Rhetorical Analysis on Virginia Woolf´s Speech Professions for Women

The author used women’s oppression to write stories like, “The Moths.” The narrator learns that a person can follow the rules and still not be smothered by traditions and rules. Her Abuelita was an example to her. Through symbolism and setting, the author was able to depict women’s oppression by their societal

Conclusively, “The Case Against Women’s Suffrage”, “Are Women People?”, and “She Walketh Veiled and Sleeping” all highlight the subject of women’s rights in different perspectives. Clark Benson’s “The Case Against Women’s Suffrage” asserts the author's presumption of women’s inferiority, whereas Alice Duer Miller’s “Are Women People?” suggests how women should be wholly considered as people. Finally, Charlotte Perkins Gilman portrays the social injustice towards women. All in all, each literary composition either advocated or opposed the inclination towards women’s

The Modernist skepticism is vivid in Woolf's portrayal of a woman, Isabella, who has not conformed to society's accepted norms and would seem to be - at first glance - all the better for it.  But, upon closer inspection it is with a sigh of resignation that Virginia recognizes the illusion that her fanciful exploration created for her.  Isabella (possibly representative of Virginia herself or of womanhood in general) is elevated and

In her memoir, Virginia Woolf discusses a valuable lesson learned during her childhood fishing trips in Cornwall, England. To convey the significance of past moments, Woolf incorporates detailed figurative language and a variety of syntax into her writing. Woolf communicates an appreciative tone of the past to the audience, emphasizing its lasting impact on her life.

“Oh, fairytales, where desperate, naïve girls sacrifice everything for their so-called prince charming”. The realities of these childhood classics are controversial, sexist, and dark, yet, it’s also adored by millions of young girls around the world. Cinderella, an often sugar-coated story, is a great example on how sexism and gender stereotypes prevail in literature. The Grimm Brothers touch on a variety of devices, from characterization to symbolism, all revealing the inequality in not only fictional literature but our real-life society as well. A feminist literary critic will interpret these controversial themes and apply their beliefs of equal rights into the study of the Grimm Brother’s Cinderella.

Back in the day almost everyone viewed woman to be the person who cleans, cooks, has children, and obeys her husband. Even woman themselves had this view hammered into their minds at such a young age, the views that women are inferior to men. This stigma of woman can be found traced throughout Virginia Woolf’s essay of two meals, a meal for men and a meal for women at a college. She uses numerous composition techniques and effectively disperses them throughout her narrative. By doing so, she accurately demonstrates her views on society’s stigma of a woman's role in an eloquent manner.

She was a mother, a moral and political philosopher, a writer, and a feminist. Mary Wollstonecraft was the ideal image of what represented the push towards modern feminism. Some may even consider her as the founding mother of modern feminism itself. Much of Wollstonecraft’s literature is influenced by her own life experiences. In 1785, Wollstonecraft took on an employment opportunity as a governess. While spending most of her time there, she had a moment of epiphany where she realized that she was not suited for domestic work. Soon after, she returned to London and became a translator and wrote for a well-known publisher and discovered her love of writing. Eventually, years later she was then able to publish her most notable work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is still a very popular book which can be seen as a guide to becoming a better citizen and understanding feminism in a critical context. This essay will argue that Mary Wollstonecraft is still relevant to the feminist cause today as her views portrayed in her book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman are still relatable to many of the feminist issues that currently exist around the world. This essay will do so by comparing how her views in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman can still be used as guiding principles to tackle feminist matters.

Woolf starts of by mentioning “Society concerned with the employment of women” (1). Woolf uses anaphora in the beginning of her speech. Using the phrase “it is true” (1) to emphasize that she is a women that is employed. In the time period Woolf wrote this speech was during the 1930’s, which is mostly associated with the Women’s Suffrage movement. This meant that women back were expected by society to fit into a specific role. Woolf’s self-employment as a writer did not fit into the role of women of the 1930’s. Woolf makes an understatement mentioning that “It is true I am a woman” (1). This understatement was made in order for the reader to comprehend the significance of Woolf being a female during the era of the 1930’s. Woolf not only includes herself to be a recognized female writer but enumerates names of recognized writers such as Fanny Burney to Jane Austen. Stating that these exclusive writes are responsible for “cutting the rode” (1) for the future female authors. To make her point valid, Woolf implements imagery of how her “scratching of a pen” (1) does not negatively impact the “family peace” nor the “family purse” (1). In addition with the specific phrase “the cheapness of writing paper is, of course, the reason women have succeeded as writers before they succeeded in other professions” (1). This specific phrase adds a sense of irony of how something considered cheap can prosper with a work of a woman.

