men's writing against that
of women or judging between the two. She defends her
insistence on a woman's need for material things, saying, "five
hundred a year stands for the power to contemplate," and "a
lock on the door means the power to think for oneself." She
goes on to reiterate the hardship women have had to endure
for centuries: "Intellectual freedom depends upon material
things ... women have ... been poor ... from the beginning of
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Chapter Summaries 19
time."
To conclude the "lecture," Woolf exhorts women to strive to
have money and a room of their own. In a few generations, she
says, the "dead poet who was Shakespeare's sister will put on
the body ... she ... so often laid down," and will draw life from all
the women writers who came before her.
Analysis
This chapter opens with a chaotic scene of a busy London
street. The people are going about their business unaware of
anything beyond their own lives. There are "no two people ...
alike; each seems bound on some private affair of his own." Yet
as Beton watches, she has a moment of insight. This moment
is described almost as a moment out of time, or in slow motion:
"A ... suspension of traffic ... A single leaf detached itself ... and
in that pause ... fell." In this paused moment, she senses an
invisible river bringing three things together from different
directions: a man, a woman, and a taxi. This image of a man
and a woman getting into a taxi takes on significance beyond
the concrete or literal. Beton's mind connects and resonates
with this image, seeing in it an insight that might provide
answers to some of her questions. "The sight was ordinary
enough," she notes, "what was strange was the rhythmical
order with which my imagination had invested it."
This image of disengaged and separate people coming
together in some kind of union becomes a metaphor for the
unity of the mind. Beton realizes that she has been thinking
more of the separations between things—between men and
women, between herself and others—and this is part of the
problem. The male and female parts of each person must be
unified in order for genius to be expressed without impediment.
To further elaborate on this idea, she describes reading a book
by a male author. She detects in his writing a consciousness of
gender she feels is detrimental to the truth of his work. This
supports the main idea of the destructive patriarchy. It shows
how the imbalance of power erodes the work of not just those
who have less power and so struggle against their limitations
(women), but also erodes of those who have more power and
so must defend it against usurpers (men).
To conclude the essay, Woolf sheds her Mary Beton persona
and directly addresses her audience—presumably women
writers. She encourages them to work incrementally for the
future of women in general, and specifically for women writers.
A Room of One's Own Study Guide
This recalls the imagery of Chapter 1, as she imagines the
building of the great chapel and other university buildings and
the great wealth of generations that went into the building. It is
true—and her essay provides ample evidence—women are at a
disadvantage because of generations of poverty and limited
existence. Yet progress has been made, and it takes time to
build something great and lavish. Woolf exhorts the women
writers of her time to obtain money and a room of their
own—and to write. They might not be the Judith Shakespeare
who can write unhindered, but they can prepare the way for
her. "Without that effort on our part," she tells them, "without
that determination that ... she shall find it possible to live and
write her poetry," such a Judith Shakespeare will never come
to be.
g Quotes
"Fiction here is likely to contain
more truth than fact."
— Narrator, Chapter 1
Virginia Woolf—best known as a writer of fiction, and lecturing
on "women and fiction" here—defends fiction as more likely to
contain truth than nonfiction. This also introduces the device
she will use to make her argument—fictional characters in a
fictional setting. This important difference between "truth" and
"fact" is reiterated as Woolf explains: "Lies will flow from my
lips, but there may ... be some truth mixed up with them."
"One must strain off what was
personal and accidental ... and ...
reach ... the ... oil of truth."
— Mary Beton, Chapter 2
The search for truth is one of the driving forces of Woolf's
essay. She wants her audience to search for the truth in her
words, and her fictional narrator, Mary Beton, is also searching
for the truth in the words of books in the British Library. This
search means setting aside "personal and accidental" ideas,
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Quotes 20
including those ideas and biases related to one's gender.
"The most transient visitor ... could
... be aware ... England is under the
rule of a patriarchy."
— Mary Beton, Chapter 2
Mary Beton reads a newspaper as she has lunch and reflects
on how truthfully it portrays England. It is absolutely clear just
from a glance that men in England hold all the power and have
all the money. This realization is an essential ingredient of her
conclusion in Chapter 2 that men are angry because their self-
confidence is dependent on women being inferior. Ideas of
women's equality threaten the presuppositions on which the
patriarchal society is built. This realization is also part of her
argument that women are impoverished compared to men, and
therefore they need money if they are to progress.
"Women ... served ... as looking-
glasses possessing the ... power of
reflecting ... man at twice its
natural size."
— Mary Beton, Chapter 2
Woolf's point is that the relative value of men and women has
been more important historically than the inherent value of
men and women. If men looked at themselves and saw their
"natural" importance, they would not feel as confident. But
instead, they have been looking at women, whose relative
inferiority makes the men seem superior in contrast. The image
of women as a mirror that makes a person look larger than
they actually are is used to make this point more concrete.
"Imaginatively she is of the highest
importance; practically she is
completely insignificant."
A Room of One's Own Study Guide Quotes 21

— Mary Beton, Chapter 3 be free to exercise their gifts.

