Virginia Woolf Research Paper

The evolution of Feminine writing with time Introduction
The debate that started with Virginia woolf in her novel "A Room Of One 's Own" has travelled through times and is still alive in the category of feminist stylistics. The discussion has evolved about the existence of peculiarity of women writing as compared to men 's writing. In 1929 Woolf has termed it as The 'female sentence ' which she believes is visible in a women 's writing. This idea of Woolf was scrutinised by various feminist and further explored by many critiques and contemporaries. I aim to establish how this strand of feminist stylistics has evolved over a period of time from the very early work of Virginia Woolf in "A room Of One 's Own". I will examine how Virginia
Woolf has described the term in relation to male sentence and then I will analyse Louise Sylvester 's work in finding the traces of differences between male and female sentence. I will describe how the presence of female sentence is established in Sylvester 's "Women, men and words: lexical choices in two fairy tales of the 1920s". After this I will be analysing the famous essay "The laugh of medusa" authored by much celebrated french feminist Helen Cixous.I will attempt to find out how does female sentence appear to her.

"A Room Of One 's Own"
It is unique to see that Virginia woolf often deals with her surroundings in shaping views about the women writing. She interlinks her socio-economic ideas with the fiction of the novel. The central point of the book "A Room Of One 's Own" is that women need a sacred space for their own to connect with their own thought process without any interruption. Her room is used as a symbol to indicate her privacy, leisure time and financial independence. According to Woolf these are the essential components that lead to countless inequalities between men and women. Women are generally deprived of this kind of luxury and the effect was visible in their work of writings. The essay is based upon a series of lecture that Woolf gives in two women colleges of Cambridge University. She visualizes the differences between the students of different genders in the university. She arrives at a point where she finds that women writers during her period were tamed by masculine tradition of writing which leads her to coining the term "female sentence". Woolf stated the fictional example of Judith Shakespeare as a woman whose writing capabilities never flourished because of the sexist circumstances. She discusses that her potential flair was ruined by personal grudges against men in the Elizabeth era. She argues that no women of Shakespeare 's genius lived in Elizabeth times as the luxuries that was enjoyed by Shakespeare was limited to men and was not given to women writers of those times. As Shakespeare owned a drama company, he had no financial problems. He being a male, enjoyed power position in society which reflected that his works was readily accepted, and he had a space for himself where he could sit and concentrate to write. She cites the poem of Lady winchilsea, an aristocratic women but could find the shadow of fear and hatred merged in her writing. And she belives if the writer would have not been interwoven with negative, imprisoning emotions, she could have written brilliantly.

In the course of analysing the facts, Woolf traces women writers, their works and their socio economic conditions. She mentions the aristocrats, "Women of comparative freedom and comfort" who were resourceful enough to invest time in their writing and face public disapproval. She turns her attention to the contemporary of Lady Winchlsea, Duchess Margaret of Newcastle. Both had a very secured and respected family life. But she feels lonely Duchess Margaret of Newcastle would have been a better poet. Another sensitive melancholy writer Elizabeth Dorothy Osborne, who wrote only letters, was a very capable writer but her insecurity was visible into those writings. (The letters were not regarded as a piece of literary work, and that too if it was written by a women). The 17th century novelist Apra Behn, turns out to be a turning point in women writers who is self-sufficient to write prolifically not only novels but playwright and poems as well. Behn fitted Woolf 's criteria for "freedom of thought" because being a middle class women, Behn does not rely on men for money. Instead she wrote for making money after her husband died. On coming to the 19th century, Woolf seemed confused as to; why women 's writing has been confined to novels when women had originally begun writing with Poetry. She took upon four famous female writers George Eliot, Emily, Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austin. She concluded that all of these novels were dictated by patriarchal atmosphere around them. Only Jane Austen was the one of four who in spite of being effected by patriarchal society, her novels didn 't show this gender bias. Charlotte Bronte 's writing reflects her personal wounds while the other two writers ' works were driven by anger, ignorance or personal experiences. Woolf says women should write in a way that it expresses art and not personal experiences. She further says that women must ignore men and write freely, and that they should develop their own style of writing, a "common sentence". "The female sentence" that all women writers should follow. The lack of an existing literary tradition was one of the greatest obstacles for 19th century women writers according to Woolf. The standard 19th-century sentence was designed for men and it didn 't give a chance of full expression to women. Austen impressed Woolf with the unique style that was created by herself. She says "The grandeur of their works was an argument with them, not to stop short, but to proceed. They could have no higher excitement or satisfaction than in the exercise of their art and endless generations of truth and beauty. Success prompts to exertion; and habit facilitates success. ' That is a man 's sentence; behind it one can see Johnson, Gibbon and the rest. It was a sentence that was unsuited for a woman 's use. "A Room Of One 's Own",(penguin Books 1993,(p.69)). Woolf believes that women were muted by male language.

