CU-MA-Eng-SEM-IV-Women’s Writing

MASTER OF ARTS ENGLISH SEMESTER IV WOMEN’S WRITING

CHANDIGARH UNIVERSITY Institute of Distance and Online Learning SLM Development Committee Prof. (Dr.) H.B. Raghvendra Vice- Chancellor, Chandigarh University, Gharuan, Punjab:Chairperson Prof. (Dr.) S.S. Sehgal Registrar Prof. (Dr.) B. Priestly Shan Dean of Academic Affairs Dr. Nitya Prakash Director – IDOL Dr. Gurpreet Singh Associate Director –IDOL Advisors& Members of CIQA –IDOL Prof. (Dr.) Bharat Bhushan, Director – IGNOU Prof. (Dr.) Majulika Srivastava, Director – CIQA, IGNOU Editorial Committee Prof. (Dr) Nilesh Arora Dr. Ashita Chadha University School of Business University Institute of Liberal Arts Dr. Inderpreet Kaur Prof. Manish University Institute of Teacher Training & University Institute of Tourism & Hotel Management Research Dr. Manisha Malhotra Dr. Nitin Pathak University Institute of Computing University School of Business © No part of this publication should be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any formor by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording and/or otherwise without the prior written permission of the authors and the publisher. SLM SPECIALLY PREPARED FOR CU IDOL STUDENTS 2 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

First Published in 2021 All rights reserved. No Part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from Chandigarh University. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this book may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. This book is meant for educational and learning purpose. The authors of the book has/have taken all reasonable care to ensure that the contents of the book do not violate any existing copyright or other intellectual property rights of any person in any manner whatsoever. In the event the Authors has/ have been unable to track any source and if any copyright has been inadvertently infringed, please notify the publisher in writing for corrective action. 3 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

CONTENTS Unit – 1 Introduction To The History Of Women’s Writing .......................................................5 Unit – 2 Virginia Wolf: A Room Of One’s Own .......................................................................31 Unit – 3 Mary Wollstonecraft: A Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman (Chapter 1) ...........49 Unit – 4 Mary Wollstonecraft: A Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman (Chapter 2) ...........69 Unit – 5 Rokheya Shekhawat Hossein:Sultana’s Dream .........................................................102 Unit – 6 Helene Cixous:The Laugh Of The Medusa................................................................119 Unit – 7 Elaine Showalter : Towards A Feminist Poetics........................................................140 Unit - 8 Alice Walker: The Color Purple ..................................................................................157 Unit – 9 Kamaladas - Anintroductioneunice De Souza - Advice To Women & Bequest .....190 Unit – 10 Emily Dickinson - ‘I Cannot Live With You’‘I’m Wife; i’ve Finished That’.......209 4 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

UNIT – 1INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORYOF WOMEN’S WRITING STRUCTURE 1.0 Learning Objectives 1.1 Introduction to Women’s Writing 1.2 History of Women Writers 1.3 Early Feminist Thought 1.4 Feminism in Europe and Britain in the Seventeenth Century 1.5 Feminism during the Enlightenment 1.6 Three Waves of Modern Feminism 1.7 Summary 1.8 Keywords 1.9 Learning Activity 1.10Unit End Questions 1.11 References 1.0 LEARNING OBJECTIVES After studying this unit, you will be able to:  Understand the importance of Women’s Writing  Analyse the writing of Women’s Writing  Interpret the importance of women’s writing 1.1 INTRODUCTION TO WOMEN’S WRITING In the West, the notion of opposition between the sexes dates back to ancient Greek philosophy. Aristotle, for example, believed that nature always strives for perfection, but proceeded to argue that woman was simply an inferior and incomplete version of man, presenting herself as the ideal representation of nature’s goal. In equally misogynistic terms, as we now perceive, the first archetypal woman in Jewish religious texts was tempted by an evil serpent and together they bring about the fall of humanity and the expulsion from Paradise. However, even these familiar narratives are open to challenges. The Greek poet Sappho, for example, celebrated the love between women; similarly, religious texts also presented strong or idealized representations of women. Although documents on women’s oppression historically outnumber liberation literature, the balance in our times is beginning to change. Since the 1970s, a wide range of feminist writers have made significant contributions to research by uncovering the lost stories of real women, as well as revealing the subversive zone occupied by imaginary reconstructions of women’s reality. Another 5 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

aspect of the critical project was to reveal the complex functioning of the patriarchy or to recover dissident readings that lurk in traditional texts. In these terms, the literary canon has been challenged, both from without and from without, by the position of exclusion, silence and oppression. Although feminists share many common ideas, regarding the role of power, for example, the diversity of current work requires the notion of feminism, rather than a single system-driven ideology. In this sense, feminist scholarship and cultural production reveal the dominant gender binary, deconstructing shifting boundaries. Historically, the dominant role of the patriarchy was generally evident until the late 19th century. However, there are numerous examples of challenges to dominant gender divisions that have disempowered women. The writing offered opportunities to explore the injustice and cruelty suffered by women, but it was also a space to envision a different kind of society in which women’s lives could be improved and the dominant role of men questioned. In the 18th century, novelists, poets, playwrights and other social commentators and political writers began to suggest that the two sexes were more complementary than opposite. Ironically, women’s roles were increasingly celebrated as stricter notions of what was considered appropriate behavior were adopted: women worshiped mothers, lovely wives, and house angels; those who did not attain this ideal were to be despised as prostitutes. On the contrary, men occupied the public sphere and enjoyed both economic independence and commodity ownership by their wives. Interestingly, men often indulge other women in extramarital affairs; such was the hypocritical double standard of the Victorian patriarchy. However, a key development for women’s liberation was the notion of the rights of the individual, which had found revolutionary and radical expression in the late 18th century, especially in works such as Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of Women’s Rights (1792). . But it was still more than a century before the political movement for the political emancipation of women. However, the suffragettes, who fought for the right to vote for women, were crucial in establishing the first modern use of the word “feminism” to express the aspirations of women and the defense of their political, economic and social rights. . In 1909, The Daily Chronicle still lamented “Suffragette, suffragette and all other phases of the crescendo of feminism”. However, a more ironic and defensive counter-voice is observed in the example of Clarion (1913), in which R. West confessed: `` I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that it calls feminist when I express feelings that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute. ‘‘ For many English-speaking writers Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was an influential and inspiring writer; her long essay A room of one’s own (1929) is still widely cited as an example of early feminist cultural ideas. Also, it is worth noting that there were many other modernist women who are not as well known today as T.S. Eliot, D.H. Lawrence, or James Joyce: Djuna Barnes (1892–1982); Kate Chopin (1851–1904); H.D. (1886–1961); Radclyffe Hall (1880-1943); Amy Lowell (1874– 1925); Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950); Marianne Moore (1887-1972); Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923); Dorothy Richardson (1873-1957); Edith Sitwell (1887–1964); Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), and Edith Wharton (1862–1937). 6 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Many modernist writers still remain unknown and many others deserve to have a more lively presence and deserve to be more appreciated in terms of their creative and critical contribution to modern and postmodern global culture. Whether the starting point for readers is literary and cultural studies, critical theory, or the canon of literary writing and its traditions, the agendas that have now been affirmed by feminist theories and explored in women’s writings, cannot now be silenced or excluded. However, we still live in a world where the reality for many women is that they remain second-class citizens and many women suffer terrible violence and injustice. Therefore, there is still an urgent and urgent need to publish new critical academic work, which helps men and women to reconsider their pasts, and equally significant gender identities to reconsider their future. Karl Marx’s idea that those who do not know his history are doomed to repeat their mistakes is a timeless reminder of the need for greater awareness of our historical roles and our options for future transformation. In theoretical terms, feminist thinking can be understood from various critical agendas. Furthermore, feminist thought has contributed and played a critical role within several important schools of theory: Marxist and (new) historicist, postcolonial, psychoanalytic. Examining how gender differences work through language (“speech”) has also been very significant in developing a critique of “man-made” or “centered” language. Indeed, French critics and feminist philosophers such as Kristeva, Irigaray, and Cixous have examined the distinctive features of female writing as a challenge to phallogocentrism. Feminine Ecriture has emerged as the key term celebrating and exploring the qualities operating in female writing produced by the female body and female difference. Writers such as Helene Cixous, Monique Wittig, Luce Irigaray, Chantal Chawaf and Julia Kristeva have influenced the questioning of language as male domain and in offering a creative and critical challenge to the dominant discourse. It is true that the work of poststructuralist feminism has taken many different directions, with varying results and ongoing controversies over its use and effectiveness for the emancipation of women. The starting point was the assertion that the woman’s sexual pleasure was denied; that the display of language by men is overwhelming; this mobility and metamorphic transgression must be adopted as techniques and strategies of liberation from the patriarchal order. While slogans and rhetoric are often thought provoking and the rejection of logic, order and reason is enigmatic and attractive, it doesn’t seem unfair to ask whether the project has improved women’s quality of life or triggered an awareness revolution. In the past, theoretical gymnastics has sometimes obscured the more practical political, social and cultural applications of creative work. While many feminists in the 1970s identified with a socialist perspective, the nuances of plurality and diversity became more evident in the 1980s, which saw the rise (and recovery) of black feminist approaches and writings by “women of color. “. However, some feminists have chosen radical separatist perspectives and some have moved in the direction of political lesbianism. Today, individual feminists are less bound by ideological categories and exclusions: the emphasis has shifted to dialogues and common interests. The perceived hostility towards all men has also diminished, as The Guardian newspaper recently commented: “Saying bad things about men these days is 7 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

not the way feminism behaves.” The idea that men also need to read women’s writings and reconsider their roles appears to be a significant new challenge that has begun to emerge and find expression in the field of gender studies. Furthermore, the radical queer notion, perhaps based on deconstruction, suggests that all identities are unstable and metamorphic. Given the diversity and openness of current debates, a democratic inclusion policy is a judicious and perceptive movement that must be informed by the conversational engagements and collaborative projects of contemporary feminist creative theories and practices. Feminism and women’s writing still present themselves as a fierce and urgent project, but more committed than exclusive. Clearly, feminine writing continues to occupy an important place for more than one reason. It projects the answers of more than half of humanity and reflects a gender - constructed consciousness. Women’s writing has challenged existing views which are essentially patriarchal. Not all female writing has to be feminist. But feminist interpretations can also emerge through absence and denial. The authors symbolize the troubled self of a woman who refuses to be contained by society. She subverts the submission and feminine identity imposed by the patriarchy. Furthermore, colonialism and the concept of patriarchy are inseparable in feminist discourse, as it emphasizes a relationship of inequality and injustice. In patriarchal societies, both in India and in Africa, women are subject to the subjugation and repression of men. Female oppression is deeply rooted in the fabric of different societies. Black women face a double danger, a special cruelty of being victims of their own race and sex at the same time. The rise of writers like Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Alice Walker and Gloria Naylor in the post-civil rights era has made it quite clear that African American women will no longer be content with being marginalized; they challenged stereotypical assumptions about the color issue. The past four decades have seen the publication of some of the most fundamental works of African American women. By the 1980s, black female writers had established their own traditions. Now they continue to emerge from oblivion. These writers examine individuality and personal relationships as a means of understanding complicated social issues as they write from the perspective of being black and feminine. Therefore, I am in the best position to write about institutionalized racism and sexism. Although his writings express both pain and anger, there is also a sense of optimism about human possibilities. The authors are committed to producing a positive existence for their female characters; they often dismantle the patriarchal structures that previously relegated women to subordinate roles. His female characters are stubborn, determined, assertive, independent and enterprising. By delineating women’s experiences as women, they explore their most personal beliefs, thus presenting their perception of problems as women. They are committed to social justice, exposing the suffering and dehumanization that result from ethnic prejudice and superstition. They build a voice for those without it by advocating gender equity as the foundation for development. Virginia Woolf wrote of her in her famous book A Room of One’s Own: “All women together should drop flowers on AphraBehn’s grave, which is, in 8 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