Mary Beton points out the extreme difference between women

in fiction and poetry and women in real life. In fiction and "The history of men's opposition to
poetry, women are practically divine. They are portrayed as
women's emancipation is more
goddesses, valuable and beautiful, spirited and eloquent. Yet in
real life, women are oppressed, beaten, exploited, and interesting ... than ... that [of]
confined. They are forcefully married off whether they want to
emancipation."
or not and often live lives of drudgery. Thus, women portrayed
in art are "of the highest importance" but in reality, they are
"completely insignificant." — Mary Beton, Chapter 3

Woolf finds the attitude of men towards women more puzzling

"What would have happened had than women's desire for freedom. Men, it seems, both idolize
and demonize women. In addition, the motivation of women
Shakespeare had a ... gifted sister, who want more freedom seems simple and clear—they are
called Judith, let us say." suffering, and they no longer want to suffer. But the motive for
thwarting this freedom seems less clear-cut and requires an
analysis of the entire power structure of society.
— Mary Beton, Chapter 3

This introduces the most well-known and frequently excerpted

parts of the essay, in which an imaginary sister of William
Shakespeare—Judith Shakespeare—is followed from birth to
death. Her life is full of hardship and ends tragically, while her
brother's is full of success. It is very important to the
comparison that Judith has the same natural giftedness and
brilliance of her brother. She, too, is "wonderfully gifted." This
shows Woolf's view that women and men are not inherently
more or less gifted and allows the comparison to focus on the
differences in circumstances due to gender alone.
"The conditions ... were hostile to
"If ever a mind was incandescent,
unimpeded ... it was Shakespeare's
mind."
— Mary Beton, Chapter 3
The "incandescent" mind is one that shines brightly with
genius. This genius can only be expressed fully if it is
"unimpeded"—if it does not encounter obstacles that suppress
it. Shakespeare is the prime example, and is perhaps why
Judith Shakespeare is Woolf's chosen comparative example.

the state of mind ... needed to set

free ... the brain." "Money dignifies what is frivolous
if unpaid for."
— Mary Beton, Chapter 3

— Mary Beton, Chapter 4

The key to Woolf's argument is that women's poverty and
oppression do not allow them to achieve the state of mind
Woolf continually comes back to her main idea that money is
necessary for creating great works of literature. They have no
an essential part of allowing women to write great fiction. While
privacy in which to write, and their day-to-day lives are limited
this is usually expressed as the need for money to provide less
and restricted by their role in society. If they have privacy—a
hostile living situations and more independence, here she
room of their own—and financial independence, their minds will