Woolf is an excellent reader and she reads a novel Life 's Adventure by Mary Carmichael to see how women from the past have influenced her writing.
Her writing was flowery, a bit chunky or torn apart. It seemed that Mary had nothing inherited from Austen 's writing. In fact, it is completely different as first she broke the sentence and then she breaks the sequence. Woolf feels excited about Mary 's treatment of relationship between Chloe and Olivia. Indeed, a friendship between females was one thing that Mary had endorsed by her writing. If it was a friendship between opposite sexes Mary had written about, it was likely that Woolf might have criticised her for continuing to portray women as a lover and expressing her anger through it. Women were considered to be in relation with men, not in relation with being left on shelves, not in relation with romantic love. Woolf asserts that Mary 's extraordinary piece is perfect if it is done in way to create. Mary 's writing had the specific feature that she would call a "Female sentence". Although she drives to an idea that women have a distinctive way to write but as the situation of women changes with time her writings would also be affected by that change. And that this change would be for the
better.
Louise Sylvester 's Women, men and words: lexical choices in two fairy tales of 1920s
Wolf was of the opinion that language is 'man made ' and it is necessary that women craft their own language which suit their ideas and expressions as the existing language has been constructed to suit the needs of males. Louise Sylvester explored this idea of women 's language by showing a way of how a women 's writing of a fairy tale will differ from a male version. She has also addressed 'lexical ranges ' by comparing the precise and similar lexical fields of two writers within the same genre during the same period. She quotes the famous passage in "A Room of one 's Own (1929)", where; she rues the lack of a 'common sentence ' used specifically by women writers. Woolf describes the typical style of nineteenth century writers like Thackeray, Balzac and Dickens and then states:
"That is a man 's sentence; behind it one can see Johnson, Gibbon and the rest. It was a sentence that was unsuited for a women 's use. Charlotte Bronte, with all her splendid gift for prose, stumbled and felt that clumsy weapon in her hands. George Eliot committed atrocities with it that beggar description"(Sylvester, 1994(p.53))
Woolf was unable to describe a kind of sentence that should be used particularly by women authors. She define as men sentence as a hierarchical sentence in terms of its structure. She argues that a male writes in a a more formal mode than women using nominalisations (grandeur, argument) rather than verbs or adjective; the parallel phrasing of 'not to '/ 'but to ' also has a very formal feel to it.(Mills,1995(p.47)). But Louis implies that the women sentence is likely to be non-periodic. By non-periodic sentence she refers to "loose" sentences which have a main clause followed by one or more coordinate or subordinate clause. "For Woolf, certain women writers crafted a new type of sentence which is looser and more accretive than the male sentence." (Mills,1995, (p43). By contrast periodic sentences start with modifying clauses and ends with the main thought containing an independent clause and the defining punch line at the end. A loose sentence also favours implicit and explicit coordination which are usually introduced by words such as 'and '. David Tallentire(1986) carried out a statical analysis of Woolf’s writings and found that she too does not use subordinate clauses frequently. Her writings can be characterised by the use of co-ordination, primarily, AND (sara mills,1995,(P 52) ).Certain appositional structures are a good example of sentences demonstrating coordination. Also the left branching could have apposition structure in which two elements (generally noun phrases) are placed one after another with one serving to define or modify another.
"The words chosen to describe his thoughts and behaviour take us into different conceptual field, one embracing notions of tyranny and oppression"(Sylvester, 1994). Actually as it is known that language is tamed by male, hence when used by male author in order to define character, the intent of suppression in his words are revealed automatically, while the same done by a female author would reflect an image of male actions on her.
Here the expression used for a strange thing to happen is different as explained. In Farjeon 's writing the phrase we hear Helen 's 'heart beat fast ' is used for the expression of physical surprise whereas de la mare uses word 'astonished ' to refer surprise.(Sylvester, 1994,(p.60)) This clearly states the difference between women and men sentence. The female sentence is often characterized as the outpouring of the soul, without the mediation of a structure plan (Battersby 1989)as stated in Sara mills feminist stylistics (P 53). The author is very much into the situation of the story and expresses as if she would be her, what she would feel at that time. After a long suppression by her father she would find a new life waiting for her.
In The Lovely Myfanwy First sees her lover asleep- On looking into the sleeping lover 's face the women inside the character arouse and she wanted to feel liberated from her father 's suppression. As the lover was asleep she can be herself at the moment, happy or dreaming to be with him.
While describing the knock at the door in 'The mill of dreams ' Louise points out that 'waiting for ' is characterized by expectation following the notion of mentally anticipating what is to come and sense of expectation is specific. This can be said as a male sentence is implicitly described as calm, wise apparently objective and impersonal. (Sara mills,1995,(p 47).

As Louise states in the essay that Farjeon has chosen the fairy tale genre but has attempted to do something different within it. Her central focus is the inner life of her heroine, and the emotions of the other characters, when glimpsed, are seen through her eyes. The story takes place almost entirely within the mind of the heroine and covers a period of twenty years.(Sylvester,1994,(P.)) According to Woolf, it was possible that a women 's writing would involve herself with the character and let the character move as if she was moving.