the most scandalous but fitting way, Westminster Abbey, because she was the one who earn them the right to say what they think. “ Her tomb is not included in the Poets’ Corner, but is located in the East Cloister, near the steps of the church. A century after Behn we have Charlotte Lennox (1730-1804) who was born in Gibraltar and died in London. Her father was a Scottish captain in the British army and spent his childhood in England and New York. I was shocked by life in the colonies. She published a volume of poems in 1747 while she was Lady Isabella Finch’s companion in London and dedicated it to him. It was based on themes of female friendship and independence. When you get married, you earn money by acting for your income. She was close friends with Samuel Johnson, who considered her superior to her other literary friends of hers because she sought to write professionally rather than anonymously. Her patronage protected her printed reputation of her. She was unpopular with the Blue Stocking Society, who blamed her for her housework on her, among other things, because she was low-class, grumpy, and ridiculously confident. Her most successful novel was The Adventures of Arabella or The Female Quixote, which was translated and sold on the continent. In 1753 her Shakespeare Illustrated was her first work of literary criticism. Separated from her husband, she had the support of the Literary Fund and died destitute. Jane Austen (1775-1817) is the writer who gave the novel its decidedly modern character through its portrayal of ordinary people in their daily lives. Austen is a great comic ironist and one of the best social observers of English writing, her world is centered in the south of England. He was educated at Brasenose College Oxford, Reading Abbey School, lived and vacationed in Bath at the height of his fame in the mid-18th century, Southampton, London, Brighton, Lyme Regis, Steventon, Chawton (where he was most happy and most productive in his writing) and Winchester, where he died. His novels still enchant people and have been made into films numerous times. A contemporary who also used a male pseudonym was Mary Ann Evans (1819-80), who she published as George Elliot. She was born in ChilversCoton on the property of her father’s employer in Warwickshire and wrote about rural and industrial England from the First Reform Act of 1832 to the second. A leading writer of the Victorian era, she settled in London and in 1851 worked for three years as a sub-editor of The Westminster Review, leading to a distinguished career under her influence. She had many radical journalist friends and as an author she developed a method of psychological analysis characteristic of modern fiction. Her best-known novels are The Mill on the Floss and Middlemarch. Once full of religious ardor, her upbringing changed her. For nearly 25 years she lived with the multifaceted journalist George Henry Lewes as if she were married, which was him, but she had left his unfaithful wife without getting divorced, and it was he who cultivated her genius and brought her to Europe. Her relationship with him led to her being rejected by her family and friends, even as the popularity of her novels gained social acceptance later in her life. After her death in 1878, she founded a scholarship in her name in Cambridge and, at the age 9 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

of 61, she married a 40-year-old banker, who passed away that same year in London. She is buried in Highgate Cemetery. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) is one of the most innovative and influential writers of the twentieth century. Her work captures the rapidly changing world she lived in and explores the key motifs of modernism, such as the subconscious, time, perception and the impact of war. These include Mrs. Dalloway, Orlando, and A Room of One’s own. She had a major impact on the cultural life around her and her home was a center of cultural activity. She had her own publishing house, The Hogarth Press. She not only published her own work, but it became Sigmund Freud’s English publishing house. She was a member of the Bloomsbury group which included her friend and lover Vita-Sackville West, author of a gardening column in the Observer and many poems and novels. Virginia suffered from mental health problems and her death by suicide was seen as the end of an era. Andrea Levy (1956-2019) was born in Great Britain to Jamaican parents. Her work explores issues relating to the racial, cultural and national identities of Jamaicans in Britain and the difference between those who are immigrants and those born here; the situation faced by all children of postcolonial immigrants and the Windrush generation. Small Island (BBC series) does this and Fruit of the Lemon is compassionate, funny and wise. Indian writings Today’s writing in English by Indian women has established itself in the realm of fiction and has earned its laurels both at home and abroad. They began their work by questioning the traditional patriarchal rule. At first, Indian female writers wrote about their perceptions and experiences within their home environment, assuming that this would bring them greater societal acceptance. Women’s writings gained momentum during the British Raj, although most of these writings focused on the country’s struggle for freedom. In the early 20th century, several Indian female writers began writing in English. Before the advent of novels, female writers focused more on composing songs, short stories and plays. These writers have become a powerful medium for modernism and feminism. The current generation of writers are mostly Western-trained, so her work covers the problems of contemporary women and the issues that have persisted in society for decades, attracting a huge following of readers. Here is a short list of some famous female writers in India and their writings in English: Nayantara Sehgal is one of the first Indian writers to be widely recognized in English writing. Born into the Nehru family in 1927, her stories mainly describe the politics and history of the Indian elite during the independence movement. In addition to political issues, she is a writer with feminist concerns and she seeks the independent existence of women. Her dissatisfaction with the patriarchal treatment of women in Indian society is quite evident in her novel Mistaken Identity (1988), which boldly reflects on her female character, a complete rebel. 10 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Nayantara Sehgal holds prestigious positions as a member of various literary organizations and has won numerous awards for her contribution to literature. She won the Commonwealth Writers Award in 1987 for her novel “Plans of Departure”. His fiction, Rich like Us won the Sinclair Award in 1985 and the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1986. However, in 2015, he returned his award to the Sahitya Academi and led the “Award Wapasi” campaign in view of the growing intolerance of freedom of Speech across India and Akademi’s inaction on the murders of rationalist writers. Anita Mazumdar Desai is a well-known writer and author of children’s books. Born to a German father and Bengali mother in 1937, her family has often moved to different cities in India, making it easy for their stories to have different backgrounds. Her writings evoke excellent characters and moods through visual imagery ranging from meteorological to botanical, meticulously depicting modern Indian life. Many of her refer to her as the “Mother of the Indian psychological novel genre” and she is advertised as “one of the most important contemporary Indian novelists”. Although Anita Desai doesn’t consider herself a political writer, her stories powerfully and accurately convey her social commentary. For example, the suppression and oppression of Indian women was the subject of her first novel, Cry the Peacock (1963). His novel, Fire on the Mountain, received the Sahitya Academy Award in 1978. In 1983 he won the British Guardian Award for The Village by the Sea. He was selected three times for the Booker Award for Clear Light of Day (1980). , In custody (1994) and Fasting and Banquet (1999). She currently she is Emerita John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. Shashi Deshpande, a household name in Indian literature, is the daughter of the famous playwright Kannada and Sanskrit scholar Sriranga. Born in Dharwad, Karnataka, in 1938, she studied at the universities of Bangalore and Bombay. She wrote her first short story in 1970 while working as a journalist for a magazine. Soon, her stories were often published in popular magazines. In 1978 she published her first collection of short stories titled “Bequest” and her first novel, The Dark Holds No Terrors in 1980. Shashi Deshpande’s writing stems from a deep involvement with the society in which she lives, especially among women. Her novels are about women trying to understand themselves, their history, their roles and their place in this society and, above all, their relationships with others. The prejudiced attitude of Indian society towards women, which she considers oppressive, is evident in her writings. Her works have been selected for numerous literary awards. Her novel That Long Silence won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1990. She received the Padma Shri Award in 2009. Today’s writing in English by Indian women has established itself in the realm of fiction and has earned its laurels both at home and abroad. They began their work by questioning the traditional patriarchal rule. At first, Indian female writers wrote about their perceptions and 11 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

experiences within their home environment, assuming that this would bring them greater societal acceptance. Women’s writings gained momentum during the British Raj, although most of these writings focused on the country’s struggle for freedom. In the early 20th century, several Indian female writers began writing in English. Before the advent of novels, female writers focused more on composing songs, short stories and plays. These writers have become a powerful medium for modernism and feminism. The current generation of writers is mostly Western-trained, so her work covers the problems of contemporary women and the issues that have persisted in society for decades, attracting a huge following of readers. Here is a short list of some famous female writers in India and their writings in English: His novel, Fire on the Mountain, received the Sahitya Academy Award in 1978. In 1983 he won the British Guardian Award for The Village by the Sea. He was selected three times for the Booker Award for Clear Light of Day (1980). ., In custody (1994) and Fasting and Banquet (1999). She currently she is Emerita John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. Suzanna Arundhati Roy is an internationally renowned Indian writer, essayist, actress and activist. She was born to a Bengali father and a Keralite mother in Shillong in 1961. After his studies in Kerala, Arundhati went on to study architecture at the Delhi School of Architecture. Her writings are popular with fiction enthusiasts and political activists. Arundhati Roy’s critically acclaimed book “The God of Little Things” won the Man Booker Prize in 1997, which is perhaps the first novel she has written. Since then, she has become an ardent activist for various political and social issues in India and around the world. You are a leading figure in the anti-globalization movement and a strong critic of neo-imperialism. She was hailed for her courage and eloquence in fighting for social causes. Anita Nair is a Bangalore-based writer and has written novels, short stories, poems, children’s stories, plays and travel stories since 1997. she was born in Shoranur Kerala in 1966 and completed her education in Chennai. While working in an advertising company, she Anita wrote her first short story collection: Satyr of the Subway (1997), which earned her a fellowship from the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. You have written numerous novels of which the most acclaimed and sold are: The Better Man, Ladies Coupé and Mistress translated into 25 languages. Anita Nair’s collection of mosaic poems “Malabar Mind” was released in 2002. These poems portray ordinary things with extraordinary dimensions, where metaphors capture the strength and stamina of life. Her collection of essays, “Good night and God bless” describes the many flavors of happiness presented as chapters in a book. Her children’s books talk about change, friendship and courage with a touch of humor. Many of her works have been selected for national and international literary awards. She received the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award 12 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

