Woolf And Socrates: A Comparative Analysis
Both Woolf and Socrates have been questioning society as a whole. Woolf questioned the ideals about how men and women where treated in society and how gender is just a social construct people made up. While Socrates questioned why society made something pious or impious and people followed it without understanding why. Why do Woolf and Socrates ask and tell us all these things? Its not as though they would be able to change the world, but just to be able to make people to think about the construct of society and it’s role. Why do I have to get a job, while my wife stays home with the kids? Why do I follow this god if he doesn’t make me happy? Why are these laws in place? These are just some of the many questions they would make you ask,
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to be able to understand more about what the role of social construct is. Socrates questions everything he doesn’t understand even when he is in court “To fear death, gentlemen, is no other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know. No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils. And surely it is the most blameworthy ignorance to believe that one knows what one does not know” (Apology p. 121). Even here while his life hangs in the balance, he still wants to educate people on how society put in our minds that death is something that is bad. Truly the people in Athens were not asking questions about why death is bad or how do we know death is bad but just conforming to the view of society even about death when they did not know. Without asking questions and talking Woolf would have never understood a that men are trapped in some what the same concept as women in are society” Possibly when the professor insisted a little too emphatically upon the inferiority of women, he was concerned not with their inferiority but with his own superiority . . .. Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size. Without that power probably the earth would still be swamp and jungle” (Woolf, 34-35). In the professor’s eyes the social construct that was cratered toward men and women was all discombobulated. Just like the people in Athens did not understand death and why they were so scared of it, the women in Woolf’s book did not understand why they made men feel so much more superior then themselves. While the men were just to think they were better then women without understanding why. Both the people in Athens and the Women and men are like sheep following a big herd; they blindly follow the other sheep without understanding why they go right instead of left. Society mad them think one way and never allowed them to think another, both Woolf and Socrates want to change that perception and make people ask that profound question “why”. There were many other questions both of these groups should have been asking one was about how their own laws worked and why they even have them.
Socrates wants people to understand that some of the laws in place are preposterous. Anybody is allowed to accuse somebody and the court has to take them seriously but the person that accused you of the crime, dose not have to present himself “ One cannot bring of them into court or refute him; one must simply fight a shadow” (Apology 18d) To this extreme many people In the past would accuse somebody of something and if the didn’t they would be found guilty because in there laws of society, only people who were guilty would not protest that they were being wronged. Talking about laws you can see Woolf crosses a lawn at the fictional Oxbridge university, tries to enter the library, and passes by the chapel. She is intercepted at each station and reminded that women are not allowed to do such things without accompanying men “Literature is open to everybody. I refuse to allow you, Beadle though you are, to turn me off the grass. Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind”(Woolf, 75-76). This allows you grasp to on what little power women had even when trying to be educated and go to the library. Both off these writers are trying to make it possible so we as people are able to understand how messed up the laws of society were and still might be today. So lets act as though we are flocks of geese flying in a pack understanding why we fly in a V line, why we migrate and by we look so dashing.
In Plato when Socrates talks to Euthyphro about what is pious and impious, Euthyphro claims to know but dose not “Bear in mind that I did not bid you to tell me one or two of the many pious actions but that form itself that makes all pious actions pious, for you agreed that all impious actions are impious and all pious actions pious through one form, or don't you remember?"(Euthyphro, 10).
Even here you are able to see that Euthyphro is following an ideal way of society that he is not able to put into words. He isn’t able to do this because he doesn’t even know why, what he is doing is good or bad. Conforming into society is why he does this, he was taught to think and act a certain way because of his class, gender and god. Euthyphro never asks questions like why do I have to believe in this type of god and no another. That was Euthyphro’s downfall, not asking questions about what he didn’t understand but just blindly following it because society told him he had too. Socrates understood society had a tremendous role in people’s lives. The role society plays is one of the things Woolf talks about on what a good righter should understand. She wants women to be able to have a creative writing style "The androgynous mind is resonant and porous," Woolf continues, "it transmits emotion without impediment; it is naturally creative, incandescent and undivided" (Woolf, 98). Woolf overtly states here in this quote that a creative mind is a marriage, or balance, of having the ability to have traits female emotionalism, with some male traits of productivity and style. She basically states that men don’t have to choose between genders but woman cannot. Women sometimes have to choose between their art of writing or society's expectations. A woman will only write as men only when they have the same freedom of
expression. Perhaps Socrates already knew the meaning of piety and impiety, to me his goal of when talking to Euthyphro was to simply to confuse him into confronting his own ideas and beliefs Socrates wants people to have an understanding about what they fight for and why. People should not be blindly following society if they do not understand why. Even for Woolf she understands what is happening around her to women. She just wants them to ask questions about how gender role in society works and if what they are doing is okay or not.