Woolf begins her speech by immediately acknowledging the reasons she was invited to speak for the Society. Through the use of anaphora, she is able to contest that she does, indeed, meet the criteria, as it is true she is an employed woman. However, Woolf shrouds a bit of doubt on her credibility with the addition of the rhetorical question, “but what professional experiences have I had?” (1). Nevertheless, she quickly recovers by stating that though she was a woman pursuing a career in literature, a profession in which “there are fewer experiences for women than any other” (1), she was able to make a name for herself like those who had paved the road before her. Woolf admits that her experience was not as rough as the women who preceded her because they “ma[de] the path smooth, and regulat[ed] [her] steps”. As a result, she had “very few material obstacles in her way” (1). Woolf incorporates the subtle use of a metonym when she states, “no demand was made upon the family purse” (1), in order to establish that her family suffered no economic strife through her writing.

As a result of this mature stance, her speech was respected by many for addressing the important issue of women in society, and doing it in an entertaining manner. Atwood was influential during the feminist movement which began in the 60s and her influence is shown through her literary works. Her speech raises the issue of the role that women should take in society looking at it through the portrayal of women in literature. Atwood’s historical and literary references allow her to validate her points and to explore the role of women and how they are portrayed in literature (good and bad). The audience can easily identify with them – Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Lady Macbeth. Atwood supports her ideas with language techniques and features making her speech worthy of critical study.

In Virginia Woolf’s feminist essay “A Room of One’s Own,” Woolf argues that “a woman must have money and a room of her own” (16) if she is to write fiction of any merit. The point as she develops it is a perceptive one, and far more layered and various in its implications than it might at first seem. But I wonder if perhaps Woolf did not really tap the full power of her thesis. She recognized the necessity of the writer’s financial independence to the birth of great writing, but she failed to discover the true relationship to great writing of another freedom; for just as economic freedom allows one to inhabit a physical space---a room of one’s own---so does mental freedom allow one to inhabit one’s own mind and body “incandescent and

It is unfair that literature teaches women to be such things, it teaches women “To become women nurses rather than doctor, secretaries rather than attorneys or corporate executives, sex symbols rather than thinkers, elementary school teachers rather than university professors.” (Feminist Criticism 1132)

Throughout history, female artists have not been strangers to harsh criticism regarding their artistic works. Some female artists are fortunate to even receive such criticism; many have not achieved success in sharing their works with the world. In Virgina Woolf’s third chapter of her essay “A Room of One’s Own,” Woolf addresses the plight of the woman writer, specifically during the Elizabethan time period of England. Woolf helps the reader appreciate her view on how stifling and difficult this time period was for women and how what little creativity emerged would have been distorted in some way. Through a number of claims, examples and other literary techniques, Woolf is able to

When someone mentions the name “Cinderella”, the first thing that usually comes to our minds is the fairytale in which the fair maiden who works so hard yet it treated so poorly gains her “fairytale ending” with a wave of a magic wand. However, the fairytale of Cinderella written by the Grimm Brothers has multiple differences in plot from the fairytale we all usually think of. The plot of the Cinderella written by the Grimm Brothers, written in 1812, is that a young female’s mother passes away early in the story, departing with the message to Cinderella to remain “pious and good”. Cinderella remained true to this message given to her by her mother, and she showed this in her work ethic. Because Cinderella had remained pious and good, her mother, in return, watched over her in the form of the birds above her grave that gave Cinderella help and material things that she needed. In the end, Cinderella has her “happily ever after”, for when the prince held a festival to find a new bride, she was chosen due to her insurmountable beauty. The feminist lens critiques how females are commonly represented in texts, and how insufficient these representations are as a categorizing device. These representations of women often include them being passive and emotional—staying back while the men do the work. Cinderella relates to the feminist lens because she fits into the typical representations of women created by men. Feminist criticism is important to recognize because women are often falsely represented as helpless, thus needing a man to come to their rescue. It is common in literature to see helpless women, crying and begging for help instead of being able to work out their own problems and hardships. Others, however, may believe that it is still important to uphold the fundamentals of the feminist lens because it keeps the man in power, which they say is important in keeping the man the head of the household. Cinderella thoroughly represents the feminist lens because it shows how women in literature uphold the representations of passive and emotional, created by the man.

In many of her novels and especially in Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf tends to stray from directly attacking an issue such as social unjust by using symbolism. She often “detested what she called ‘preaching’ in fiction” and instead, strategically “scatters fragments of images for the readers to gather up and to piece together as to form [their] own, maybe individual, understanding of the character” in her stream-of-consciousness