Virginia Woolf: A Room of One's Own

While reading chapter four of Virginia Woolf's "A Room of One's Own", it is evident that women were confined in more ways than one. Women during this time were more commonly known as "the angel in the house". Their jobs consisted of partaking in house chores and taking care of their children. These women had little to know education due to their limited access to knowledge. Along with that, women during this time could not go many places unchaperoned. It was hard for women to stray off their normal paths and when they did, they were rarely accepted.

"If you want to make it as a writer, you have to have 500 pounds and a room of one's own" the narrator states. The narrator in this chapter argues that traditionally masculine values and topics were valued more than feminine ones. The female writers during this time had to deal with a lot of criticism. Even though many of these female writers wrote without anger toward these masculine views, their books ended up suffering because they deviated from their original visions. Although female writers during this time suffered from a great deal of judgement, authors like Emily Bronte were able to write confidently.

Throughout the chapter, the author goes on to talk about different female writers and the ways in which they wrote. Although Virginia Woolf learned many things from male writers, she states that "The weight, the pace, the stride of a man's mind are too unlike her own to lift anything substantial from him successfully."