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A Room of One's Own Study Guide
makes the point that getting money for something legitimizes
that very thing. Therefore, the more women are paid for their
writing, the more it will be accepted as literature.
"Cleopatra's only feeling about
Octavia is one of jealousy."
— Mary Beton, Chapter 5
In men's fiction women's relationships with each other are not
friendly. They compete with each other for men or are jealous
of other women because men find them attractive. Cleopatra is
jealous of Octavia because Antony marries Octavia.
However, in Mary Carmichael's novel, two women are friends
and colleagues. They have a relationship apart from men, one
that is invisible to men.
"Suppose ... men were only
represented in literature as ...
lovers of women ... how literature
would suffer!"
— Mary Beton, Chapter 5
Mary Beton makes the point that in fiction written by men,
women are only seen in relation to the men who are their
lovers. To make her point clear, she asks the audience to
imagine what literature would look like if the only stories told
about men were ones in which they were women's lovers. What
if this were men's only role in stories?
"Fellows and scholars only allowed
on the grass! ... Aspiring and
graceful female novelists this
way!"
— Mary Beton, Chapter 5
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Quotes 22
As she reads Mary Carmichael's book, Mary Beton worries "the
bishops and ... patriarchs" will obstruct Carmichael with their
rules and conventions that keep women from rising. The first
sentence refers to the experiences Mary Beton has in Chapter
1—a man shoos her off the grass and onto the path, and
another blocks her from entering the library. The second
sentence refers to the idea women are equipped for novel
writing but not other kinds of writing, and that graceful women
are more accepted as writers than less beautiful or wealthy
women.
"Some marriage of opposites has
to be consummated."
— Mary Beton, Chapter 6
The "marriage of opposites" Mary Beton refers to is the
"marriage" of male and female parts of the brain. If these two
parts do not work together, the brain will be too female or too
male, both of which diminish the greatness of the writing.
"Intellectual freedom depends
upon material things. Poetry
depends upon intellectual
freedom."
— Narrator, Chapter 6
At the end of the essay, Woolf assumes control of the voice
again and sums up her argument by drawing a straight line
from material things—like money and a room of one's own—to
the ability to produce works of genius. She follows these
statements with: "Women ... have not had a ... chance of writing
poetry," and ends with, "That is why I have laid ... stress on
money and a room of one's own."
A Room of One's Own Study Guide
l Symbols
Light
Light symbolizes the genius needed to illuminate truth. Woolf
refers to "that hard little electric light which we call brilliance"
and notes that the "lamp in the spine does not light on beef and
prunes." Therefore, light is genius, or artistic brilliance. Light
also symbolizes the ability to see truth, or to judge between
truth and illusion. She refers to the "white light of truth" and
calls the reader to hold "every phrase, every scene to the light"
because Nature has given the reader "an inner light by which to
judge of the novelist's integrity or disintegrity."
Ten-Shilling Note
As she pays for her lunch with a ten-shilling note—part of an
income from an inheritance left to her by an aunt—Mary Beton
wonders at the power of that note and its siblings, which seem
to magically appear in her purse. They have the power to free
her form the "rust and corrosion ... fear and bitterness" she had
built up when she was without money. Thus, the ten-shilling
note comes to symbolize financial independence and the way
money has the power to lift the burdens women endure
because of their poverty.
Prunes and Custard
After a sumptuous luncheon at Oxbridge—built on a legacy of
men's accomplishments and wealth—Mary Beton endures a
meager dinner of beef, prunes, and custard at the women's
college where she is staying. The dinner is not inspiring, and
she notes, "One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one
has not dined well." This dinner symbolizes the poverty of
women compared to men and helps to make the case a
woman needs money in order to use her gifts to create works
of genius.
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Symbols 23
Distractions and Interruptions
A man interrupts Mary Beton's path across the grass. A bell
interrupts her thoughts. A restaurant check brings her
contemplations back to the present. The essay's fictional
narrative is littered with distractions and interruptions. These
constant interruptions mimic the distractions and interruptions
Woolf imagines must have been the reality for writers such as
Jane Austen as they sat in their sitting rooms and were called
upon to make conversation, rather than write uninterrupted in a
room of their own. Woolf includes these interruptions to
symbolize the struggle of women writers, and the need for a
private space in which to write.
Oxbridge
Oxbridge University is the imaginary university that provides a
setting for the Chapter 1 of the essay. Its magnificent buildings
become a symbol of the legacy men have built over many
years. The wealth of generations of men built the chapel,
placed in it lovely stained-glass windows, and made sure it was
filled with singers and scholars. Similarly, the literature written
by men was built up over time, from the earliest male writers
through English poet John Milton, Italian poet Dante Alighieri,
and English playwright William Shakespeare through the
present. Male author built upon male author to bring about
great literature, as stone is set upon stone to build a chapel.
Both kinds of "buildings" require money. In contrast, women do
not have a legacy of literature to draw upon because they
never had any money. Their colleges are plain and small
compared to Oxbridge, as is their literature. However, Woolf
makes it clear the building blocks of women's literature are
finally being set in place. She ends on a hopeful note,
encouraging women to keep building.
m Glossary
androgynous (adj) both male and female
composite (adj) made up of parts
A Room of One's Own Study Guide Suggested Reading 24

impediment (n) obstacle to progress or movement

incandescent (adj) glowing

perpetual (adj) lasting or occurring continually or repeatedly

predominate (v) to be dominant or in the majority

sensibility (n) ability to respond to or feel something

venerable (adj) revered or worthy of respect

e Suggested Reading
Degen, Michael E. Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own: A
Contribution to the Essay Genre. Telemachos, 2014.

Kronenberger, Louis. "Virginia Woolf Discusses Women and

Fiction." New York Times, 10 Nov., 1929.

Rosenman, Ellen B. A Room of One's Own: Women Writers and

the Politics of Creativity. Twayne, 1995.

Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One's Own (Annotated). Edited by

Mark Hussey, Harcourt, 2005.

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