“Write your self. Your body must be heard. Only then will the immense resources of the unconscious spring forth” – Helene Cixous,

“The Laugh of the Medusa”
Unlike first wave of feminism,a period in which Virgina Woolf 's "A Room Of One 's Own" was written, the second wave of feminism encouraged women to realize the different aspects of her own self.
In regard to feminism, a lot of work was done in feminine writing. Along with "The feminine mystique" there was one popular manifesto by Helen cixous. "The laugh of medusa",originally written in french but translated in English and first published in 1975. Helen Cixous being a French feminist is carried away by the notion of French feminism which is, women must realize that their centre of consciousness is related to their body. The aggressive writing of Cixous never let the glory of the manifesto down as it comes calling "now is the time to write!". She claims as other feminists, it is only through the written word, women can define themselves. Helen Cixous coined the famous term "écriture feminine" or feminine writing in her seminal essay "The laugh of medusa". The topic feminine writing had interested feminist of all periods, because it was yet undiscovered how feminine writing look like. In Chicago journal entitled The Laugh of Medusa, Helen Cixous states how women 's own body is related to her writing and how her body would free her from all constraints that prevailed in her mind about writing. As sara mills states in her book feminist stylistics that it is rare that French feminist and Virginia Woolf is discussed together. But the feminine writing is a stream in which if not
all, some ideas of both writers complement each other. And thus I have decided to put them in frames and analyse their ways of seeing the construct of écriture feminine. Wolf ideas on women empowerment through writing has a different approach from Helen cixous. "Woolf describes the female sentence it seems to be less a matter of style or language and more a question content and subject matter." ( Mills, 1995,(p.48)) While Woolf talks of structural changes in writing, Helen Cixous wants women to break all traditional and structural boundaries and write through their body. Woolf claims that women could write well without being affected by patriarchal circumstances if they have a sacred room for their own whereas Cixous argues that women can only write freely developing their own style only when the patriarchy and phallocentric culture ends. Cixous points out very frequently in her essay that women are oppressed by men in many ways and this had effected women 's writing in various manners while Woolf doesn 't emphasise much on how male suppression has effected women 's writing in her book A Room Of One 's Own. Cixous thinks that the traditional and structural boundaries have affected writings of women in many ways, And that is why we don 't have many prolific writers. She states "I know why you haven 't written. writing is at once too high, too great for you, it 's reserved for the great-that is, for "great men"(Cixous, chicago journal of The laugh of medusa,p(876)).Cixous illustrates that Women must write herself(bodily), and in doing so she will acknowledge herself in a new way, and this will develop a new kind of writing that could be said as unique as feminine writing. She asserts that in doing so she should not confine herself with any existing formats in the writing world. As language is always been considered as suitable for male expressions and even when women writings are done, it has been said to be based on the norm (male), even if deviated. When writing in context of women the language always defamed women in sense of suppression (if used by men) and ignorance or pity implied (when used by women). Cixous says that women must use language differently. Women create phallogocentric pieces when they write and thus it is not implied that women adopt feminine mode of writing. They need to explore their world of body. She explains that the structural forms of language by men and women both lack the flair of feminine writing and thus keeps away from the feminine mode of writing. She insists women on writing with absolute freedom and creativity instead of definite structure or pattern indicating this kind as "the language of man and grammar"(Cixous, chicago journal of The laugh of medusa,(p.887)). Cixous compliments Woolf in saying that male language structures in a hierarchy in a controlled manner, but add herself that female writing overflows in a continuous manner. She states that women are uninterrupted and boundless, menstruating and overflowing and women should write like that. While "Woolf describes the female sentence it seems to be less a matter of style or language and more a question content and subject matter." (Mills,1995,(p.48)). "
Cixous stresses the multiple physical capacities of women: gestation, birth, lactation etc. and she has also elaborated the notion of a specifically female writing which reflects this multiplicity"(Mill,1995,(p.48)). The feminine mode of language in the process of development would connect to the reality. Cixous states the feminine writing as "the very Possibility of change (Cixous, chicago journal of The laugh of medusa,(879))". It would be a major achievement in feminine writing that it shall build reality in the unique way. The Unique pattern of women writing that would transcend to reality can be achieved by a reunion of body and experiences of life. Cixous establishes women body as a whole of Continuous experience without creating division between her mental and physical state and herself and others. She says "It is impossible to define a feminine practice of writing, and....Which doesn 't mean that it doesn 't exist"(Cixous, chicago journal of The laugh of medusa,(883)). Cixous believes that feminine writing has no boundaries and thus it is almost impossible to define it.

Bibliography
Woolf Virginia. A room of one 's own, Penguin books, 1993
Sylvester Louise. men, women and words: Lexical choices in two fairy tales of the 1920s
Sara mills feminist stylistics, 1995
Cixous, Helene.Keith Cohen and Paula Cohen, translators. “The Laugh of the Medusa.” Signs. 1.4. (1975): 875-893. Online.