in 2012 for her contribution to literature and culture. Male writers are considered first as “writers” and then as “men”. As for writers, they are first “women” and only later “writers”. And for this reason alone many writers hate being called “writers” because it is almost considered a novelty in the world of men. Krishna Sobti, one of the most famous and fiery feminist writers in India, has talked a lot about it. For her, the idea of being defined as a “woman writer” marked the limit to be seen as more “woman” and less “writer”. English Indian novelists have left a permanent mark on the field of English fiction. They are awarded not only in national but also international awards. In most of their writings, they did their best to free the female mentality from the control of male domination throughout the entire era. In short, in her novels, the protagonists are mostly female characters desolate and isolated by a totally inert, hypocritical and insensitive male domination. Today, whatever political, social, cultural and individual consciousness we see in women, they are mainly the result of these fictional writers who have heralded a new consciousness in the realm of traditional thought. If this tireless effort of women continues for the sake of women, the days are not far off when they will be equated with men and even much better than men, in every respect, in every field. From time immemorial, women have been the subject of ferocious comments. The negative attitude of society finds its expression in myths, legends, stories and history. The Bible says: “Then the Lord God made the man sleep soundly, and while he slept, he took out one of the ribs and closed the flesh. He formed a woman from the rib and took her away “. Atharva Veda says: “The birth of a girl gives elsewhere, here she gives a child”. In the Koran, a woman is “described as a ‘fitna’, the one who tempts men and brings trouble” 3. This attitude has led to the disparity of age between men and women. The man boasts and boasts and tries to dominate and dominate the woman only because the woman has come out of the man. In fact, women play a fundamental role in family life. It is she who gives birth to a new generation. The house is inconceivable without a woman. So both man and woman complement each other. Both are essential parts of creation. “The life of a man without a woman is like a flower without perfume, a ship without a rudder or a body without a spirit. The Republic of Plato observes: “The only difference between man and woman is that of physical function: the one generates, the other generates children. Apart from this, both can and must have the same level of employment and perform the same functions; they must receive the same education that allows them to do so. In this way the company will get the best value of both”. The points mentioned above clearly show that “women in ancient times have sometimes improved and at other times degraded. But in modern times, women have proven themselves in all fields and, in some respects, far better than men. If we dive into the history of the English language, we come to the conclusion that Indian women have proven their worth both qualitatively and quantitatively and are proving it even today without a firm point.” 13 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Today women are not the puppets in the hands of men. They understood that they are not helpless, but they are competent like men. They have become sources of direct income and are not limited to household chores alone. They have established their identity in almost every area of life. In addition to many other fields, they have heralded a new consciousness in the realm of literature. Indian literature has endowed various talented novelists such as Arundhati Roy, Shashi Deshpande, Anita Desai, Shobha De, Sudha Murthy, Anita Nair, Jhumpa Lahiri, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Kiran Desai, Bharati Mukherjee, Kamala Markandaya, Ruth Prawer Jhabva. Rau, Nayantara Sahgal, Geeta Mehta, Rama Mehta, Manju Kapoor and many others. They are known for the contemporary approach in their novels. Basically, his novels are protest novels and an explosion of reserves and pollution. Indian English literature developed over a period of time and English writing didn’t start in a day. Many years passed. Indian novelists have given it a new dimension. They are popularly known as the goddesses of Eros! They have chosen the problems and problems that women face in today’s male-dominated world as the main theme of their books. They incorporated recurring female experiences into their writing and this influenced the cultural and linguistic patterns of Indian literature. They describe the entire world of women with a simply surprising frankness. His articles give an insight into the unexplored female psyche, which has no accessibility. Most of these novels describe the psychological suffering of the frustrated housewife. Their women are real protagonists in flesh and blood who make us look with amazement at their relationships with their environment, their society, their men, their children, their families; their mental makeup and themselves. Women of the modern era think in different lines and that is what is described in the novels of Indian novelists. They explore female subjectivity and apply the theme ranging from childhood to complete femininity. Through their novels they spread the message of what feminism really is. For them, feminism means ending all the suffering of a woman in silence. The following writers have left their indelible mark on readers of English Indian fiction. Most of these novelists are known for their bold views which are reflected in their novels. Female writers in India are advancing steadily and steadily, keeping pace with the world. We see them blossom in full bloom spreading their own individual fragrances. They are recognized for their originality, versatility and the original flavor of the land they bring to their work. Nowadays, people enjoy reading English novels presented by new era female writers. Her novels consist of the latest hot topics related to women, as well as those topics that have been around for a long time in society. Our writers have dealt with complex issues such as sensuality, servility, submission and society. They handled them with a sense of balance, never ignoring our Indian traditions, but discovering that there is more to look at. Indian female writers can no longer be claimed as the exclusive property of India. Her work and her art belong to the world. Most Indian readers, both male and female, read the novels of Indian authors with certain expectations. They look for a bit of “Indianness” in the writings. 14 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Only Indian female writers are able to convey the messages of feminism in an Indian way. In India, female writers are doing very well and their contribution is immense. Like writing in modern Greek culture, writing in modern Chinese culture remains a male practice. The novels written by Lu Yin and Chen Hengzhe explore the concerns of female writers and argue that women’s writings in modern Chinese culture are perceived as an idea rather than reality. Furthermore, modern female writers remain in similar status and achieve minimal recognition as female writers in the imperial era. Amy Dooling, author of Writing and Women in Modern China, argues that in past centuries female writers “have become a metaphor for the Westernization of China, a literary theme and a symbol that a male literary subject must invoke and reflect, instead of a reality accepted within literary circles “. This problem is a recurring concern for female writers in the United States and Greece, suggesting that female writers experience similar struggles on different continents around the world. Yet, like American female writers, female writers in China have slowly taken control of literature over the centuries. The dedication that Chinese writers exert to their writing has made them more powerful in the world of literature. Since the 19th century, issues relating to the status of female writers have changed in the United States. The success of female writers has increased and now they don’t face so many gender-based unfair comments regarding their writing. Women and their voices emerged and were heard by the public with greater recognition and success. However, the issue of gender inequality still remains in the literary world. The man remains the dominant figure and the woman is forced to “prove” her worth; such discrimination is not specific to American writers. Elizabeth Meese, author of Women and Writing: A Re / Turn, said that “the situation of women in academia, as writers and teachers, has improved as a huge gap has been created and that the historical anger of invisibility, oppression, inequity and harassment still exist, but with less representation “(Meese). Therefore, she suggests that the status of women in the literary world has improved since the 19th century, but there are countless issues that need to be addressed and changed. To conclude, I would like to share Eliza Leslie’s wise advice: “If she is a fiction writer and you assume you take the liberty of criticizing her work, avoid insisting that certain accidents are unlikely and certain characters unnatural. Of this it is impossible for you to judge, unless you have been able to live the same life she has; met exactly the same people; and lived in the same places with her. “The contribution of the writers is enormous and to date the growth is enormous. 1.2 HISTORY OF WOMEN WRITERS Feminist writers are often the first to really make people think about what it means to be a feminist. It is often the voice boxes that help men understand the difficulties of being a woman and bring about social change in ways that others cannot. Feminist cause writers are political powers who use a pen to end tyranny and that are why we need it in our world. After 15 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

all, without people like Gloria Steinem in our ranks, many of the rights we have now wouldn’t exist. Over time, literature reflects this phenomenon in many ways. The themes and characters change to reflect the period. Literary attitudes and devices provide information about the writer’s emotional state, often as a result of external influences. The format can range from formal to less structure. The most obvious thing about the changes in literary works over the years is the language. Each era has its own language system. The study of linguistics reveals how these changes occur, often slowly over time, and as a result of social usage and diction preferences, such as dialect changes, colloquialism and the importance of jargon and the acceptance of new words. The literature serves as a map of these changes. The great writers of English literature provide in their works a language that reveals the social influence and artistic preferences of each era. The works of modern and postmodern authors, such as Alice Munro and Anne Carson, may share common themes with Victorian and Romantic authors, such as Emily Bronte and Mary Wollstonecraft, but the language of the pieces is very different. Many writers who comment on women as a group or female identity in general assume that women take a double position in the definitions given by the dominant forces; more idle, they are both part of culture in general and of women’s culture in particular. According to Gerda Lerner, this explains the fact that women can be both victims and defenders of the status quo. Writers as women negotiate with divided loyalties and duplicated consciences, both within and without a social and cultural agreement. This, along with the psychosexual swing, has implications for sentence sequence and language, ideology and narrative. This approach does not exclude each other from other definitions, but offers a way of looking at a group that is at least partially marginal or excluded from the dominant system of meaning and values. Raymond Williams in Marxism and Literature (1977) argues that corporate culture has an implicitly accepted set of regulations and conventions that have permeated all aspects of our ways of life. However, there are always dissident forces that will seek to overthrow, renew or question this set of dominant values, which is subsequently translated into both social and narrative texts. These hegemonic processes are a place for both sociocultural reproduction and sociocultural dissent. The debate that women live between the critic and the heir, the stranger and the privileged, the adversary and the dominant is an important example of a hegemonic process, the results of which are evident in both social and narrative texts. Constantly reaffirmed as outsiders by others and sometimes by themselves, women’s loyalty to domination remains ambiguous, as they themselves are not in control of the processes by which they define themselves. Elaine Showalter in A Literature of their Own (1977) agrees with Williams’ argument and states that women take a sub cultural position from which they form a unity and respond with 16 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

fictitious and biographical strategies. A writer must balance marginality and inclusion, but with one primary goal: to rewrite the genre in mainstream fiction. It is therefore not surprising that one of the main aspects of the writers of the twentieth century is the criticism of history, which is not only a thematic fact, but also indicates the moral, ideological and political will to prescribe the novel. Showalter indicates that the female literary tradition, from the Brontes to the present day, shows a development similar to any literary subculture. Women are embedded in the framework of a larger society and have been unified by values, conventions, experiences and behaviors that affect each individual. However, it is impossible to discern a movement because there is no indication of deliberate and conscious progress in your writing. Therefore, it is unequivocally important to consider this literary tradition in relation to the broader evolution of women’s self-awareness and the struggle for their (legitimate) place in a world dominated by men. Three stages in the development of female writing can be distinguished. First, there is a prolonged phase of imitating the predominant modes of the dominant tradition and internalizing its artistic standards and views on social roles. Secondly, there is a phase of protest against these standards and values and of defense of the rights and values of minorities, including a demand for autonomy. Finally, there is a phase of self-discovery, an inner turning freed from the dependence on opposition, a search for identity. An appropriate terminology is suggested: female, from 1840 until George Eliot’s death; Feminist, from 1880 to 1920; and Feminine from the 1920s to today. In the 880s a new generation of writers emerged who wanted to confront the (male) society that had cultivated these sexual stereotypes. His fiction was used as an implicit indictment to demand social and political change that would loosen restrictions on women and demand loyalty and chastity from men. Feminist writers were then not important on an artistic level but rather in their insistence on self-development and the definition of female identity; they represented a declaration of independence in the female tradition. They opened up new possibilities, such as the right to use the sexual vocabulary as men do; they questioned the monopoly and establishment of male publishers and advocated freedom from patriarchal mercantilism. Female writing boldly advanced towards an exploration of female identity. In their rejection of male society and culture, feminist writers had gradually turned to a separatist literature of inner space whose symbol of the closed and secret room “was a powerful image like an escape from men. After Woolf’s death in 1941, women’s writings did not seem to fit the modernist mode, but the 1960s, on the other hand, inspired by the ferocious enthusiasm of second-wave feminism, produced an entirely new phase for the novel. The novel of the sixties and seventies operates in the realism of the nineteenth century, but also in the contexts of the Freudian and Marxist analysis of the twentieth century that produced an authentic female literature, focused on the experience of women. Fiction writers such as Muriel Spark, Iris Murdoch, Doris Lessing, Margaret Drabble, and A.S. Byatte deals with the conflicts between art and love, between personal fulfillment and duty. They insisted on the right to use vocabularies previously 17 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

reserved for male writers and to describe previously taboo areas of the female experience. For the first time, anger and sexuality are accepted not only as realistic character attributes, but also ... as sources of female creative power. Lessing and Drabble, in particular, see themselves as an attempt to unify fragments of female experience through artistic vision and are concerned with defining autonomy for the writer. Since the canons of literary value have always been masculine canons, and theories of fiction have generally taken root only in the reading of texts signed by men, then it is important to intervene in the production of literature and criticism from the point of view of genre. Robinson warns that the term women’s writing should be used with caution, insofar as this term connotes a definition of a homogeneous object of study rather than a different field of cultural production; it threatens to erase the differences between and within the writing of women from different cultural places. While this claim is to some extent justified, Robinson still believes that female writing can be investigated with a notion of consensus, particularly in the fact that fiction is an excellent indicator in which gender and subjectivity are represented. This enunciation of gender subjectivity is a process that can be interrupted through the self-representation of women, which is a process by which subjects produce themselves as women within particular discursive contexts. The self-representation of women is often underlined by a double movement: simultaneously against the normative constructions of women which are continually produced by hegemonic discourses and social practices, and towards new forms of representation that break those normative constructions. This double position, in which women are both part of the culture and a stranger at the same time, generates a fracture in the subjectivity of women, as reflected in the woman’s writing; and lead to particular characteristics in the self-representation of women. Subjectivity, as Robinson applies the term, is a continuous process of participation in social and discursive practices, not an imminent core of identity that expresses itself through that same commitment. It is not built, once and for all, in a localizable point in the history of the individual; rather it is a continuous process of production and transformation. The terminology that Showalter (1977) applied to the literary history of female writing, namely female, feminist, and feminine, can easily be linked to Robinson’s definition of subjectivity. Over the last few centuries, female writers have made several attempts to redefine themselves and it can be assured that, along with the changes in society on a political and cultural level, female identity is far from being in its last stage of development. The subjects are constituted through historically different attitudes that imply relationships of subjectivity towards sociality, power and knowledge. The woman who writes in patriarchal society is at the same time subject to hegemonic (male) practices, but also subject to her own cultural productions. Therefore, it is in an attempt to overcome this contradiction that different subjective positions marked by differences of gender, race, class and other cultural differences can be occupied; that is, it is a means of challenging male superiority in narratives and providing a counter narrative. 18 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

