A Room Of One's Own By Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf argues in the first chapter of “A Room of One’s Own,” that for a woman to be a writer that she needs an education, money, and spare time; however, women are not afforded the luxury of those things. To make her argument, Woolf uses the story of Mary, whose last name is unimportant, and her experience on the campus of a college. Her usage of the character Mary allows her to create a fictional character and narrative to represent the experiences of a female writer in her time. In the beginning of the story, Mary walks across the turf of the campus. She is reprimanded for walking on the turf as it’s only for the men visiting or attending the school. After that incident Mary decides to go to the library to read poetry, but she is met by a man who will not allow her inside the library without permission because she is a woman. After the attempt to enter the
They consider how men sit around after a long day instead feeling the need to discuss academic matters to maintain their legitimacy for being at the college. Woolf juxtaposes in her thoughts how kings used gold and silver to fund colleges against the image of a matriarchy of women fighting to get the money to endow a woman’s college. Woolf argues, “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 grandfathers before them to found fellowships and lectureships…” (21). Despite Woolf’s thoughts on how it would be beneficial for a woman to endow a college as a man would, she then argues that it’s not possible. She tells the story of Mrs. Seton and the fact that she bore thirteen children. These circumstances would make earning a fortune impossible due raising that many children. Furthermore, Woolf argues that it would be impossible for a woman to earn a fortune in the first place as women were not allowed to inherit money or own