A Room of Ones Own

1
A Room of Ones Own

• Section 6

2
Combination of opposites

• Chapter six begins with Woolf looking out her
  window at the hustle and bustle of London life.
  She observes that nobody seems to care about the
  "future of fiction, the death of poetry or the
  development by the average woman of a prose style
  completely expressive of her mind" (91). She then
  notices a scene unfolding before her in which a
  woman and a man approach a cab from separate
  directions, enter the cab together, and glide
  off. The contemplation of this scene leads her to
  wonder why, when seeing a couple get into a cab
  together, "the mind felt as if, after being
  divided, it had come together again in a natural
  fusion" (92-3). She explains that the sight of a
  man and a woman coming together with such
  symmetry had raised the idea in her mind that the
  two sexes might work best in harmony with each
  other.

3
Androgynous Mind

• She posits that the ideal state of being is when
  the two parts cooperate in harmony, each being
  able to contribute the value of its difference.
  Woolf imagines that such a balance could be
  achieved within each individual.She remembers
  that Coleridge once wrote, "a great mind is
  androgynous" (94), and considers whether this is
  what he had in mind. She says, "He meant,
  perhaps, that the androgynous mind is resonant
  and porous that it transmits emotion without
  impediment that it is naturally creative,
  incandescent and undivided" (94). She reminds us
  here that petty grievances and friction between
  the sexes create impediments that hinder
  creativity. She recalls that this androgyny of
  mind was celebrated in Shakespeare's time but
  notes sadly that it has gone out of fashion.

4
The male I (aridity)

• Woolf then turns to a novel by an author she
  calls Mr. A, in order to compare a contemporary
  male writer against the female authors she has
  just examined. Although at first she is very
  impressed by him, her admiration gives way to
  doubt as she becomes aware of what she calls a
  shadow falling across the page in the shape of
  the letter "I," by which she means that his
  writing is self-absorbed and unconnected to the
  experience of others, particularly women. As she
  searches in vain for a female character strong
  enough to balance out this male "I," Woolf gives
  up and admits that she is bored (95-6)

5
Male authors

• She considers the celebrated works of male
  writers such as Mr. (Rudyard) Kipling and
  proclaims that even these superior works are
  ultimately inaccessible to a female reader. She
  blames this partly on their "masculine" subject
  matter.

6

• Woolf offers as a solution to this problem her
  idea that writers must cultivate a more
  androgynous mindset. She says, "it is fatal for
  any one who writes to think of their sex. It is
  fatal to be a man or a woman pure and simple one
  must be woman-manly or man-womanly" (99).

7
Objections (1)

• Ms. Woolf concludes her essay by anticipating a
  few of the criticisms she imagines will follow.
  She admits that she has not expressed an opinion
  as to the "comparative merits of the sexes even
  as writers" (100). But she defends her decision
  by pointing out that women have not yet enjoyed
  equal working conditions and that even if they
  had, there is no adequate measure by which to
  evaluate this difference. She then reminds us of
  her earlier argument by saying that both sexes
  should move beyond the mentality of competition.

8

• Woolf defends her position on the need for
  material security by quoting the words of a
  literature professor at the college where she is
  lecturing. She reminds her audience that their
  professor studied the great poets of the last
  hundred years and reports that it was his
  conclusion that nine out of the twelve most
  famous writers had university educations
  (signifying wealth), while two of the others were
  less educated but still wealthy.Next Woolf
  addresses the question of why it is that she
  encourages women to write when it would be so
  much easier for them to maintain the status quo.
  She answers this question by explaining that she
  has become bored reading nothing but male
  authors.

9
The dead coming from the future

• She asks us to remember Shakespeare's imaginary
  sister, whom she claims lives on in each of us,
  awaiting an opportunity which may finally
  come.Woolf urges women to become self-reliant
  and says if they accept responsibility for their
  own lives, "then the opportunity will come and
  the dead poet who was Shakespeare's sister will
  put on the body which she has so often laid down"
  (108).