1.3. EARLY FEMINIST THOUGHT One of the limitations of the historical record has been the exclusion and marginalization of women and their contribution. This created the challenge of determining what women’s thoughts really were over the centuries. The issue of the marginalization and subjugation of women is not limited to the denial of the civil and legal rights of women; it also extends to the systematic suppression of women’s intellectual contributions and the lack of documentation of many of these contributions in the history books. However, it would be a mistake to say that, in general, women have not tried to report these unfair treatments. Some women in history have actually spoken out against gender inequality and the practices of marginalization and submission of women. Although historians may not point out that they show that women in medieval times defended the recognition of their rights, this does not logically imply that such cases did not exist. However, the good news is that there are documented indications of the existence of such feminist campaigns. In medieval Europe, theology played an important role in conditioning philosophical thought. Feminists of this period had to deal with some doctrinal practices to defend gender equality. For example, in her book The Creation of Feminist Consciousness: From the Middle Ages to the Eighteen and Seventies, Gerda Lerner states that some women had challenged the teaching on women’s inferiority, which was based on the Genesis account that Woman was cursed by God must be dominated by man because of his role in original sin. According to Bryson, in the 15th century there was a public debate in Europe, which became known as Querrelle des femmes. The debate focused on the nature of women and how that nature is represented. This is an indication that in medieval times, it was the efforts made by feminists to express the problem of female oppression. But Querrelle des femmes did not seem to achieve women’s liberation from androcentric subordination. Bryson notes that one of the best-known feminist writers of the time was the French Christine de Pizan (1365-1430) who used the examples of “great women” who had accomplished great feats in history to argue against the prejudice of inequality. Between men and women, and she defended women against the misogyny of contemporary literature and religious authority. Religious authoritarianism was a common trend in medieval Europe; this is why feminist developments at that time reflected the struggle against theological descriptions of femininity based on religious bias. It is logical to say that a society that marries religious authority with political authority will surely produce ideologies colored by religious doctrines often considered “indisputable” dogmas. This was the state of affairs in medieval Christian and Islamic Europe. Under these circumstances, it can be understood that women found it difficult to publicly oppose what were considered “sacred ideologies”, which unfortunately had an androcentric foundation that served as ideological tools to justify the subordination and marginalization of women. For a more elaborate reading on the development of what can be considered feminist reactions in medieval times, the following authors can be consulted: 19 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Akkerman and Stuurman (1998); Ruby (1998); Suonò (1998); Willard (1975) and Sahar (1983). 1.4 FEMINISM IN EUROPE AND BRITAIN IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY In the history of Western philosophy, the modern period is often seen as a period in which critical thinking and research have departed from the dominance of religious authoritarianism and blind allegiance to the authority of the classics. This break was central to the emergence of the revolution in Western philosophy. The breaking of critical thinking and scientific research from the clutches of ancient classics and medieval writings opened up new ways of thinking that revolutionized Western Europe. Many classical and medieval scholars had justified, or had not opposed, the slavery of some human beings because they believed that humans were not equal due to some inequalities, some of which were described as biological and others essential. This model of thought was rejected by the philosophers of the first half of the modern period; and this rejection was central to the emergence of feminist political thought. However, early feminists opted for the theory of gender equality over the classical and scholastic anti-feminist position which held that women are inferior to men, or that men are superior to women because they have greater reasoning skills. Bryson notes that this new way of thinking, which emerged during the first half of the 17th century, owes its inspiration to the revolutionary philosophy of René Descartes. Descartes is famous for his dictum cogito ergo sum, which he presented as a justification for knowledge that does not come from sensation. Descartes is often considered a rationalist. Rationalism is opposed to the empiricist dogma that all human knowledge derives from sensory perception and that there is nothing in the intellect that does not derive from the senses. Descartes’ discourse on the mind in his Meditations on early philosophy had a great influence on the philosophical reasoning of the time. For example, as Bryson notes, he provided the rational platform for denouncing the submission and marginalization of women. According to Cartesian philosophy, everyone is right, and true knowledge, which is based on experience and self-discovery, rather than on the study of the classics or sacred texts, is in principle within everyone’s reach. This means that traditional authority is rejected in favor of rational analysis and independent thought, and that mores and institutions incompatible with reason must be rejected. Descartes’ claim that all human beings possess the same faculty of reason was contrary to the philosophy of the ancient classics, which attributed to women a lower rational status. Ferguson notes that, according to Mary Astell, while classical philosophy justified denying women the right to education equal to that of men, Descartes’s philosophy became significant because, using it, feminists could argue that denying the right to go to school was not just any way logically implies that one does not have the ability to reason or that one has a lower deliberative faculty. Ferguson notes that for feminists of this period, what she mattered most 20 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

to philosophy was a good idea and not what imaginative people (i.e. people like Aristotle, whom they considered authorities) had said about women. Feminists of this period argued that since women could also reason philosophically, their exclusion from formal educational processes is rationally unjustifiable in the way classical philosophy presented it. They also pointed out that “the ability to reason” and “exclusion from the educational system” is a logical contradiction that stems from the androcentric prejudice of a phallocentric society. Therefore, the attempt to justify and rationalize the violation of women’s right to education was the product of androcentrism and not pure philosophy. From the foregoing, what is eminent is that feminists of this period pursued the theory of the equality of the sexes because of the equal possession of the power of reason by all human beings. The logic here is pretty simple. Since classical philosophy has anchored the political marginalization of the female sex, as well as the subordination of women, on the assumption that she does not possess the same degree of rational capacity as men, then in a situation where women are described as women with the same degree of rational capacity with men, it follows only that all institutional practices of female subordination and marginalization that are based on the assumption that women are inferior in reasoning should collapse. Bryson argues that the definition of woman as a being with the same rational capacity as men not only invalidates the authority of the classic anti-feminists; but it also invalidates the theory that women should be governed and guided by men for the good of women, as Aristotle meant in his Politics. According to Bryson, Akkerman and Stuurman described seventeenth-century Europe as the era of rationalist feminism, and among the prominent feminist writers of this period were: the French Marie de Gourney, the Dutch Anna Maria von Schurman and the French François Poulainde. the Barre. He states that one of Poulain de la Barre’s main arguments was that the human mind has no sex. In other words, the concept of sex names a biological condition that does not extend to the ultimate nature of the mind. Therefore, since the mind has no sex, it makes no sense to assume that a woman’s mind or intellect is inferior due to her sex. Furthermore, since the mind is associated with reason and that women are as right as men, then women are just as capable as men in acquiring skilled and semi-skilled knowledge that would enable them to participate in it in virtually everyone. the economic aspects. and social activities, including politics and legislative affairs. While Poulain de la Barre wrote from the antecedents of French society, Mary Astell also reacted to the problem of the subordination of women in Britain. Reading Bryson’s account of the events of the seventeenth century, there is hardly any evidence to suggest that Astell opposed the then monarchical rule over the need to give women equal rights. We are not interested here in the historical details of the economy of Great Britain in Mary Astell’s time, but simply in capturing some of the basic ideas of her that are relevant to show how and why her work is considered a treatise on feminist political philosophy. We admit here that although we have not been able to draw on Astell’s writings, access to her ideas has been made possible through other secondary sources 21 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

such as Ferguson, Kinnard and Perry. So instead of engaging in a lengthy essay about her life and her challenges as a feminist advocate, we would rather summarize Astell’s feminist position. 1.5 FEMINISM DURING THE ENLIGHTENMENT The seventeenth century is considered the era of rationalist feminism because feminists of this period placed more emphasis on the theory of the rationality of equality, which holds that women have the same rational abilities as men; while, according to Bryson, the period regarded as “the Enlightenment” saw a regression of rationalist feminism, causing the ideas of Astell and other feminist writers of the time to fall into disrepute and forget their names. He also notes that the period of the Enlightenment saw philosophers re-emphasize the theory of women’s innate weakness, as well as their natural dependence on men; but, nevertheless, this has not prevented individual feminists from speaking out against female subordination. To capture the intellectual background of the Enlightenment, Bryson observes: The second half of the 18th century was a period in which he emphasized the rationality and questioning of traditional authority that we have seen from 17th-century philosophy reach its highest expression. . It was also a period dominated by the experiences of the American and French revolutions, and in which philosophical debates on the nature of freedom and human rationality would take tangible form in the United States Declaration of Independence (1776) and the Declaration of Human Rights Franceman, and citizen (1789). What united the philosophers of this so-called “Age of Reason” or “The Enlightenment” was their optimism and their belief in progress through the advancement of human reason and knowledge; reason replaced God or antiquity as the standard of good or evil, and no institution or authority was exempt from its judgment. Although many of the leading philosophers were in fact socially and politically conservative, the radical implications of these principles are obvious and provided the basis for the liberal belief that, as rational beings, individual men have rights that are not to be violated by arbitrary powerthat, therefore, all authority must be based on the consent of the governed; and free from government control. What Bryson tries to establish is that the Enlightenment saw arguments arise in defense of human rights theory. Human rights, at that time, were described as necessary natural rights stemming from the rational nature of human beings. Unfortunately, the development of the theory of rights at this time was presented in principle as the rights of “all human beings”, even when the generic concept of “human rights” was commonly used; but in practice and in application they proved to be human rights. Many of the rights that were actually granted to men were denied to women due to androcentric ideologies, which held that women by nature were unable to fully develop reason. In the writings of philosophers of the time such as Voltaire, Diderot, Montesquieu and Rousseau, women were described as emotional and passionate creatures, whose fundamental role in society is to serve as wives and mothers, and not to be public. ball. 22 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

The anti-feminist positions of some philosophers of illustration were contested by feminists of the time such as: Mary Wollstonecraft in her work Vindications of the rights of women (1792); Condorcet in his work On the admission of women to the right of citizenship (1790); von Hippel on the civil improvement of women (1793); Catherine Macaulay in her Letters on Education (1790), Olympe de Gouges’ Declaration of the Rights of Women (1790) and so on. Since the question of human rights was a fundamental feature of philosophical speculations in the period considered to be the Enlightenment, the pro-feminist positions were directed towards the defense of equal legal rights for women. For example, the French writer Condorcet insisted that women are capable of reasoning and should be educated and have the same political rights that correspond to them as rational beings. Likewise, the German writer von Hippel rejected the idea that the exclusion of women from civil and political rights is justifiable in terms of the presumption that the biological nature of women makes them less fit to participate in those rights. Hippel defended the equality of men and women with regard to the issue of political and civil rights, and blamed men for the situation of women. In England, Catherine Macaulay insisted that the differences that existed between women and men in mental abilities were a result of the kind of education they were to receive as boys and girls, as well as the kind of education they had to receive as boys and girls. 1.6 THREE WAVES OF MODERN FEMINISM According to an article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, feminism was used after the first international women’s conference in Paris in 1892 to name the belief and defense of equal rights for women on the assumption that the sexes are equal or that men and women should. be treated by the law in the same way. But as mentioned earlier, Bryson notes that the term began to be used in English during the 1880s, indicating support for equal rights for women with men; and that its meaning has evolved since then and is still a subject of debate. Thus, we can say that although we can find different authors giving conflicting dates as to when the term “feminist” was first used; what appears to be consistent is that the term emerged during the nineteenth century. The first wave took place from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century in Europe and the United States. Lorber notes that the first wave of feminists fought for rights that are now taken for granted. Stresses that it is difficult to believe that women in Europe have ever been denied the following rights, namely the right to vote (suffrage), to own property and capital, to borrow money, to inherit, to keep the money earned, starting a divorce, keeping custody of children, going to college, becoming a doctor, discussing cases in court, or serving as a jury. The world today is changing for the better. Today’s women can vote and be elected, they can own property and capital, they can borrow money, they can inherit property, they can earn and keep the money they earn, they can start divorces, they can be caretakers for children even after divorce, they can have academic degrees up to doctoral levels, they can be professional lawyers, doctors, etc. At some point in the 17th century, as we have already noted, the story 23 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

was different. This is what led to the first wave of feminism. Therefore, a good knowledge of history is relevant to understanding the three waves of feminism. Many people in Africa are unaware that there was a time in Europe when girls were not allowed to go to school or have access to the rights we mentioned in the final lines of the previous paragraph. Initially, when missionaries founded schools during the colonial era in Nigeria, they were just schools for boys. The anniversary celebrations of Nigeria’s oldest schools indicate that girls’ schools were established later than boys’ schools, reflecting the changes taking place in Europe in girls’ education. While the good news is that girls in colonial Nigeria didn’t have to wait too long to have their own schools or to have unisex schools, European girls who lived before the late 19th and early 20th centuries weren’t so lucky. . Discrimination between men and women in Western education was not a feature of the traditional pre-colonial milieu simply because it had not yet arrived. That’s why we say colonial Nigerian girls didn’t have to wait too long for their chance to come. However, even when the opportunities were officially offered, many traditional peoples have not been able to send girls to school, both due to poverty and what we might call the male-child preference syndrome that many African feminists like Rose Uchem (66). cited as an example of female subordination in Africa. In Africa and Nigeria, for example, there are still practices that oppress women. Several cases of female repression are hidden in detestable cultures that some communities are unwilling to let go. For example, genital mutilation is still practiced in some of the remote areas of Akpabuyo in Cross River state (Nigeria) on the assumption that without genital mutilation, a woman is prone to be promiscuous. However, civilization is gradually taking root in those areas, but at a slow pace. So our observation here is that although the first feminist wave is commonly presented as occurring in Europe, this does not negate the possibility that on other continents, especially Africa, such historical experiences did not exist. If the African experience of feminist struggles is not included in the period generally described as the first wave; it is because African authors have not done enough to delve into their history to highlight such issues; o due to the general problem of androcentric suppression of significant historical activities of women and their contributions to history by African and Western male historians. According to Lorber, the second wave began with the publication of Simon de Beauvoir’s book The Second Sex in France in 1949. He further notes that although Beauvoir’s book was widely read, second wave feminism did not take shape as an organized political movement until in the late 1960s, when young people of the time began to publicly criticize many aspects of Western society. She also mentions that many feminists at the time focused on increasing women’s legal rights, political representation and entry into male-dominated occupations and professions. Lorber says the second wave has added issues such as discrimination against women based on race, tribe, nationality, religion and class to the feminist struggle. It has also seen the emergence of certain themes such as: multiracial and 24 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

