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Essay / The role of influence and freedom in A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas
Virginia Woolf's critical essay A Room of One's Own (1929) and her polemic Three Guineas (1938) explore feminist issues of freedom and influence. Although written almost a decade later, Three Guineas further explores the ideas and values of A Room of One's Own, highlighting how, despite their different contexts, there has been little change. While A Room of One's Own focuses on women's financial and intellectual freedom, Three Guineas explores notions of educational freedom for women. Comparing the contexts of the two texts also gives us insight into the influence of societal views and the power that educational opportunities can provide to women. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essayA Room of One's Own (A Room) and Three Guineas explore the theme of freedom through a call for the advancement of intellectual rights and financiers of women. . In A Room, the financial restrictions placed on a woman's literary potential are expressed in Woolf's general argument that "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." The play acts as a symbol of financial and intellectual independence, while the frequent repetition of the words "one play" throughout the essay highlights how women do not have the freedom to write. A woman's intellectual restrictions are illustrated when Woolf's narrative character is refused entry into the Oxbridge library by a man who looked "like a guardian angel barring the way with a flap of black robe instead of white wings. The man acts as a metaphor for the blocked opportunities and societal barriers imposed on women by men, with the imagery emphasizing the role of men in restricting women's intellectual freedom. Woolf evokes the imaginary character of “Judith Shakespeare” to further demonstrate the inequality of women. This literary allusion and Judith's allegory demonstrate how women's talents are lost because they are not allowed to be creative. Although Judith shares the same genetic makeup, and therefore the same potential, she has achieved nothing due to lack of education and freedom. The three centuries which separate the contexts of Shakespeare and Woolf highlight the almost non-existent change in the intellectual freedom of women. Thus, A Room explores the restrictions that gender places on a woman's intellectual, creative and financial freedom. Against the backdrop of a troubled Europe of 1938, the later essay Three Guineas similarly explores the theme of freedom, focusing on educational freedom and the role that educated women can play in preventing war . Three Guineas also explores the role of men in preventing women's educational freedom. The freedom from male financial dependence that education can offer women is highlighted through the metaphor of the woman's slave to her father: "depending on a profession is a less odious form of slavery than depending on a a father.” According to her, having a career and earning an income is more rewarding than being financially and intellectually dependent on the men around her. This idea is further underlined metaphorically by the truncated sentence: “You [men] fight with us, not against us”. The “war” represents the “war” between women and men in literature and professions. Three Guineas thus underline the limits of women's right to education. The two essays also address more broadly the.