Virginia Woolf's essay, A Room of One's Own (1929), explores the complex nature of the many elements necessary to write good fiction. A Room of One's Own is a partially fictionalized account written from the perspective of an unknown woman who shares interchangeable viewpoints with Woolf as she critiques women's ability to write good fiction. The essay is an extended version of numerous lectures Woolf gave at Newnham and Girton College for Women, in which she draws attention to the emotions women felt as they fought for their rights and freedom and, more certainly, to write. Woolf argues that all good fiction must be written with an androgynous spirit and comments that this is what made Shakespeare's works so fantastic. She suggests that anger in writing provokes anger in the reader and therefore should be avoided at all costs. She also discusses the issue of education and women's struggles to access it, resulting in a diminishing foundation for creating fiction. Freedom, both physical and financial, is of the utmost importance when it comes to someone wishing to write fiction. Finally, Woolf considers the circumstances of a person's birthplace and the impact this will have on their chances of having the opportunity to write. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay In Woolf's view, an important element of good fiction is writing using a "completely" androgynous mind. Using androgyny when writing ensures that the writer uses "both [sexes] of the mind" in balance, which ensures that the mind "conveys emotion without hindrance." This theory gives men and women the ability to write without being aware of their own gender. The resulting mind is “undivided” and “naturally creative.” Woolf creates a symbolic representation of the importance of an androgynous spirit in Shakespeare's works by noting that the success of his plays is attributed to this state of mind. The narrator juxtaposes Shakespeare's plays with the works of other male writers such as Milton and Ben Jonson, because his were among the few in history not to feature women "burning like beacons." The tranquility of this state of mind is brought to the reader's awareness when the narrator's mind is "relieved of some tension" when she is brought to the attention of a man and woman who get into a taxi together. This simple act, in the "strictly sex-conscious era" of Woolf's novel, develops a calming symbol among the "roar" of London traffic and suggests to the reader that the coming together of the sexes must be "in harmony, in spiritual cooperation." . » ; just as it is in the mind. The narrator states that "it is fatal" for a writer to create his works with a "purely masculine or feminine" mind if the reader wants to feel that the writer is "communicating his experience with perfect fullness." . Thus, good fiction cannot be made without the individual possessing an androgynous spirit. Woolf criticizes that emotional anger is an emotion that goes against the writing and causes anger in the reader, thereby diminishing the quality of the fiction. Woolf represents this when her narrator reads "Professor Von X's" novel "The Inferiority of Women." She discovers that the force of anger has the ability to make her "angry because he, [the author], was angry." Woolf reinforces the need for appropriate emotions when writing good fiction, as she symbolizes that the novel of "ProfessorVon The symbolization of light and darkness in the novel explores how anger operates in writing, preventing one from writing the truth, and the negative effect this has on the level of the work. Anger in fiction can only cause the author to argue "dispassionately", forcing the audience to just "think about the argument" of the author and not the true meaning or potential of the fiction. Therefore, to write good fiction, anger must be absent from the authors' current emotion. If one wishes to write good fiction, Woolf advises getting an education, as it is the only way to develop one's genius. As the narrator comments, it is ironic and somewhat confusing that she visits a men's college, then a women's college, and discovers that "men drink wine while women drink water." Men are being offered the opportunity to go to great universities and get a fantastic education while women are stuck, sitting around a coffee table, struggling to "scratch" together "£30,000" for their university charitable. “Uneducated” women felt that it would be “completely and entirely impossible” to be offered the opportunity to write fiction and Woolf compares this to the “strong yellow flame”. This flame is created by women's lack of education to symbolically explore more of the intelligence that she believes women struggle to acquire. Intelligence is the underlying construct that allows one to write good fiction and one is “inclined to play false” in the absence of education. As a result, women will never write good novels, because to do so they also need to have a good education, which women can no longer acquire. A writer's access to privacy and a bedroom is considered by Woolf to be one of the most important "materials" when it comes to a woman wishing to write good fiction. The symbolic representation of a room is presented in the title of the novel because it allows for the bare necessities for the “freedom” of uninterrupted creativity. “These conditions are necessary” for the creation of good fiction and Woolf reflects on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice where she encounters a “delicate break” in her writing. Woolf attributes the nature of this rupture to the setting in which the novel was written, the family basement. The narrator emphasizes that Austen never saw "her genius fully expressed" since she only had access to the family basement to write her works in this common space for which she had neither " freedom” nor “peace”. Exploring this symbol further, Woolf symbolizes the Brontë family to develop the argument that one must "be cut off from what is called the world" in order to fully realize one's potential as a writer. “If she has a room to herself,” then she may have the opportunity to express her inner genius “without being illuminated by the capricious and colorless light of the other sex.” Woolf, by symbolizing light, means that men's anger restricts women's creativity. Woolf therefore considers it important that a “genius [can] breathe” only where one writes on the terms of one’s own room. The final argument Woolf explores in her discussion of what constitutes good fiction is that it is essential to have “500 books” if one “wishes to write.” Through the symbol of money, Woolf develops the argument that money is what a woman needs most, especially if she wishes to have the freedom to write. Woolf expresses her belief that money allows one to “make money with the pen”.