multiethnic feminism, feminist studies of men, constructionist theories of feminism, postmodernism, queer theories, issues bordering on the duality and opposition of the feminine and the masculine, orientation sexuality such as lesbianism, homosexuality, heterosexuality, assumptions and value judgments about sex, gender and social order. Looking at the events of the women’s revolt that took place in colonial Nigeria between 1903 and 1929 and possibly beyond, in places like Eket, Warri, Calabar and Aba and possibly other undocumented places; Can we present these facts also as belonging to the first wave feminism, that is, if Lorber’s date relative to the beginning of the second wave is correct? Or should we classify our historical indicators of feminist struggles differently? In other words, should we have a Nigerian version of the waves of feminism, given that all three waves have traditionally been described by many Western scholars as occurring in Europe and America? The above questions are very important questions that both professional Nigerian feminist historians and feminist philosophers need to consider and answer. The argument that the ‘form’ of feminist struggles is the same, even though the contents may vary from one country to another, gives us reasons, on the one hand, to consider the idea of looking at women’s uprisings in Nigeria plausible colonial so similar to the European ones, even when these cultural categories of women wrote they were historically different. What can be said to be the similarity factor between the two categories of historical feminist events is that they were organized by women in reaction to their marginalization. On the other hand, possible arguments that consider the unrest in colonial Nigeria and Europe to be substantially different still make sense. One might want to argue along this line of thinking: that while in Europe women’s uprisings concerned issues that directly touched the question of the nature of woman, as if the nature of her intellect and her biological constitution qualified them to have equal rights with the men; But in the colonial context of Nigeria, the revolt was simply about taxes, which explicitly had little or nothing to do with the relationship between the gender definition of female ontology and its importance for the treatment of women in society or the state. Lorber says the third wave began in the 1990s as a movement of a younger generation of feminists who grew up in a much less gender segregated social, economic and political world. Of course, we are not wrong in saying that the context of the “world” excludes Africans. The reason is the same as we have already explained. Many Western authors who have written on topics related to the history of feminism do not have the African public in mind. But fortunately, his works, some of which we have used in this chapter, are also read by African scholars. Clearly, the authorship of the history of feminism excludes Africans. This echoes early Western insinuations such as the one mentioned by Hegel, namely that Africans are not part of world history. If Africans are part of the developmental history of feminism, then we shouldn’t really blame Westerners for not writing about us or for excluding us in their attempts to present a book on the history of feminism. After all, human beings are the product 25 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

of their immediate environment and philosophers, even if they are feminists, are above all children of their age, culture and environment. It is the Africans who should write history. Lorber also mentions that third-wave feminists anchor the problem of gender inequality in other broader forms of oppression such as racism. You mention that third wave feminists reject the radical feminist idea that women are oppressed only by men; but they also accuse women of fomenting women’s oppression by hiding under the umbrella of race, color, class, status, etc. We believe Lorber is referring here to the events taking place in America and Europe, as the mind of female marginalization and sexism for the sake of racial segregation, class segregation and selfish lifestyles motivated by greed and business, shady people who drive women, submission and oppression. Here we can provide examples of cases where women plan for trafficking in girls and sexual slavery by running brothels that use girls for prostitution. Hence, for third-wave feminists, feminism has become a general struggle not only against sexism and gender inequality, but also against other broader forms of oppression. Authors were a rarity in Britain when they first appeared in the early 18th century, when the novel established itself as a central literary form in Britain. So he had an ideology of sensitivity and benevolence. Women played an active role in the development of the fiction, which was not surprising since they were the main readers. Her inspiration came from city life, travel experiences, love and marriage, religion or education. The idea for the novel came from Europe, and the novel is from the Italian “novella” which means new. One of the main founders was AphraBehn (1640-89), born in Canterbury and died in London. This Restoration-era lady was one of the first English women to earn an income as an author by breaking down cultural barriers to become a leading literary role for generations of other authors. She married a Dutch merchant in London who died the same year, she spied in Antwerp on behalf of King Charles II and went to Suriname where she would meet an African slave chief. She became her inspiration for the Orinoco in 1688, which was an anti - slavery critique tinged with feminism and postcolonialism. This book is believed to be one of the first abolitionist and humanitarian novels printed in English and the first novel against slavery. In her day she was esteemed as a London poet, playwright and satirist. She included female pleasure and sexuality in her poetry, very radical at the time, and the subject of much criticism during her life and after her death. Her poem Disappointment is a comic account of male impotency from a female point of view totally outrageous for her time. 1.7 SUMMARY  The early feminist struggles were a matter exclusively between Europe and America, but we can say that the feminist revolutionary trend had periods when it was most pronounced in Europe and America. 26 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

 In the 17th century and the period of the Enlightenment, feminism was more pronounced in Europe; but in the 19th century it was more pronounced in the United States.  This has a lot to do with the political scene on both continents at the time. Of course, the reason may not be far-fetched.  America as a continent also fell prey to European colonization and, as such, it can be understood that there was a time when the seat of international politics was in Europe, especially Great Britain and France.  And as a result, we can understand that feminist struggles must have developed faster in Europe at that time.  But feminism in America has become more pronounced as part of the fight against slavery and segregation of people of color, especially blacks.  In this sense, we can say that the feminist struggles in the United States have fallen under the umbrella of a broader struggle such as that against slavery or racism.  Many history books classify the historical development of feminism into three waves; but according to a critical assessment, these waves revolve around events in Europe and the United States of America.  We wish the indulgence not to expose what all the historical feminist figures have said on the subject of women’s liberation because by reading many works on feminism, we discover that there are common and recurring ideas from one author to another.  We also didn’t want this chapter to serve as a detailed history of feminism.  However, we have captured some of the historical developments here to show that there have been efforts from the earliest times to free women from the social injustice of female marginalization and female subjugation.  Also, since most feminist works are presented from a historical perspective, we will certainly refer to some historical facts whenever the need arises. 1.8KEYWORDS  Feminist - the belief that women and men should have equal rights and opportunities  Ideology - a system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy.  Patriarchy - a system of society in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it. 27 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

 Deployment - the action of bringing resources into effective action  Deconstruction - a method of critical analysis of philosophical and literary language which emphasizes the internal workings of language and conceptual systems, the relational quality of meaning, and the assumptions implicit in forms of expression  Oppression - mental pressure or distress  Versatile - able to adapt to many activities  Modernism - Modernism fostered a period of experimentation in the arts from the late 19th to the mid-20th century, particularly in the years following World War I.  Vitriolic - filled with bitter criticism or malice 1.9 LEARNING ACTIVITY 1. How do you think that gender plays a role in analyzing literature or any text? ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 2. Analyse how gender affect the interpretation of a text. ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ 3. Critically think how women affected by society during early period and relate it with one novel that you have studied. ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ 1.10. UNIT END QUESTIONS 28 A. Descriptive Questions Short Questions 1. Mention few famous women writers. 2. What was the background for the beginning of the women’s writing? 3. What are the features of women’s writing? 4. When did women’s writing develop? 5. Why are female writers important? Long Questions CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

1. Discuss the major themes in women’s writing. 2. Explain the characteristics of a woman. 3. Analyse the role of women in literature from 1865-1912. 4. Describe the roles of women in society during 1865-1912. 5. Describe Feminism in Europe and Britain during 17th Century B. Multiple Choice Questions 1. ________ is a Modernist writer. a. Shakespeare b. Emily Bronte c. Charlotte Bronte d. Virginia Woolf 2. A Woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction” is a famoussaying by _____________ a. Mrinal Pande b. Elaine Showalter c. Virginia Woolf d. Emily Bronte 3. Horace is a _______ Lyric poet. a. Roman b. French c. Indian d. English 4. Elaine Showalter is a _________ literary critic. a. American b. Indian c. French d. English 5. In the _______ phase women wrote to equal the intellectual achievements of the male 29 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

culture. a. Feminine b. Feminist c. Female d. Feminine phase Answers 1-d, 2-c, 3-a, 4-a, 5-a 1.11 REFERENCES Reference books  Krishnaswamy, Santha, The woman in Indian Fiction in English: 1950 – 80 (Volume I), New Delhi Ashish Publishing House, 1984.  Krishnaswamy, Santha, The woman in Indian Fiction in English: 1950 – 80 (Volume II), New Delhi. Ashish Publishing House, 1984  Dhawan, R. K., Indian Woman novelist, Set – I: Vol. I, Prestige Books, New Delhi  Bheda, Prof. P.D., Indian women Novelists in English, Sarup and sons. New Delhi Textbook references  A Literary History of Women’s writing in Britain 1660-1789. Susan Staves. University of Cambridge Press, 2006. Websites  https://muse.jhu.edu/article/244076/summary  https://www.arcjournals.org/pdfs/ijsell/v4-i10/6.pdf  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303646100_Women’s_Writing_and_Femini sms_an_Introduction  https://www1.reserveatlakekeowee.com/download/491798-file.pdf 30 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

UNIT – 2VIRGINIA WOLF: A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN STRUCTURE 2.0 Learning Objectives 2.1 Author’s Introduction 2.2 Introduction about the novel 2.3 Historical View 2.4 Characters 2.5 Analysis 2.6 Themes 2.7 Symbols 2.8 Important Quotations 2.9 Summary 2.10 Keywords 2.11 Learning Activity 2.12 Unit End Questions 2.13 References 2.0LEARNING OBJECTIVES After studying this unit, you will be able to:  Know author’s biography  Identify background knowledge about the work  Analyse the novel in detail  List the Literary Devices 2.1 AUTHOR’ S INTRODUCTION English writer, critic and columnist Virginia Woolf was one of the most famous English writers of the mid-twentieth century. His novels can be described as truly Impressionistic, a literary style that seeks to promote recordings rather than recreate reality. Virginia Stephen was born in London on January 25, 1882. She was the daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen, a famous scholar and philosopher (a seeker of knowledge) who, among many literary occupations, was once the editor of Cornhill Magazine and the Dictionary of National biography. James Russell Lowell, the American poet, was his godfather. His mother, Julia 31 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Jackson, died when the boy was twelve or thirteen years old. Virginia and her sister were homeschooled in her father’s library, where Virginia also met her famous friends which included G. E. Moore (1873-1958) and E. M. Forster (1879-1970). Young Virginia soon fell into the world of literature. In 1912, eight years after her father’s death, Virginia married Leonard Woolf, a brilliant young writer and critic from Cambridge, England, whose interests in both literature and economics and the labor movement suited her. In 1917, for fun, they founded the Hogarth Press by placing and hand printing Two stories of “L. and V. Woolf” on an old press. The volume was a success and many important books were published over the years, including Prelude by Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923), then an unknown writer; Poems by T. S. Eliot (1888-1965); and Virginia Woolf’s Kew Gardens. The Hogarth Press policy was to publish the best and most original work that attracted its attention, and the Woolfs as editors favored young and unknown writers. Virginia’s older sister, Vanessa, who married critic Clive Bell, participated in this venture by designing dust jackets for books published by Hogarth Press. Virginia Woolf’s home in Tavistock Square, Bloomsbury, became a literary and artistic center, attracting intellectuals as diverse as Lytton Strachey (1880-1932), Arthur Waley (1889-1966), Victoria Sackville-West (1892-1962). John Maynard Keynes (1883-1943) and Roger Fry (1866-1934). These artists, critics, and writers became known as the Bloomsbury group. Roger Fry’s art theory may have influenced Virginia’s technique as a novelist. Generally speaking, the Bloomsbury group drew from the philosophical interests of its members (who had been educated at Cambridge) the values of love and beauty as essential to life. Virginia Woolf began writing essays for the Times Literary Supplement (London) when she was young, and over the years these and other essays were compiled into a two-volume series called The Common Reader (1925, 1933). These studies cover the affect and understanding of all English literature. Fiction students relied on these critiques as a means of understanding Virginia Woolf’s direction as a novelist. A frequently studied essay is “Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown,” written in 1924, in which Virginia Woolf described how the older generation novelist Arnold Bennett would play Mrs. Brown, a lady encountered by chance in a train car, giving him a home and furniture and a position in the world. He then compared this method to another: one that shows a new interest in Mrs. Brown, the mysteries of her person, her consciousness (consciousness), and the consciousness of the observer who responds to her. Two of Virginia Woolf’s novels in particular, Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and To the Lighthouse (1927), successfully follow the latter approach. The first novel covers a day in the life of Mrs. Dalloway in post-war London; he achieves his vision of reality through the mind of Mrs. Dalloway who receives what Virginia Woolf called those “myriads of impressions: mundane, fantastic, evanescent [disappeared] or etched with the sharpness of steel”. 32 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