to be able to understand more about what the role of social construct is. Socrates questions everything he doesn’t understand even when he is in court “To fear death, gentlemen, is no other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know. No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils. And surely it is the most blameworthy ignorance to believe that one knows what one does not know” (Apology p. 121). Even here while his life hangs in the balance, he still wants to educate people on how society put in our minds that death is something that is bad. Truly the people in Athens were not asking questions about why death is bad or how do we know death is bad but just conforming to the view of society even about death when they did not know. Without asking questions and talking Woolf would have never understood a that men are trapped in some what the same concept as women in are society” Possibly when the professor insisted a little too emphatically upon the inferiority of women, he was concerned not with their inferiority but with his own superiority . . .. Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size. Without that power probably the earth would still be swamp and jungle” (Woolf, 34-35). In the professor’s eyes the social construct that was cratered toward men and women was all discombobulated. Just like the people in Athens did not understand death and why they were so scared of it, the women in Woolf’s book did not understand why they made men feel so much more superior then themselves. While the men were just to think they were better then women without understanding why. Both the people in Athens and the Women and men are like sheep following a big herd; they blindly follow the other sheep without understanding why they go right instead of left. Society mad them think one way and never allowed them to think another, both Woolf and Socrates want to change that perception and make people ask that profound question “why”. There were many other questions both of these groups should have been asking one was about how their own laws worked and why they even have them.
Socrates wants people to understand that some of the laws in place are preposterous. Anybody is allowed to accuse somebody and the court has to take them seriously but the person that accused you of the crime, dose not have to present himself “ One cannot bring of them into court or refute him; one must simply fight a shadow” (Apology 18d) To this extreme many people In the past would accuse somebody of something and if the didn’t they would be found guilty because in there laws of society, only people who were guilty would not protest that they were being wronged. Talking about laws you can see Woolf crosses a lawn at the fictional Oxbridge university, tries to enter the library, and passes by the chapel. She is intercepted at each station and reminded that women are not allowed to do such things without accompanying men “Literature is open to everybody. I refuse to allow you, Beadle though you are, to turn me off the grass. Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind”(Woolf, 75-76). This allows you grasp to on what little power women had even when trying to be educated and go to the library. Both off these writers are trying to make it possible so we as people are able to understand how messed up the laws of society were and still might be today. So lets act as though we are flocks of geese flying in a pack understanding why we fly in a V line, why we migrate and by we look so dashing.
In Plato when Socrates talks to Euthyphro about what is pious and impious, Euthyphro claims to know but dose not “Bear in mind that I did not bid you to tell me one or two of the many pious actions but that form itself that makes all pious actions pious, for you agreed that all impious actions are impious and all pious actions pious through one form, or don't you remember?"(Euthyphro, 10).
Even here you are able to see that Euthyphro is following an ideal way of society that he is not able to put into words. He isn’t able to do this because he doesn’t even know why, what he is doing is good or bad. Conforming into society is why he does this, he was taught to think and act a certain way because of his class, gender and god. Euthyphro never asks questions like why do I have to believe in this type of god and no another. That was Euthyphro’s downfall, not asking questions about what he didn’t understand but just blindly following it because society told him he had too. Socrates understood society had a tremendous role in people’s lives. The role society plays is one of the things Woolf talks about on what a good righter should understand. She wants women to be able to have a creative writing style "The androgynous mind is resonant and porous," Woolf continues, "it transmits emotion without impediment; it is naturally creative, incandescent and undivided" (Woolf, 98). Woolf overtly states here in this quote that a creative mind is a marriage, or balance, of having the ability to have traits female emotionalism, with some male traits of productivity and style. She basically states that men don’t have to choose between genders but woman cannot. Women sometimes have to choose between their art of writing or society's expectations. A woman will only write as men only when they have the same freedom of
expression. Perhaps Socrates already knew the meaning of piety and impiety, to me his goal of when talking to Euthyphro was to simply to confuse him into confronting his own ideas and beliefs Socrates wants people to have an understanding about what they fight for and why. People should not be blindly following society if they do not understand why. Even for Woolf she understands what is happening around her to women. She just wants them to ask questions about how gender role in society works and if what they are doing is okay or not.