To the Lighthouse is, in a sense, a family portrait and story portrayed in subjective depth (characterized by personal points of view) through selected points in time. The first part deals with the rest between six in the afternoon and dinner. Mainly through Mrs. Ramsay’s conscience, she presents the clash of masculine and feminine sensibilities in the family; Ms. Ramsay works as a means of balancing and resolving disputes. The second part is a poignant section on the loss during the interval between Ms. Ramsay’s death and the family’s home visit. Part III moves toward the completion of this complex portrait by adding a final detail to a painting by a guest artist, Lily Briscoe, and by finalizing a plan, rejected by his father in Part I, for him to and her children sails to the lighthouse. Virginia Woolf was the author of fifteen books, the last, A Writer’s Diary, published posthumously (after death) in 1953. Her death by drowning in Lewes, Sussex, England, on March 28, 1941, was often considered suicide caused by the unbearable stresses of life during World War II (1939-1945; a war fought between the Axis powers: Japan, Italy and Germany and the Allies: France, England, Soviet Union and the United States). The real explanation seems to be that he regularly felt the symptoms of a mental breakdown and feared it was permanent. Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse and Jacob’s Room (1922) represent Virginia Woolf’s greatest hits. The Voyage Out (1915) first attracted his critical attention. Night and Day (1919) is a traditional method. The stories of Monday or Tuesday (1921) brought critical acclaim. In The Waves (1931) he masterfully employed the stream of consciousness technique that emphasizes “free writing”. Other experimental novels include Orlando (1928), The Years (1937), and Between the Acts (1941). Virginia Woolf’s championship of women’s rights is reflected in the essays of A Room of One’s Own (1929) and Three Guineas (1938). 2.2 INTRODUCTION - A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN A Room of One’s Own, essay by Virginia Woolf, published in 1929. The work was based on two lectures given by the author in 1928 at Newnham College and Girton College, the first two colleges for women in Cambridge. Woolf addressed the condition of women, and female artists in particular, in this famous essay, which states that a woman must have money and a room of her own in order to write. According to Woolf, centuries of prejudice and financial and educational disadvantage have inhibited women’s creativity. To illustrate this, he offers the example of a hypothetical gifted but ignorant sister of William Shakespeare, who, discouraged by all the more mundane household chores, eventually commits suicide. Woolf celebrates the work of women who have gone beyond that tradition and become writers, including Jane Austen, George Eliot, and the Brontë sisters, Anne, Charlotte, and Emily. In the final section, Woolf suggests that great minds are androgynous. He argues that intellectual freedom requires financial freedom and invites his audience to write not only fiction, but also poetry, criticism, and academic 33 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

papers. The essay, written in lively and elegant prose, displays the same impressive descriptive powers evident in Woolf’s novels and reflects his engaging conversational style. In late October 1928, Virginia Woolf lectured on “Women and Fiction” at Newnham and Girton, the two-woman college in Cambridge, England. Woolf had written the lecture in May; In 1929, he expanded it to what is now A Room of His Own and the essay was published in book form on October 24, 1929. Woolf cleverly used the conference setup. The fictional university you visit, Oxbridge, is a fusion of the prestigious British universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and the comparison between lavish male and mediocre female builds must surely have hit Newnham and Girton (however, this probably didn’t. be it so) he managed to enter the conference, since he gave his speech the same day that he had lunch at the male university, he did not have much time to digest the inequality) He also incorporated real people in his essay; Aside from the many writers past and present he discusses, the narrator is a poorly disguised version of Woolf herself, and even fictional writer Mary Carmichael, whose novel Life’s Adventure that the narrator discusses, shares the pseudonym of the leader of the birth control Marie Stopes (who wrote a similar novel, Love’s Creation). A Room of His Own is considered the first great work of feminist criticism. Woolf uses a number of methodologies (historical and sociological analysis, fictional hypotheses, and philosophy, in particular) to answer her initial question about why there have been so few female writers. It links their minority status largely to socioeconomic factors, particularly their poverty and lack of privacy. His mantra throughout the essay is that a woman must have 500 pounds a year and a room of her own if she wants to write creatively. Woolf also exposes the gender consciousness that he believes paralyzes writers and writers alike. Most men, he argues, look down on women to maintain their superiority; most women are angry and insecure about their inferior status in society. The masculine writing, therefore, is too aggressive, whereas the feminine one is reactive. Both sexes obscure their subjects and instead focus on themselves and their own personal grievances. The incandescent genius writer, Woolf argues, rises above his petty complaints and achieves an intense and objective relationship with reality; the subject is the world, not the writer’s self. Woolf considers this genius possible only if the writer has, to borrow the words of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, an “androgynous” mind; that is, an equally masculine and feminine mind (Woolf encourages differences between the sexes). Feminist (and very minority) criticism still disputes this idea: should women’s writing rationally reflect male and female influences, as Woolf argues, or should it passionately reclaim the voice of women muffled by patriarchal society, as Woolf argues? what is hindering? The French critic H? L? Ne Cixous embodies this opposite field, arguing that only with their own language can women express themselves adequately. 34 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

However, Woolf is not at all at odds with later feminists. He believes that each gender can only know so much about the other (and themselves) and that women should, indeed, write about women, as long as this is done without anger or insecurity. It provides compelling evidence why genius has so rarely flourished among women. Most importantly, it provides a potent remedy - £ 500 a year and a room of your own. 2.3 HISTORICAL VIEW Elizabethan England The Elizabethan era in England is generally considered the golden age of the country a nd is also known as the English Renaissance. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603), British literature flourished, as did British exploration and colonization, as the Protestant Reformation battled Catholic influences in Europe. It was a time of relative tolerance and economic prosperity. The playwrights, Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe and Ben Johnson, have been successful and popular in London theaters. The Church of England, created by Elizabeth’s father, Henry VIII, continued to evolve as the official church of the country. Sir Walter Raleigh colonized the east coast of America and Sir Francis Drake went around the world. As Woolf points out in A Room of One’s Own, the important men of the time occupy almost the entire space of Elizabethan history. There is little information on Elizabethan women other than the queen. What is known is that the average woman did not work outside the home and had passed as her father’s property to her husband. The pregnancy was dangerous and caused the death of many women. Women were not allowed on stage, so female roles (such as Juliet, Helen of Troy, Lady Macbeth, and Cleopatra) were played by men. Historical sources suggest that Woolf’s description of Judith Shakespeare’s life is roughly accurate. First World War The seeds of World War I were planted long before the fighting began in 1914. Political alliances and military expansion were combined with fervent nationalism (the belief that one’s identity is tied to a specific country or ethnicity) to create a tinderbox of tension and animosity. The spark that started the war was the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Francesco Ferdinando; he and his wife were assassinated in Sarajevo on June 24, 1914 by a young Serbian nationalist. A series of invasions and declarations of war followed, with the participants formed into two main groups. The allies - France, Russia, Great Britain, Serbia and then the United States - fought against the central powers - Germany, Austria, Turkey and Italy - for four bloody years. At the time, it was the second deadliest conflict in recorded history. More than 16 million soldiers and civilians died. World War I introduced a new type of fighting that replaced centuries-old hand-to-hand combat and chivalric conduct. Men fought with long-range guns, submarines, chemical weapons, tanks and, for the first time in history, aircraft. Fighting was impersonal and 35 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

conducted at a distance, eliminating many of the opportunities for individual bravery and valor that were highly prized in earlier forms of warfare. Fighting ended on November 11, 1918, and the Treaty of Versailles was officially ended the war on June 28, 1919. The devastation caused by World War I shook the world. Many felt that their old ways of thinking no longer applied in a world so horribly changed. In A Room of One’s Own, Woolf notes the poetic hum that has disappeared from gatherings—and life—since the war. She asks, “When the guns fired in August 1914, did the faces of men and women show so plain in each other’s eyes that romance was killed?” Woolf was profoundly affected by the war, and was a key member of the modernist movement that sought to find new modes of expression in its wake. Modernism The modernist movement began in the last decade of the nineteenth century as a reaction against strict Victorian morals and values. It did not become widespread, however, until World War I began changing people’s understanding of the world. The modernist a esthetic (guiding principles) embraced the concept of “making it new,” replacing outdated traditional modes of artistic expression in music, art, and literature. In the face of a mechanized sacrifice of human life for pieces of earth, prewar conceptions of society, humanity, and the world were no longer recognizable, and a new generation of creative artists began speaking their minds. Virginia Woolf was a key figure in modern literature, and some of her suggestions in A Room of One’s Own—most notably her support for the androgynous mind—reflect the movement’s ideals. Woolf’s novels Jacob’s Room, Mrs. Dalloway, and To the Lighthouse are considered classic modernist texts. As Bernard Blackstone points out in his biographical essay “Virginia Woolf” for Scribner’s Writers Series, “Woolf was, from first to last, intensely conscious of making a different thing out of the novel,” just as she encourages her audience to do in A Room of One’s Own. Suffrage Movement in Britain The British suffrage movement began in England in the late nineteenth century, aiming to secure women’s right to vote in government elections (“suffrage” means the right to vote). Two groups supported women’s suffrage in Britain: suffragists, a nonviolent collection of both men and women who sought change through legislation; and suffragettes, an exclusively female group that sometimes resorted to violence and vandalism in their attempts to effect change. Suffragettes were known for tactics such as hunger strikes, breaking store windows, lighting mailboxes on fire, and chaining themselves to fences in order to be heard. In popular history, many people specifically credit the suffragettes with achieving the women’s right to vote in Britain. During World War I (1914–1918), women were called upon to fill the roles of working men who were fighting the war. They were given greater social responsibilities in addition to their new workplace roles, and proved that they were capable of many tasks that were traditionally 36 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

assigned to men. In 1918, the British Parliament passed a resolution allowing a woman to vote as long as she met at least one of the following conditions: she was over thirty, she was a homeowner or married to a homeowner, she was a renter, or she was college educated. It was not until 1928 that all women were able to vote on the same terms as men. In the United States, the Nineteenth Amendment (ratified in 1920) granted women the right to vote. 2.4 CHARACTERS Narrator Woolf calls his fictional narrator Mary Beton (although this name is inconsistent and is shared by the narrator’s aunt), and lectures on “Women and Fiction” through her. As Woolf’s alter ego, the narrator shares his distinctive voice; Witty and incisive, much of the sage’s power lies in his ability to form elegant metaphors for his abstract ideas. The narrator is also cunningly introspective without dominating the essay with her own personality; Though enraged by the sexist treatment he receives in Oxbridge or the misogynistic views of male critics, he quickly calms down and rationally explains the ideas at stake behind these conventions. Allowing for his detachment from anger, as he points out, is his considerable inheritance of £ 500 a year (which Woolf also had). Throughout the essay, he argues that money and the privacy of a room for one alone are necessary for freedom of thought. Without these advantages, women slavishly depend on men and write out of anger or fear. Only with the confidence that comes from money and privacy can a writer filter his own personality and focus objectively on reality itself; With this “androgynous” mind, free from thoughts of gender, true genius shines through. Woolf herself has somehow accomplished this with her choice of a non-existent narrator; Although the narrator is very similar to her, Woolf eliminates her already few personal grievances by partially eliminating herself. Judith Shakespeare The fictional sister of William Shakespeare, the narrator imagines Judith’s life as a dissatisfied genius: although as brilliant as her brother, Judith is unable to fulfill her potential in her patriarchal Elizabethan society and ultimately commits suicide. It is an example of why there were no great women in the Elizabethan era; Even if a woman managed to rise above her ignorant, poor, and servile state, which the narrator hardly doubts is possible, society would never allow her the opportunity to use her mind in the same way that a man does. Mary Carmichael The fictional author of the fictional novel Life’s Adventure, the narrator views Carmichael as a representative of contemporary descendants of historical writers. Find its argument, that of a friendship between two women who share a laboratory, revolutionary, since women have always been seen in literature simply as lovers of men. Although Mary doesn’t write much about men, the narrator still believes that she is an above-average writer who is not a genius. Yet this is what is expected of someone with so little to work with, and the narrator believes 37 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

that in a hundred years or so, with money and a room of their own, Mary Carmichael and her peers will prosper and represent men and women in different ways which is still seen in literature. Maria Beton The narrator’s aunt (whose name Woolf attributes to the narrator), Mary Beton bequeathed the narrator £ 500 a year after her death. This Bequest allows the storyteller to maintain his independence and protect his freedom of thought. Mary Seton A friend of the narrator’s college, Fernham, Mary Seton’s mother had thirteen children. She and the narrator discuss the history of women and money. The Manx cat The narrator sees a Manx cat on the Oxbridge lawn. It reminds you of the pre-war days in England when people seemed to speak with more music in their voices. The cat, without a tail, can be a symbol of castration. Concierge The man who stops the narrator on the Oxbridge lawn and informs her that only men can cross it Librarian An old man who denies the narrator entry to the library 2.5ANALYSIS Virginia Woolf, lecturing on women and fiction, tells her audience that she is not sure if the topic should be what women are like; the fiction that women write; fiction written about women; or a combination of all three.Instead, he came up with “a minor point: a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write novels”. He says that he will use a fictional narrator who calls Mary Beton as his alter ego to tell how his thoughts on the conference have mixed with his daily life.A week ago, the narrator walks across the lawn of the fictional Oxbridge University, tries to enter the library, and passes the chapel. She is intercepted at every station and reminded that women are not allowed to do these things without accompanying men. Go for lunch, where the great food and relaxed atmosphere foster good conversation. Back at Fernham, the girls’ college where she is staying as a guest, she has a mediocre dinner. Later, she talks to a friend of hers, Mary Seton, about how the men’s colleges were funded by independent kings and wealthy men, and how it was difficult to raise funds for the women’s college. She and Seton denounce their mothers and their sex for being so impoverished and leaving their daughters so young. Had they been independently wealthy, perhaps they could have established scholarships and secured similar 38 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

luxuries for women. However, the narrator realizes the obstacles they have faced: Entrepreneurship is at odds with parenting, and only in the last 48 years have women been allowed to keep the money they have earned. The narrator thinks about the effects of wealth and poverty on the mind, the prosperity of men and the poverty of women, and the effects of tradition or lack of tradition on the writer. In search of answers, the narrator explores the British Museum in London. It turns out that there are countless books written by men about women, while there are hardly any books by women about men. Select a dozen books to try to find an answer to why women are poor. Instead, it identifies a multitude of other arguments and a contradictory set of men’s views on women. A teacher who writes about the inferiority of women angers her, and it occurs to her that she got angry because the teacher wrote in anger. If he had written “dispassionately,” he would have paid more attention to his subject, and not to him. Once his anger subsides, he wonders why men are so angry if England is a patriarchal society where they have all the power and money. Perhaps holding on to power produces anger out of fear that others will take your power. She posits that when men pronounce the inferiority of women, they are actually claiming their own superiority. The narrator believes that self-confidence, a requirement for life, is often achieved by viewing other people as inferior to oneself. Throughout history, women have served as models of inferiority that amplify the superiority of men. The narrator appreciates the legacy left by his aunt. Before that, she got away with the repulsive and menial jobs available to women before 1918. Now, she reasons that since nothing can take away money and security, she need not hate or enslave any man. Now everyone can feel free to “think about things in themselves”, you can judge art for example, as more objectively. The narrator investigates women in Elizabethan England, perplexed as to why there were no female writers in that fertile literary period. He believes there is a profound connection between living conditions and creative works. He reads a history book, discovers that women had few rights at the time, and finds no material on middle-class women. Imagine what would have happened if Shakespeare had had an equally gifted sister named Judith. Outline the possible course of Shakespeare’s life: high school, marriage and work in a theater in London. Her sister, however, was unable to attend school and her family discouraged her from independent study. She got married against her will as a teenager and fled to London. Men in a theater denied her the opportunity to work and learn the trade. Impregnated by a man of the theater, she committed suicide. The narrator believes that no woman of the time would have had such a genius, “Because a genius like Shakespeare’s is not born among working, ignorant and servile people.” However, then there must have been a kind of genius among women, as there is among the working class, even if it never translated into paper. The narrator argues that the difficulties of writing - particularly the world’s indifference to their own art - are compounded for 39 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

women, who are actively despised by the male establishment. He says that the artist’s mind must be “glowing” like Shakespeare’s, without obstacles. He argues that the reason we know so little about Shakespeare’s mind is because his work filters out his personal “grudges, spite and dislike”. His absence of personal protest makes his work “free and unhindered”. The narrator examines the poetry of several Elizabethan aristocratic ladies and discovers that anger towards men and insecurity ruin their writing and prevent genius from showing through. Writer Aphra Behn marks a turning point: A middle-class woman whose husband’s death forced her to earn a living, Behn’s triumph over circumstances surpasses even her excellent writing. Behn is the first writer to have “freedom of mind”. Countless middle-class writers of the eighteenth century and beyond owe a great debt to Behn’s breakthrough. The narrator wonders why the four famous and divergent 19th-century writers - George Eliot, Emily y Charlotte Brontë and Jane Austen - all wrote novels; as middle-class women, they would have had less privacy and a greater propensity to write poetry or plays, which require less concentration. However, the 19th-century middle-class woman had been trained in the art of social observation, and the novel was a natural fit for her talents. The narrator argues that traditionally male values and arguments in novels, such as war, are valued more than female ones, such as parlor character studies. Female writers, therefore, were often forced to adapt their writing to satisfy the inevitable criticism that their work was inconsistent. Even though they did so without anger, they deviated from their original visions and their books suffered. Even the early 19th century writer had no real tradition to work on; it even lacked a style of prose suitable for a woman. The narrator argues that the novel was the chosen form for these women as it was a relatively new and flexible medium. The narrator takes a recent debut novel called Life’s Adventure by Mary Carmichael. Considering Carmichael as a descendant of the writers he commented, the narrator analyzes his book. He finds the style of prose ragged, perhaps in rebellion against the “flowery” reputation of female writing. Read on and find the simple phrase “‘Chloe liked Olivia’”. She believes that the idea of friendship between two women is revolutionary in literature, as historically women have been seen in literature only in relation to men. In the 19th century, women became more complex in novels, but the narrator still believes that each gender has limited knowledge of the opposite sex. The narrator acknowledges that whatever mental magnitude women may have, they have not yet left a mark on the world with respect to men. However, he believes that the great men of history have often depended on women to provide “some stimulus, a certain renewal of creative power” that other men could not. He argues that the creativity of men and women is different and that their writing should reflect their differences. The narrator believes that Carmichael has a lot of work to do to record the lives of women, and Carmichael will have to write without anger against men. Also, since everyone has a blind spot about themselves, only women can complete the portrait of men in literature. However, the narrator feels that Carmichael “is just a smart girl”, even if she shows 40 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

no trace of anger or fear. In a hundred years, the narrator believes, and with money and a space to herself, Carmichael will be a better writer. The pleasant sight of a man and a woman getting into a taxi elicits an idea for the narrator: the mind contains a masculine and a feminine part, and for “complete satisfaction and happiness,” both must live in harmony. This fusion, he believes, is what the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge described when he said that a great mind is “androgynous”: “the androgynous mind ... conveys emotion without hindrance ... is naturally creative, brilliant, and undivided.” Shakespeare is an excellent model of this androgynous mind, although current examples are more difficult to find in this “stridently sex-conscious” age. The narrator blames both genders for eliciting this gender self-awareness. Woolf assumes the speaking voice and responds to two anticipated criticisms against the narrator. First, he claims that he has not deliberately expressed an opinion on the relative merits of the two sexes, especially as writers, as he does not believe that such a judgment is possible or desirable. Second, your audience may believe that the narrator has put too much emphasis on material things and that the mind should be able to overcome poverty and lack of privacy. You quote a professor’s argument that of the best poets of the last century, almost all were educated and wealthy. Without material things, he repeats, you cannot have intellectual freedom, and without intellectual freedom you cannot write great poetry. Women, poor since the beginning of time, understandably have not yet written great poems. It also answers the question why you insist that women’s writing is important. As an avid reader, overly masculine writing across genres has disappointed her lately. Encourage your audience to be themselves and “think about it themselves.” She says that Judith Shakespeare still lives on in all women and that if women are given money and privacy in the next century, she will be reborn. 2.6 THEMES £ 500 and a room of my own Woolf repeatedly insists on the need for a Bequest that requires no obligations and the privacy of one’s room for the promotion of creative genius. It provides a historical argument that lack of money and privacy have prevented women from writing brilliantly in the past. Without money, women slavishly depend on men; Without privacy, constant interruptions block your creativity. Freedom of thought is hampered because women consume themselves with gender thoughts. They write out of anger or insecurity, and those emotions make them think of themselves rather than their subjects. Aphra Behn is the first writer to earn money writing. It paved the way for 19th century novelists like Jane Austen, who were able to write despite the lack of privacy in their family living rooms. Woolf believes that contemporary writers in general still act out of anger or insecurity, but that in the future, with money and privacy, their minds will be set free and their genius will flourish. 41 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Androgynous mind of Coleridge Woolf adapts the idea of the romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge that the “androgynous” mind is a pure vehicle of thought that inspires the most objective and creative relationship with reality. Woolf does not see androgyny as asexual, but rather as a union of male and female minds, who believe they are different. It encourages this differentiation but sees its fusion as a necessity; Both sexes have a blind spot for themselves and for opposite sexes and depend on each other to embody an accurate representation of humanity (he also argues that the sexes depend on each other to renew creative power). For example, Woolf believes that a writer must find a phrase for the needs of women. Ultimately, the androgynous mind, like Shakespeare’s, is indifferent to the petty complaints of its owner; it rises and filters his personality as his genius blazes forth in the world. The aggression of men Woolf posits that men historically look down on women as a means of asserting their superiority. In his metaphor of a relationship in the mirror, men, threatened by the idea of losing their power, shrink women to grow. However, just as female writing suffers from the emotions of anger and fear, male writing suffers from this aggression. The men the narrator reviews do not write “dispassionate,” distant arguments that would otherwise convince the reader, but they do expose their own biases. Ultimately, their writing revolves around them rather than their theme. Woolf points out that war is a major social by-product of this defensive and consuming aggression. Institutionalized sexism Much of “A Room of One’s Own” is devoted to an analysis of English patriarchal society that has limited opportunities for women. Woolf reflects on how men, the only gender allowed to keep their money, have historically returned resources to universities and as institutions that helped them gain power in the first place; on the contrary, the women’s college where the narrator resides had to raise money when it was established. Woolf compares the effect of the relative wealth of men’s and women’s colleges: the lavish lunch at the men’s college provokes pleasant intellectual jokes, while the mediocre dinner at the women’s college makes thinking difficult. Women can’t even enter the men’s college library without special permission or walk on the lawn. Woolf goes back to the Elizabethan era to provide a fictional-historical example of sexism: Judith Shakespeare, William’s fictional sister, leads a tragic life of unrealized genius, while her attempts to make something of her brilliant mind are despised by society. Woolf draws these obstacles against female writers to this day; beyond his main treatment of money and privacy (see £ 500 and a room of his own, above); he touches on topics such as male derogation from women’s books, themes and prose style. Metaphorical conception of light 42 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Woolf slips into “A Room of His Own,” a concept of light and purity as a metaphor for genius. The word most frequently associated with genius is “incandescence”; For Woolf, the genie objectively illuminates the reality of the world without addressing the personal complaints of its owner. The flexibility of light as a metaphor allows Woolf to include more subtle ideas in his words; when he says that Mary Carmichael’s description of a female friendship could allow him to “light a torch in that vast chamber where no one has been yet,” the possible image of female genitalia serves to point to both Carmichael’s potential genius and revolutionary plot. 2.7SYMBOLS The aim of A Room of One’s Own is that every woman needs a room of her own, something that men can enjoy without a doubt. A room of her own would give the woman the time and space to devote herself to writing endlessly. In Woolf’s time, women rarely enjoyed these luxuries. They remained elusive for women, and as a result, their art suffered. But Woolf doesn’t just take care of the room. Use the bedroom as a symbol of many more important issues, such as privacy, leisure, and financial independence, all of which are an essential component of the myriad inequalities between men and women. Woolf predicts that as long as these inequalities are not corrected, women will remain second-class citizens and their literary achievements will also be rated as such. 2.8 IMPORTANT QUOTATIONS Call me Mary Beton, Mary Seton, Mary Carmichael or any other name you please—it is not a matter of importance. This line comes from the first chapter and its enigmatic and elusive tone about the true identity of the narrator is maintained throughout the text. Woolf and the narrator struggle with the same problems, but they are two different entities. The narrator is a fictional character, an invention of Virginia Woolf, and remains vague about his true identity. In this quote, she even instructs the reader to refer to her by different names. This lack of a “true” identity for the narrator gives A Room of One’s Own a sense of being universal - the ideas apply to all women, not just one. The lack of identity also makes the narrator more compelling. By assuming different identities, the narrator transcends a single voice and consequently becomes a force to be reckoned with. Her nonchalant attitude about something that most people consider fixed and important, identity makes her even more intriguing. A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction. This sentence from the first chapter is perhaps the most famous sentence in A Room of My Own and serves as the thesis for the play. The phrase “a room of my own” has become so strong in our culture that it has almost become a cliché. With this line, and with the entire book, Woolf launched one of the most important claims of feminist literary criticism. The 43 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

often-held argument that women produce inferior literary works must necessarily be nuanced by the fact of women’s circumstances. Unlike their male counterparts, they are routinely denied the time and space to produce creative works. Instead, they are burdened with household chores and are financially and legally tied to their husbands. Without rooms of their own, women have little chance of rectifying the situation. While this is clearly a historical truth, Woolf’s claim was revolutionary in its day. It reshaped the achievements of women in a new and much more favorable light, and it also forced people to realize the harsh truths about their society. 2.9 SUMMARY  Woolf has been asked to talk to a group of young women scholars on the subject of Women and Fiction.  Her idea is that a woman needs \"money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.\"  She will now try to show how she has come to this conclusion, deciding that the only way she can impart any truth is to describe her own experience.  So she adopts the voice of a narrator.  The name of this narrator is unimportant, since she represents every woman.  The narrator begins by narrating her day at a college of the fictional university Oxbridge (a combination of Oxford and Cambridge).  Trying to compose her lecture, she seizes upon some important thought and rushes across one of the college lawns but is stopped by a Beadle, a guard, who tells her that the lawn is reserved for Fellows and Scholars.  She is shut out of several other areas in the same way before going to a lunch party, where she is inspired by the bright conversation of the men and women there.  Later, she eats dinner at the fictional women's college Fernham.  The meal here is quite different, the fare simple and the conversation gossipy and uninteresting.  Reflecting on her day, the narrator realizes that women have been shut out of education and the financial and intellectual legacy that men have always had access to.  The next day, the narrator goes to the British Library and finds that it is a masculine institution through and through.  There are shelves of writing by men about women, but she detects anger as well as curiosity in the men's scholarship.  She theorizes that women have been a mirror in which men have always seen themselves enlarged and strengthened, and that men have used their literature and scholarship to affirm the inferiority of women mostly to protect their own superiority. 44 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

 Looking back on the legacy of women writers, the narrator finds that there is hardly any information about the average woman's life, what she did, what she liked, and so on.  She invents the story of William Shakespeare's sister, Judith Shakespeare, a woman with the potential for genius, but who is never able to write a word and ends up committing suicide because of the way that society is structured against women.  But now, the narrator asserts, it has become possible for women to write.  The narrator lists the history of women writers and their influences on each other.  With each generation, women should get closer to being able to write the \"incandescent\" poetry that Shakespeare was able to achieve.  But the library of literature produced by women so far is fraught with bitter, twisted writing, stories that are unable to rise above the poverty and limitations imposed on their sex and flow freely.  Having provided this history, Woolf sheds her persona and considers how she will conclude her lecture with an inspiring call to action.  She charges the women of Newnham and Girton colleges—her audience—to create a legacy for their daughters.  She believes that fiction is for the common good, not just the individual good, that there is something universal and powerful and good in it, and so she charges them to write voraciously.  She conjures the image of Judith Shakespeare lying dead, buried beneath the streets of a poor borough of London, but says all is not lost for this tragic character. Since poets never really die, but are reinterpreted and given life by others, the women in her audience have the opportunity to bring Judith to life and create the history that Judith never had. 2.10KEYWORDS  Androgynous: both male and female  Composite: made up of parts  Impediment: obstacle to progress or movement  Incandescent: glowing  Perpetual: lasting or occurring continually or repeatedly  Predominate: to be dominant or in the majority  Sensibility: ability to respond to or feel something  Venerable: revered or worthy of respect  Feminism:the movement for women’s rights 45 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

 essay: a short piece of writing about a certain topic  absence: the lack of something  independence: the ability to control your own life  disadvantage: something that makes success difficult 2.11 LEARNING ACTIVITY 1. A Room of One’s Own is a feminist essay written by English ______ Virginia Woolf. The essay’s main _____ is that “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction”. Woolf came to this conclusion after noticing the absence of female writers in _____. She believed that many more women could have written books if they’d had ________ and independence. Woolf first presented A Room of One’s Own at women’s university in 1928, and _______ it as a book one year later. This was a time when women still faced many disadvantages in life. Woolf’s essay was one of the first well-known feminist works, and it is still famous today. ___________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ 2. Analyze the Feminist concern in Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own ___________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ 3. Critically think how women is portrayed in the Woolf's novel, A Room of One's Own ___________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ 2.12 UNIT END QUESTIONS A. Descriptive Questions Short Questions 1.Discuss the central idea of Virginia Woolf’s A room of one’s own. 2. Mention the encouragement that Woolf offers her audience. 3. Tell about the purpose of Virginia Woolf’s a room of one’s own. 4. Recall the major theme of Virginia Woolf’s A room of one’s own. 5. Identify why Woolf invent a sister for Shakespeare in A room of one’s own. Long Questions 1. Explain the Woolf’s closing reflection in the first chapter. 2. Discuss the writing style of Virginia Woolf in A Room of One’s Own. 46 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

3. Point out Woolf’s attitude toward anger A Room of One’s Own. 4. Explain the author’s opinion of the culture in her novel, A Room of One’s Own. 5. How does Modernism is represented in , A Room of One’s Own. B. Multiple Choice Questions 1. Woolf’s thesis is that to write fiction a woman needs her own room and what to do with it? a. Creativity b. Time c. Support d. Money 2.______, security guard causes the narrator to return from the river to the path a. Beadle b. Brinton c. Martin d. Borris 3. _____ is different about the cat the narrator sees. 47 a. It has no ears b. It has no mouth c. It has no eyes d. It has no tail 4. Woolf states that women have not had a “dog’s chance” of writing ____. a. Essays b. Biographies c. Poetry d. History 5. Who is the author of “A Room of One’s Own?” a. Shakespeare b. Robert Browning CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

c. Virginia Woolf d. Mr. Raczynski Answers 1-d, 2-a, 3-d, 4-c, 5-c 2.13 REFERENCES Reference books  Abel, Elizabeth. (1989) Virginia Woolf and the Fictions of Psychoanalysis. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.  Bell, Quentin (1972). Virginia Woolf: A Biography. Vol.1, Virginia Stephen, 1882- 1912. The Hogarth Press, London.  Bishop, Edward.(1989). A Virginia Woolf Chronology. Macmillan Press, London.  Spiropoulu, Angeliki. (2010). Virginia Woolf, Modernity and History: Constellations with W.Benjamin. Palgrave, London. Textbook references  Virginia Woolf. (1929). A Room of One’s Own. Hogarth Press, England. Websites  Batchelor, J. B. “Feminism in Virginia Woolf.” Virginia Woolf: A Collection of Critical Essays. Claire Sprague, Ed... Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1971.  Roe, Sue. Writing and Gender: Virginia Woolf’s writing Practice... New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990.  Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One’s Own... San Diego: Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1989.  Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse... New York: Knopf, 1992. 48 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

UNIT – 3MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: A VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN (CHAPTER 1) STRUCTURE 3.0 Learning Objectives 3.1 Author’s Introduction 3.2 Text 3.3 Introduction about the essay 3.4 Characters 3.5 Analysis 3.6 Themes 3.7 Important Quotations 3.8 Summary 3.9 Keywords 3.10 Learning Activity 3.11 Unit End Questions 3.12 References 3.0 LEARNING OBJECTIVES After studying this unit, you will be able to:  Realise the importance for justification to women  Recognise the importance of values in life  Review the life of women  Redefine the values of women 3.1 AUTHOR’ S INTRODUCTION Mary Wollstonecraft was born on April 27, 1759, in London. Her father Edward was in and out of jobs and places, unsuccessful in establishing himself and his family on a stable basis. A professional failure, he was also insulting as a person, particularly towards his wife Elizabeth. Mary’s early experiences in trying to protect and comfort her mother strongly influenced her later writings against what she considered the bondage of marriage. 49 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

As a teenager, Mary Wollstonecraft befriended Fanny Blood with whom she formed a lasting bond. After her mother died in 1780, she Mary left her home and went to live with the Blood family, a female enclave that lived off small profits from sewing and painting. Her sister Eliza ran away from home for marriage, but when her husband seemed to be having a nervous breakdown after the birth of a baby, he called Mary to help her recover. Her sister, on the other hand, became convinced that the problem lay in her marriage and, in essence, kidnapped Eliza, and later arranged a legal separation between husband and wife. At this point (1784), faced with the universal lack of career opportunities for women, Wollstonecraft decided to found a school, with Eliza and Fanny Blood, in Islington. However, they decided that her prospects would improve if he was moved out of town and then moved to the northern suburb of Newington Green, where they were joined by the third of the Wollstonecraft sisters, Everina. In this idyllic setting, Mary met Samuel Johnson, also the radical dissident minister Dr. Richard Price. In 1785 Fanny Blood dropped out of school to accept an offer of marriage in Lisbon, Portugal. She soon became pregnant and, in her isolation, wrote to Mary Wollstonecraft, begging her to join her and accompany her during the birth of her child. Although this meant jeopardizing the school’s success, Mary went to Lisbon, where she met her friend who was already in preterm labor. Fanny died in Mary’s arms and her baby survived shortly after her. The despair into which this episode led Mary to her is repeated in the central chapters of her first novel, Mary, A Fiction, published in 1788. Upon returning to England, Mary Wollstonecraft found her school in an unsustainable financial situation and was forced to close it. She sought to earn some money by writing a behavioral book based on her experiences as a teacher, Thoughts on the Raising of Daughters, which would be released to the press in 1787 by the leading liberal publisher of the time, Joseph Johnson. However, deprived of her independent livelihood, she had no resources to support herself and in 1786 she entered Viscount Kingsborough’s home in Mitchelstown, County Cork, Ireland, where she served as a housekeeper for her two daughters. This position lasted for a year and led her to detest the degrading position of housekeeper which can be seen in many of her later writings. It also led to her second educational publication, a work which, in strikingly dark colors, was based on her Irish experiences, following the affirmation of two spoiled sisters by a decidedly sober housekeeper named Mrs. Mason, which was published by Johnson in 1788 as an Original. Real life stories: with calculated conversations to regulate affections and train the mind for truth and good. William Blake provided the illustrations for his second edition. Many years later, after moving to Italy, Mary Shelley befriended one of those once lost sisters who, having escaped an arranged marriage with an Irish peer, had adopted the name in veneration of her former housekeeper. Mrs. Mason and had thrived amidst the intellectual life of the university city of Pisa. 50 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)